Online spread betting tipped to even the odds for novice investors

Treacherous markets have left conventional investors high and dry, but bookie Paddy Power has figured out a way to turn market losses into the punter’s gain. Spread betting, a form of gambling that has its origins in the Seventies, is big business in 2008. As markets around the world rise and fall, the genre has been seized by one of Ireland’s largest betting firms as a way to allow punters to gain using the internet, whether stocks rise or fall. But not only that, Paddy Power has begun using the rising demand for spread betting as a campaign against beleaguered brokers, coining the catchphrase ‘The death of stockbroking’. While many stockbrokers will no doubt take issue with this, and intend to be in business for the foreseeable future, the betting chain has seized on an undeniable trend. In the past, investors would have... [read full story]