"Sally Nicoll - at the top of the spread betting tree."
The Financial Times

"Sally takes the lead on spread bets."
The Mail on Sunday

"Reads like a novel. Destined to become this year's surprise best-seller. Buy, buy, BUY!"
Sally's Mum

That's right, Finspreads will give you £50 if you sign up with them through this site. Read more about it here.

“Hi, I’m Dow Jones, Sally’s spread betting accomplice.”

“When Sally was writing Bets and the City, I told her, ‘Your readers need a break from all that financial stuff! So tell them about ME, and all the fun we have hanging out with celebrities in Primrose Hill.’

Fortunately, she took my advice, so even if you’re not really interested in spread betting, the book’s a great read in a Bridget Jones meets Wall Street kind of way.

I'm in Sally's very best books right now. Click here and see the blog post dated April 23rd to find out why!

It all began one Sunday in Portsmouth, around the time Duran Duran were making regular appearances on Top of the Pops.
"Now then," said my dad. "If you score more than 1000 points on this pinball machine, I'll give you 50p and another glass of Tizer. But if you get less than 500, you lose 10p from this week's pocket money."
This, I suppose, was my very first spread bet: I rose immediately to the challenge. Fifty pence was well worth having, and the fear of losing didn't even enter my head.
It was ten years before I would legitimately be able to order a vodka and Red Bull, but already I was the Star & Garter’s resident Sunday lunchtime pinball wizard. I had my own little beer crate that I used to stand on to get a better view of the table and the angles. And God, I was good. People used to stand, watch and cheer me on.

Even so, 1000 points on a machine where you needed 800 just to get a replay was a tall order. My first game: 650 points. The second: 950. "Time we were off home then." Dad always knew how to motivate me.
Game three: 1,275 points.

It wasn't until the following Tuesday that my father confessed the pub had a High Score Promotion in play, and my prowess had won him £5 and a packet of Players cigarettes.
We became partners in crime. The weekly (most weeks) 50p became my first regular income. After a couple of months had passed, I renegotiated my share of the box office. At which point dad reckoned I was ready for the next stage of what he called my Alternative Education. This consisted of two subjects.

Firstly, football. Which necessitated spending every other Saturday on the terraces at Fratton Park. Here, I learned virtues such as patience, optimism, instant wit and repartee, public speaking – “Why’s the referee always on THEIR side?” – a love of trivia (bet you didn’t know Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was Pompey’s first-ever goalkeeper), plus resilience in the face of habitual failure.
Our father-daughter tribulations were punctuated by regular visits to Plumpton, Goodwood, Brighton, Lingfield and my favourite race course of them all, Fontwell Park, where a horse called Highland Bounty romped home at outrageous odds, ensuring I was hooked forever.
By the time I had my nose stuck into The Sporting Life – while my classmates studied Jane Eyre, Romeo and Juliet, and Cosmopolitan – I was ready for my next BIG lesson.
"I want to bet on that one over there.” I pointed to my choice in the parade ring at Fontwell, prior to the last race of the day.
"Bad idea. It's sweating up," dad advised.
But I insisted, emptied my pockets, and exchanged all my money for a bookie’s betting slip.
Ten minutes later, the horse trailed in last. Normally, my dad would compensate me on a losing bet – he was a softie that way – but this time, no refund was forthcoming.
I sulked all the way back to Chichester. This was No Fun. Finally, dad broke the silence, and delivered one of the most important pieces of advice I have ever been fortunate enough to receive:
"When you go to the races, never take out of the house more money than you can afford to throw into the gutter."
Which all these years later has morphed into some of my dearest friends looking at me with horror and saying
"Spread WHAT? You've got to be kidding!"


This is what happened.
I have been unemployable for several years. Not because I am talentless, but because I’m not much of a team player. That’s what they told me when they showed me the door of the advertising agency where I’d been working since leaving Uni.
My crime? I had merely presented a client with a copy of the Bible, in order to prove my point that it is perfectly permissible to start sentences with words like ‘and’ and ‘but’.
“The trouble with you, Sally,” said the creative director, “is that not only do you not suffer fools gladly, you also don’t suffer quite intelligent people gladly.” I resisted the temptation to tell him there were far too many negatives in the sentence, gleefully grabbed my enormous severance pay – were they really that keen to see the last of me? – and immediately set up on my own.
The girl done good.

While dad nurtured my love of gambling and encouraged me to take calculated risks, my mum’s puritan work ethic also rubbed off. Weeks of frenzied activity would be followed by days of frenzied inactivity. I was a success. Three holidays a year, a season ticket for Spurs (Portsmouth was my first love, but Tottenham’s the team I married), even the cliché of a little red sports car.
So on New Year’s Eve, when I announced I was jacking it all in to become a novelist, some of my dearest friends looked at me with horror and chorused, “Write a BOOK? You’ve got to be kidding!”
So far, I have written 20,000 words. The car’s been swapped for a bicycle, and my life savings – I’ve always been a saver rather than a spender – will allow me to live a trimmed yet essentially comfortable life for the next couple of years. This is fortunate, because although I am prepared to make certain sacrifices – shopping at Morrisons, rather than Waitrose and Fresh and Wild – I have no wish to starve in a garret.
The good thing about being a novelist is that you get to drink a lot of coffee during normal working hours. There are a lot of self-employed – and self-unemployed – people in my part of London, and we gravitate instinctively towards one another in the local cafes.
Last Wednesday, I’m sitting with assorted members of the Primrose Hill latterati. Don the Drug Dealer, is boasting how much he's making by spread betting cricket scores. My curiosity is piqued; I am sure I can do the same with soccer - most Saturdays I can double my money on the fixed odds coupon (stick to picking three home wins and don’t let the bookies beguile you with their promise of 15/1 for seven results) and this will make a nice change.
That afternoon, instead of completing chapter six, I Google “spread betting”.
There’s a lot of it about.

But as I investigate the possibilities of harnessing my soccer knowledge to wealth, interest wanes. Betting on shirt numbers? Or the number of corners taken during a match? It all sounded far too random rather than a test of skill – and a recipe for losing money rather than making it.
But you know how it is on Google. Especially when you have a book you are supposed to be writing. One click leads to another.
And that’s how I come to discover something called financial spread betting. It sounds hideously complicated. Which makes it a challenge. Everywhere I look, there are warnings that it’s a high risk venture. Which tickles my reckless instincts. And somehow, it all seems rather glamorous. Which is appealing on a rainy afternoon in North London.
At this point, a bell goes off in my head, and I start rootling around in the giant-sized Liberty’s carrier bag that occupies a corner of my office. This is my Big Bag of Plots. Since I plan to be more than a one-hit wonder as an author, every time I see a newspaper cutting that could become the stuff of fiction, I rip it out and dump it in the bag.
It takes me ten minutes. Then I find it.

The introduction to the piece reads as follows:
“A suburban couple have made huge gains by turning to spread betting instead of investing directly in shares.”
The words are accompanied by a picture of a man, who looks disturbingly like John Major, and his blonde accomplice. The pair of them are sporting broad grins. And no wonder. It has taken them just eight weeks to accumulate Ł1million by spread betting. It’s not a misprint. They really have done it.
“By backing their judgement on MyTravel, British Airways, Skyepharma and others, they are sitting on a handsome profit,” the article reports.
I read on. Spread betting, apparently, is the new day trading. Exciting. Frightening. Definitely not for widows and orphans. All you need is a computer and an internet connection.

I have both.


One thing was certain. I could never go back to football fixed odds coupons. What was the point?
As some American criminal put it when asked why he robbed banks, “Because that’s where the money is.” Why waste my time playing for pennies when I could run with the big dogs? Soon, my life savings would be growing instead of shrivelling, and I would be shopping again at Waitrose.
I spend most of my working day at the computer. And because I’m a girlie, I know how to multi-task. What could be simpler than flitting between the screens to keep track of how much I was winning while I bashed away at my novel?
I still hadn’t figured out how spread betting worked. To do with share prices, obviously. But think cabout it. They go up. They go down. How difficult can it be?

“I’m going to be rich,” I announce to my dearest friends.
“You’ve sold your book already? Fantastic! We knew you could do it. How much are they giving you?”
Then the questions get really difficult. After the horrified chorus of ”Spread WHAT?” I am asked what it is...how it works...and why on earth would I want to do it?
My answers are, at best, rudimentary.
I am solemnly told it’s a dreadful idea...I will lose my shirt, and probably my house as well...I can’t possibly succeed at this thing as I’m not Someone in the City...
And my ‘evidence’ about the people who’ve become millionaires?
“Sally, you’re so gullible! It’s one of the things we love most about you. Bet they’ve lost the lot by now.”
“How much?” I snarl.
“How much what?”
“How much do you bet?”

But my dearest friends are not gamblers. They are the ones who read Jane Eyre and Cosmopolitan. The ones who stayed on for A Levels, while I was invited to swap public school for the local sixth form college.
Later, I ask myself whether my new obsession is really such a good idea.
How much do I know about financial spread betting? As much as I know about Persian pottery or embroidery. (I can knit, but don’t tell anyone as it would ruin my image.)
I haven’t a clue what it’s about, but I’m going to do it anyway. I know in my heart that it is only a matter of time. My friends hold down responsible jobs with reputable organisations, but they lack entrepreneurial spirit. Whereas I have been breaking speed limits along the road less travelled since long before I was old enough to drive. I feel quietly superior, although I would never share this thought with my wage-slave contemporaries.
Anyway, I am hearing voices. They come from my computer, and they whisper, “Sally, you are going to be rich.”
OK, here comes the rationalisation.

I am Good with Money. Over the years, I've bought and sold various shares –always at a profit – realised endowment mortgages were never going to work, and switched out of them before it was too late, avoided giving any of my cash to institutions like Equitable Life and maintained an impeccably positive bank balance. Moreover, I own a large stained-glass jar that's stuffed full of loose change for a rainy day. My only regret is that I chose a pension rather than a buy-to-let. But, hey, nobody’s perfect.
I am rash. But not stupid.
It’s time to do my homework.

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