In today’s edition of BettingJobs News, we had the privilege of speaking with Ian Sherrington, a pioneering figure in the iGaming industry. Ian discusses his new blog venture with us, where he delves into the history of the iGaming industry, and shares the fascinating story of Intertops – the first online sportsbook – along with his favourite core memories from the past three decades.
Can you share some insights about your background and how it shaped your iGaming career?
I’ve always had this weird fascination with gambling since I was a kid. In the Boy Scouts, I designed a ‘Wheel of Fortune’ and a ‘Crack the Safe’ game whereby if participants guessed the combination correctly, they’d win the stash of money. So, I first got involved with gambling when I was in the Boy Scouts really. At school, I created a sportsbook on the computer (which didn’t go down well once the teachers found out). My friend Hugh and I were taking bets on Norwich City FC, our hometown team, and we had quite a few customers. Back then, we were stuck with those old, slow printers, which added a layer of challenge to everything we were doing. Our customer base grew each week, and printing their statements gradually took longer and longer as a result. Eventually, we got caught, and our operation was shut down when we were £5 up, so we were actually doing pretty well. I got banned from the computers for the rest of the year and got sent quaking in my boots to the headmaster. He said “you can’t do that sort of thing, it’s outrageous, your banned! Oh, and by the way, which odds were you offering on Norwich to win”, which totally broke the ice. Years later I met the same headmaster in a pub, and he said it took ages to wipe all my stuff off the school computer. That’s how I developed my interest in gambling. I was always a bit of a sports bettor (not a great one), but I experimented with horse racing etc. which is pretty much part of life in Britain as most people place a bet on the Grand National.
You played a pivotal role in the early development of the industry. Could you tell us how you got involved with Intertops?
I was a poor student living in London, and I moved into an apartment in Pimlico with three flatmates. One night we went down to the pub, where I met a friendly German lad who told me he wanted to become a bookmaker in London. All he needed was a bookmaker’s license and a place to stay. The apartment above ours was available, so he moved in, and we helped him set up this company called Intertops.
He did everything by post with the German market. He would print out a load of coupons and the idea was the customer selected at least four football matches (similar to a modern-day parlay). He would send the coupons in the mail to the German customers, who would return them about a week later. This created a sort of bi-weekly cycle, but we relied on the English postal service, which went on strike a bit too often for our liking. Business was well – I wrote the computer systems for them, and we started with the PC. At that point, I was working full time in Holland and doing this in my spare time. I managed to get an Amstrad computer, and I spent a lot of money on a system called dBase3 (way before windows) where I wrote the system based on how I thought it should be. He used that to administrate the business which grew and grew. However, the UK post was a big problem, so we moved the entire operations to Salzburg in Austria, where we automated the business a lot. We grew so big that we sent out 250,000 letters in one week, and we actually had our own postcode. Since Salzburg is located near the German border, the nearby town of Freilassing in Germany received all our mail, and they used to send a truck across to collect it for us. So that was the business; all postal and telephone, no online presence until 1994. That is exactly how I got myself involved with Intertops.
For a bit of background, the boss came to stay with me once and we went fishing on a trawler boat in the middle of the North Sea. We had nothing else to do but talk to each other for 8+ hours as there were no smartphones. We were chatting about the fact we had done pretty much everything we can do, so what was next? Meanwhile, I got involved with understanding a bit more about the internet which we then decided to integrate in the company. We envisioned a solution where customers could input all the mundane details that we previously handled manually, allowing us to focus on the essential tasks. We were doing a lot of business, so saving on personnel costs can be quite significant. This was just before the internet took off, with no browsers or anything like that in the 90s. Our implementation plan back then was similar to how AI operates today; you would input what you wanted the system to do, i.e. the amount you wished to bet and any other relevant details. Of course, the big problem was we already had a legacy system in place. However, it was somewhat creaky by then as it was running on technology that was 10+ years old. So, I realised I had to rewrite everything, which took me a year to do. It then took me a further 6 months to write the website as I had no idea how to do it. I was actually one the first people to connect a webpage to a database; we were simply experimenting to see if we could make it work. We came online with it on January 17th, 1996, where the first bet was placed by a Finnish gentleman. If I remember correctly, he won. This meant we had a 100% loss at that point, which wasn’t ideal. Nobody trusted anything back then. We were worried somebody could hack us and change the bets after they were placed. So, we got ourselves a high-speed printer to print out every incoming bet, allowing us to review them later and verify if they matched the original entries. We then paid it out of course if it was a winner.
We were later contacted by a lawyer in Montreal as we wanted to launch an online casino – this was going to be the next big thing. Therefore, we needed a casino license which we couldn’t obtain in Austria, so we had to go offshore. We then got in touch with renowned lawyers in Montreal who hooked us up and the long, short of it is we ended up in Antigua. We were the first guys to integrate a Microgaming casino into a Sportsbook and we did very well.
What motivated you to begin writing your series of articles?
I’m getting on a bit and there aren’t really many jobs for 64-year-old programmers anymore. Over the years, I invested in a few crazy ideas, but ultimately, I found myself back at work again. However, I realised I needed to capitalise on my situation, so I continued programming and exploring various projects. I still have a strong interest in blockchain and other emerging technologies. But ultimately, I think it was a case of ‘I’ve got to get this off my chest before I completely lose my marbles, and I’ve got a lot of friends who have great stories to tell’. So, I came up with the idea of writing stories about the ‘firsts’ of the industry. I have just written articles about the very first bet placed, and another about the first compliance certification. Ultimately, it’s about putting my thoughts into writing, and if I end up publishing a book at the end of the day, I’ll be very happy about it.
What has been some of your favourite moments from your journey in the iGaming industry since 1996?
It’s a great question. You see, I’m a programmer and I was a one-man team, I did everything myself. It would be all night stints, then I would go to work at my normal day job before I went full time with Intertops. The best memory of mine was when the first bet was accepted after all the hard work we put in. The business relied heavily on timing; everything had to be precise. Missing deadlines was not an option, so we often worked tirelessly through the night to ensure everything was ready for the next morning.
A gentlemen called Michael K. and I had been entering some data which was really annoying in those days as odds were based on things like what league it was, what the home team odds were, and what the commission rates were in addition to the calculations. The administrator would therefore only have to enter the home odds, and the system would automatically know which league and what the draw odds were. It was all a big table of odds in those days, so we worked through the night. I ended up falling asleep on the floor one night and I woke up the next morning to the song ‘Que Sera Sera’ being played. I said that’s exactly it – ‘whatever will be will be’. Switch it on, see what happens, and the rest is history!
The iGaming industry has undergone significant changes since its inception in 1996. What do you consider to be the biggest transformation during that time?
One of the biggest challenges I would say was calculating the amount of tax you had to pay, which was very complicated in Austria. When we moved the online side of the business to Antigua, we were suddenly faced with an unregulated world, and they had no oversight on us whatsoever. We paid a set fee per year and that was it. There was no regress, and customers couldn’t complain to the regulator because there wasn’t one. I’ve just written about it, and I would say it’s one of the biggest changes we’ve experienced. It gave everyone a sense of well-being, knowing we were providing a fair game. You know your game is decent because you have tested it out and it’s a fair deal for the customer; I think that was the healthiest change. The perception among governments has been, “we can’t stop this, so we should regulate it.” This acceptance has emerged over the past decade or so I would say.
What key challenges do you believe the industry still faces or will encounter in the future?
When comparing the gambling industry to the tobacco industry, it’s important to note that the tobacco industry has learned “not to kill its customers”. I believe the same principle applies to the gambling industry: don’t completely take advantage of your customers. If you look at what’s happening here in The Netherlands, the government has now imposed some stringent rules on operators to say you can only accept so much of a deposit from the customer. Other countries such as Denmark are much stricter, and in Belgium, you must input a social security number whereby if you can’t prove employment, you can’t place a bet. I believe that prioritising customer protection is essential; our focus should be on providing entertainment rather than fuelling addiction. If you’re fleecing someone who can’t afford it, nobody is a winner. I believe that protecting the customer is one of the key areas we must focus on. We shouldn’t encourage excessive spending; instead, we should provide good value for money and ensure that customers are actually paid out their winnings. There are too many stories of bettors who haven’t received the money they’re owed, which is simply unacceptable.
A special thanks to Ian Sherrington for joining us in this edition of BettingJobs News.
You can discover Ian’s series of articles detailing his impressive 30+ year career in the iGaming industry and everything else in between by clicking the link below: https://crownstar.com