Stephen Burbidge is the kind of man betting companies adore. He loves gambling and spends up to £50 a week spicing up his enjoyment of horse racing and football. He's also a solicitor with an income much higher than many of his fellow punters.
Ironically, the main reason betting companies are so fond of Stephen is that he hasn't been near a betting shop in ages. He places all his bets online.
Over the next 10 years the betting companies believe that people like Stephen will revolutionise the way the industry is perceived in this country. They predict that a combination of the internet, mobile phones and interactive TV will deliver a golden age where placing a bet will seem as harmless and every day as doing the Lottery.
The main vehicle for this revolution - the internet - is perfect for betting. Just like the hugely successful online share transactions, it relies solely on the delivery of time-critical information thereby avoiding the dreaded "white van man syndrome" of hanging about waiting for goods to be delivered.
It is also quick and easy and, most important, bypasses the betting shop - a place where many online punters wouldn't be seen dead .
Today there is a host of sites all eagerly pitching for punters' money. They are all keen to grab a slice of an industry that the financial analysts Datamonitor predicts will be worth more than £2bn by the end of 2002.
It is not just the nature of betting that's changing: the punters are different too. Internet betting sites are attracting a new breed of punter light years away from the flat cap and whippet-owning image of the betting shop gambler. One betting company reported that in its shops only 1% of bets were placed on sports traditionally popular with ABC1s such as cricket, golf and Formula One. These are the sports that are proving very popular with the online punters. The web site www.bluesq.com is eager to target these new punters. It is very simple to use and largely free of the jargon that pervades traditional sites such as www.totalbet.com .
"Betting should be fun," argues Ed Pownall of Bluesq "and our site is all about the average person having a little flutter." To prove his point, Pownall mentions the site's special bets section. Punters can place bets on Coronation Street storylines, political events and the lives of celebrities. Pownall says that the site has very attractive odds on David Ginola copying David Beckham's skinhead hairstyle by the end of the year. Also targeting the new punters is www.firststake.com whose June launch will coincide with the start of football's Euro 2000 tournament.
Firststake.com director Simon Grieve says the site will target "sports fans - the kind of people who only make the occasional bet and very rarely make it to the bookies". He adds that "if those people start placing bets on a regular basis we'll see a massive growth in the industry".
The site's unique approach is that it will have a very high level of sporting content. Users will be able to check out the latest sporting news before placing their bets. Firststake is also hoping its no-nonsense approach will appeal to the growing number of women who are interested in sport. Both firms are confident that one of the ways that the new breed of punters will check out their websites is through their TVs.
By the end of this year consumers will be bombarded with boxes enabling internet access via their home set. However, the technology that is really exciting the betting companies is interactive TV.
Over the next few years the companies are hoping to muscle in on live sporting broadcasts and offer interactive betting. This may mean their odds for the result of a Premiership football match flashing up on screen in the run-up to a big televised game. Eventually punters may be offered instant odds on events within the game itself - like a Beckham free-kick hitting the back of the net.
The clear leader in the field is Ladbrokes which has ties with two cable TV companies CWC and Telewest and interactive TV specialist, Two Way TV. It has also signed a deal to provide a betting service for Sky Digital's Open service.
"The key when dealing with TV viewers is to make the bets easy to understand," explains Ladbrokes' head of e-commerce John O'Reilly. "There's no point in using betting jargon. You need to say press this button and we'll give you £5 for your £1 bet if United win 2-0. It has to be that simple".
Betting companies aren't only banking on interactive TV. Almost all the major websites see internet mobile phone betting as pivotal to their business plans.
"Wap [wireless application protocol] phones will enable users to study the form and place bets wherever they are - even on the bus" says David Annat, MD of PA Sporting Life, part owners of www.totalbet.com He adds that the site will be the first to provide a Wap service next month.
Internet betting ought to be a dead cert, but there are a few major hurdles that the websites will have to clear before they start making big money. One of the main reasons on-line betting has become so popular is the websites' tax policy. Typically, UK residents pay out a whopping 9% tax on their winnings on bets made via shops.
However, most of the betting sites are swallowing that extra 9% and offering punters tax-free betting. It is a move that they argue has been forced upon them by offshore betting companies that don't have to pay tax to the British government.
In order to compete, many leading UK based betting companies now run two sites in tandem - the official UK based site and a dot.com site targeted at European and Far Eastern punters. The dot.com has a permanent commitment to tax-free betting and is located outside the UK. British residents can place bets with either site.
Betting companies have been lobbying the government for over a year to reduce the amount of tax it takes, and several have threatened to depart for an offshore tax haven if the government does not comply. In last month's budget, instead of the much hoped for reduction in betting tax, Gordon Brown merely offered consultation.
The betting companies are split as to what is likely to happen next. Graham Sharpe of William Hill says he would "rather offer tips on the 2.30 at Kempton than try and guess what the government is going to do".
However, David Annat of Totalbet has a more pessimistic view: "I think the government will do nothing and keep the tax at its present rate. They know that if companies go offshore they will sacrifice access to UK advertising and they won't be able to participate in interactive TV betting.
"I think it's a shame because inevitably the co.uk wesbites will have to levy tax and this will make them uncompetitive compared with offshore sites. The irony is that as the Americans are virtually legally prevented from betting online, this is one sphere where the UK could lead the world."
The first big hurdle for many of the companies was last weekend and what several had called the first e-National.
By Monday almost all the major websites were saying that on Saturday they were simply not able to cope with the demand. By 1pm placing an online bet was virtually impossible. Annat of www.totalbet.com admitted that the site had struggled to cope with the two million page views it had experienced across three days. Other sites such as www.bluesq.com, which staged a large advertising campaign in the days before the race, also conceded that bets had been lost. It claimed 45,000 bets in the run up to the race and registered 7,000 new punters.
Yet in spite of those missing bets and annoying punters such as Burbidge who had snapped up Papillon at its optimum price of 33-1, it had been a good day.
"It is not about money taken," claims Graham Sharpe of William Hill. "It's about increasing awareness of online betting and registering new customers." In that case Papillon wasn't the only winner last Saturday.
The real loser in this online gold rush could be our flat-cap wearing, whippet-owning stereotype betting shop gambler. Still, with www.bluesq.com offering 500-1 that all betting shops will be closed within the next 10 years, he could always hedge his bets.
