Ian Sherrington: Is Gambling Good or Bad?
The creator of the world's first online sportsbook looks back on the industry he helped transform, and asks what it has meant for society.
Ian Sherrington has a fairly unique perspective from which to ask whether gambling is ultimately a force for good or bad. Having spent most of his life working within the industry, Sherrington was the creator of Intertops.com, the world’s first online sportsbook, which launched in 1996 and helped usher gambling into the internet age.
Thirty years later, ‘Is Gambling Good or Bad?’ sees him looking back at an industry he helped transform and confronting a question he admits he had never seriously considered: what has gambling’s evolution actually meant for society?
It makes for a thoughtful and engaging perspective. Rather than approaching gambling solely as an industry advocate or critic, Sherrington considers it from multiple angles, weighing its value as entertainment against its social, psychological and public-health consequences. He also traces the evolution of the ideas and sciences surrounding gambling and addiction, moving from Freud and Dostoevsky through the development of slot machines, casino design and modern behavioural techniques, while considering how psychology, neuroscience and addiction research have reshaped our understanding of gambling over time. Throughout, he thoughtfully examines the distinction between gambling as ordinary entertainment and gambling as a source of serious harm.
His reflections on the beginnings of online betting are particularly interesting. Sherrington recalls initially questioning whether anyone would actually use the internet to place a bet, only for Intertops to experience such demand after launching that traffic regularly overwhelmed its servers.
Ultimately, Sherrington doesn’t settle for a simple “gambling is good” or “gambling is bad” conclusion. He argues that gambling can provide entertainment, employment and public revenue when appropriately controlled, while becoming something very different when technology makes it increasingly frictionless, accessible and sophisticated.
It’s a thought-provoking retrospective from someone who didn’t simply witness the emergence of online gambling, but played a direct role in creating it.