£1,000,000,000 OF GAMBLING IN SEPTEMBER from Pat Jordan
Not so long ago it was fashionable to talk of the Bingo craze which Was sweeping the country. However, even though thousands were turning up for their nightly 'eyes-down' this form of gambling is very small time indeed, Wor the first time we now Have hove some indication of the anoint of gambling the big time operators - on the London Steck Exchange - indulge in. The Stock Exchange revealed on October 2nd its turnover in September. This amounted to £992.3 million representing purchases and sales in 467,932 transactions, ‘his is the first time such figures heave been published. The average daily turnover for the 22 business days of the months was #45.1 million, with 21.270 transactions of an average size of £2,120.
The fipures also provitie A rough indication of the sross commission earned by the 270 stockbroking firms. The commission on Ordinary and fixed interest stocks could range between £25 million and £4% million with the eotual figure probably much nesrer the upper limit, Im addition to this there is the commission earned on dealings in Eritish Government stocks (which formed 59% of the tumover) - this is practimlly impossible to estinate because of the complexity of different retes. iIt-is clear that a lot of people are earning a lot of loot for carrying out a purely parasitic function.