Volatile global trading markets are encouraging the average person at their PC to spend hours attempting to beat the bookie and call the right direction or price of the Footsie.

That is the message from Capital Spreads, the online financial spread betting firm run by London Capital Group, which was pleased to reveal today that current trading is beating its wildest forecasts. Its number of punters, turnover and profits rose by more than 50% in the first half.

"You'd think the economy is booming by looking at our figures," said chief operating officer Simon Denham.

Capital Spreads' punters - the firm has nearly 10,000 regular players - tend not to be high-rolling big-staking City professionals, but ordinary people who read the papers and believe they have a view on the nine major markets traded in London: oil and gold, the FTSe 100, Dow, S&P and Dax equity indices and sterling, the euro and the yen.

"The average age is 43, 87% are male and on average they spend four and a quarter hours online in a single session - which is not quite so odd if you think of it as a gaming hobby or how long it takes to play a game of golf," he said. "Our most successful punter at the moment is a civil servant from Harrogate."

Aim-listed London Capital said halfyear pre-tax profits rose to nearly £6 million from £3.9 million and the interim dividend has doubled to 2.5p.