Beginners Guide to Sports Spread Betting

Sports spread betting is based on the same concept as the stock market, where a Buy Price and a Sell price are quoted for shares - for example Shell 405 - 410, meaning that the stockbroker is offering to buy Shell shares from you at 405, or sell them to you at 410.

About ten years ago someone had a brainwave and realised this could be applied to sports. It is hardly surprising that since then sports spread betting has really taken off. Its advantages are many and various:

  1. You can bet in running.
  2. You can back selections to do badly as well as to do well.
  3. The more correct you are, the more you win. (Of course, the more wrong you are, the more you lose!).
  4. Once you have opened an account, bets can be placed in seconds either online or over the telephone.
  5. Unlike with conventional bookmakers, winning accounts are not closed. The spread firms make their money on the spread - the difference in price between what you can buy at and what you can sell at (just like the bid and offer prices of a stockbroker for a share).
  6. Spread firms in the UK are monitored by the Financial Services Authority, which means your money is always safeguarded.
                          

Let's take an example. Say you really fancy Manchester Utd to beat Aston Villa at football. You think they'll win easily.

If you bet with a fixed odds bookmaker, you might get 6/5 Manchester Utd. If they win by several goals, you don't win any more than if they win by one goal. If they fail to win, you don't collect.

However, with spread betting, you can back your selection on a whole variety of markets, depending on which one you think gives the best value. You can choose goal superiority, or team performance, or time of first goal or a host of other ways. You can also bet on many other markets relating to the game, such as the number of goals to be scored, the amount of yellow and red cards, even the number of corners. So if your team are winning by two goals with 15 minutes remaining there are still lots of possibilities, making for much more excitement.

You can also bet in running - in other words, after the game has started, if you think you know what's going to happen, you can back your opinion by having a bet, or close out an existing bet if you want to take a profit or minimise a loss.

Live Betting

As IG Sports spokesman Jeremy Scott explains: 'There is a whole list of things you can bet on depending on the sport. With football matches we bet about 35 markets while the game is going on.' Markets for a football match might include minutes until the first goal is scored, number of corners or the total of which shirt numbers will score. The spreads change as the event goes on to reflect progress. 'With shirt numbers we take the aggregate of the numbers and put it together,' continues Scott. 'So if number 10 scores three times that makes 30, so we're giving a 34-37 spread for the score. In the Champions League Liverpool versus Sofia match maybe you think Steven Gerrard - number eight - will score once. You then sell at 34, the bottom end of the spread. If you're right you win 34 less eight, which is 26 points.'

Sports Spread Betting Examples

Markets when betting on sports generally fall into three categories, each of which are designed to measure the performance of an individual, team or a combination of all parties involved, in some way:

  1. total score - total goals in a football match, runs in an innings in cricket, etc.
  2. performance of one individual or team relative to another in a head-to-head situation, such as goal superiority in football or run difference in cricket.
  3. a performance index, measuring the result of the individual or team against a number of others.

Below are links to examples of the types of bet available for each sport -:

   Cricket Spread Betting - explaining how it works and how to use it


   Explaining how Football Spread Betting works (with examples)


   Rugby League and Rugby Union Spread Bet Examples



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