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What is Spread Betting? Ultimate Guide to Sports Spread Betting in the UK

For the casual punter, spread betting can seem a little mystifying. There’s a lot of unique jargon associated with spread betting, the calculations can be confusing, and somehow there’s a chance to lose more than you bet! However, spread betting is popular in the UK; it opens up the doors to thousands of unique ways to bet and adds interest to events that may not be so interesting otherwise. Read on for a detailed explanation of what spread betting is and how you should approach it. 

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What is Spread Betting?

Spread betting is traditionally associated with stocks and predicting the movement of shares, which is why it can feel intimidating the first time you encounter it. However, when it comes to sports, everything is a lot simpler — like many things in sports betting, spreads are deceptively simple. 

Spread bets can be made on just about any market you can think of — the number of goals in a football match, how many lengths a horse wins by, or the number of home runs in a baseball game. If you can quantify something in a sports event, you can probably make a spread bet on it. 

A spread betting sportsbook will then make a prediction on this market, which is displayed as a spread of values, and you simply predict whether the outcome will be higher or lower than the spread. The more correct you are, the more you will win. 

You can place a spread bet at any reliable and licensed UK betting site, and if you're interested in finding out which brands we recommend, head over to our page here.

How Does Spread Betting Work?

On a given spread bet, you wager on whether you think the final result will be higher or lower than the spread predicted by the sportsbook.

For example, let’s imagine we’re betting on the total goals scored across a football match. The sportsbook’s spread is 3.8–4.2; this means the sportsbook is predicting that there will be 4 goals scored in total. If you think there will be more than 4 goals scored, you buy a bet, and if you think it will be less, you sell. 

Your payout will then depend on the difference between the outcome and the spread, and which way you bet. You’ll earn or lose your stake multiplied by whatever this distance is; as such, you can win many times your original stake, but you can also end up losing multiple times the stake too, leading to you owing more money than you originally bet.

What is a Buy Bet

In spread betting, buying a bet is when you think that the final outcome will be settled as higher than the spread proposed by the sportsbook. For example, you see a corners market for an upcoming premier league match at 9.8-10.2, and you think there will be more than 10 corners in that match. So you buy into the bet at 10.2, wagering £10 (you always buy at the higher number in a spread).

If, at the end of the match, you were right and there were 12 corners, you would win the difference between the settled score and the spread: (settled score - spread) x stake. So, to input our numbers: (12-10.2) x 10 = 18, thus you make a profit of £18.

And if you were even more correct, and there were actually 15 corners, you would win an even bigger profit: (15-10.2) x 10 = 48; so you would get a profit of £48!

However, the same is true if you lose. If you were wrong and there were only 7 corners throughout the match, we’re looking at: (7-10.2) x 10 = -32; so you would owe £32.

What is a Sell Bet

Sell bets are very similar to buy bets but work in the opposite direction. We’ll take the same example as above of corners in a premier league match. This time, you think that there will be fewer than 10 corners in this given game, and so you choose to sell instead. When you sell a bet, you do so at the lower end of the range: here, we’re selling at 9.8 with a stake of £10. 

Now, if you were right and there were only 8 corners in the game, we do a similar calculation, but instead subtract the settled total from the spread: (spread - settled total) x stake.

In this example of 8 corners, we calculate it as such: (9.8-8) x 10 = 18, for a profit of £18 again. 

And if we were more correct, and there are only 6 corners, we’re looking at an even bigger profit: (9.8-6) x 10 = 38; for a profit of £38. 

But the same is once again true when you lose a spread bet. If the final number of corners is actually 14, we’re going to lose exponentially: (9.8-14) x 10 = -42; for a loss of £42. 

Key Benefits and Risks Involved with Spread Betting

Spread betting is very different from traditional fixed-odds betting and comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Before you start experimenting with spread betting, it’s important that you familiarise yourself with these pros and cons and decide whether this form of betting appeals to you:

Pros

  • Potential for higher profits — Since spread betting pays out proportional to the factor by which you are correct, there is a much higher potential for overall profits. This is the main difference between spread and fixed-odds betting and the main reason we see people opt for this form of betting. 

  • Larger bet variety — Fixed odds betting doesn’t offer such a wide variety of things for you to bet on. If you can quantify something in a match, you’re nearly guaranteed to find a spread bet available for it (and if not, chances are you can find a sportsbook to take it anyway). This lets you bet on less common elements, which can add a unique twist to an otherwise standard wager.

  • Add excitement to otherwise foregone games — Because spread betting allows you to bet on so many niche things, it means you can even bet on events where the outcome feels obvious. This allows you to add a level of excitement to even the most obvious of matches.

Cons

  • Potential for greater losses — While spread betting has a greater potential for profit, it also has a much greater potential for loss. Just as you can win multiple times your stake, if you’re very wrong, you can lose multiple times your stake too. So be very careful, because being incorrect can lead to extreme losses.

  • Sportsbooks tend to be accurate — Winning on a spread bet is dependent on the sportsbook being wrong in its prediction, but oftentimes, bookies are very good at making accurate predictions. It’s not wise to assume that you know better than a sportsbook, so take on a spread bet only when you’re very confident. 

Spread Betting vs Traditional Sports Betting

Spread betting offers a vastly different betting experience to traditional fixed-odds betting, but that doesn’t make it inherently better. There are reasons you would choose either type, and most people who enjoy spread betting engage in both, depending on the situation. 

The most fundamental difference between the two is evident in the name ‘fixed-odds’ betting. The outcome of a spread bet is variable, changing your profit or loss depending on the final result of a wager. On the other hand, when you make a bet on a traditional site, the profit will be the same regardless of the degree of victory.

Take a horse race bet, for example: in a fixed odds bet, you may bet on a horse to win, while in a spread bet, you might bet for it to win by more than 10 lengths. If it wins by far more, you’ll get a much bigger payout on a spread bet, but in fixed-odds betting, you’ll receive the same profit regardless of how well it performs. However, the same goes in reverse. If you lost that spread bet by a lot (or if the horse doesn’t even win), you can lose multiple times your original stake, while in fixed-odds, you’ll only lose as much as you wagered.

In this way, spread betting is often inherently more risky than a traditional bet, but it also makes expertise in a sport much more valuable. If you know how two teams in the NFL are likely to perform and have been tracking them for years, you’ll have a leg up when looking at various spreads. 

So, while it’s hard to recommend spread betting to casual punters, it can offer an interesting twist on traditional betting, and for those with expertise in certain sports, it can be massively profitable. 

Top Tips for Spread Betting

Spread betting can be intimidating, especially when starting out. So, taking all the info we’ve given you into consideration, here are some of our top tips for people looking to explore spread betting for the first time:

Start with Low-Risk Bets

Since spread betting can come with high potential losses, newbies should start with very low-risk bets. No one’s stopping you from exploring with wagers worth only pennies. These small bets can help you feel out the way spread betting works without losing much. Once you understand the idiosyncrasies of spread betting and can confidently spot a spread bet that’s worth taking a risk on, then you can upgrade to larger wagers. Just remember that you should be prepared to lose multiple times anything you bet. 

Be Aware of the Worst-case Scenario

Since you can lose so much money through spread bets, it’s well worth understanding the most you can possibly lose on a specific wager. Understanding the worst-case scenario allows you to weigh up the risk of a bet accurately before you make it and adjust your stake accordingly. It should be noted that sell bets are often more risky than buy bets, as a buy bet usually has a cap on how much you can lose, whereas sell bets can climb exponentially depending on the event. 

Avoid Chasing Losses

This is good advice for any gambling activity, but it can be easier to fall into this trap with spread betting. Thanks to the variable bets and higher potential for profits, it can be very easy to get swept up in the idea that a particularly good bet will make up for your losses. Of course, in general, it’s better to keep your betting low-risk and avoid reaching this point in the first place through responsible play. But we’ve all had those weaker moments, and when we land in this position, we must remember when to cut our losses. 

Research Sport and Market Trends

While having a good knowledge of sports is always useful in betting, this is especially true when it comes to spread betting. Expertise in certain sports and the key players within them can inform the way you look at spreads and understand how likely you are to make a profit — and to what degree. As such, staying abreast of various trends and what other experts are predicting can help you a lot when making spread bets. 

Practice Responsible Gambling

It’s much easier to lose money when you choose spread betting over traditional fixed-odds betting, and this makes it more important than ever that you practise responsible gambling. Make full use of the tools available to you at your sportsbook, and never be afraid to reach out for help or advice from friends, family or a helpline. See our responsible gambling section later for more information.

Spread Betting Per Sport

Spread betting tends to look a little different depending on which sport you’re looking to bet on. Each sport has its own popular markets and understood limits for spreads. Here’s a quick peek at what you can expect:

Football Spread Betting

Unsurprisingly, football is the most popular sport for spread betting in the UK, and there are plenty of different markets for you to choose from. The single most popular is probably total goals in a match, with you betting on how many goals are scored by both teams overall (at the end of 90 minutes). Other popular markets include bookings (the number of yellow and red cards in a match), corners (the number of corners taken at full time) and shirt numbers (combined shirt numbers from all goalscorers). 

Horse Racing Spread Betting

Horse racing has always been at the top of the pack when it comes to sports betting; the races are almost synonymous with betting, after all. Spread betting is an excellent way to expand the possibilities for your bets, especially when you take a full racing festival into account. However, the most popular markets you’ll find for spread betting are winning distances (the aggregate number of lengths won by over a raceday or festival), race index bets (where you think a horse will place in a race) and starting prices (the total starting price for all winning horses across a race day). 

Cricket Spread Betting

Cricket is one of the country’s favourite sports, but it can be a famously slow-paced game. So spread betting is a great way to up the ante. You can find plenty of things to make spread bets on in cricket, but the most popular markets are supremacy spreads (margin of victory), batting spreads (runs from a specific batsman) and wickets (wickets taken by a named bowler across a series/match/inning). 

Tennis Spread Betting

Most people like a good game of tennis, and there are plenty of spread betting markets available to help enhance the viewing experience even more. The most popular ones you’ll find are supremacy bets (winning margin of one player over another), total games (number of games played in a match), and total points played (total points earned over the course of a match).

Responsible Gambling

While betting can be a great way to enhance the fun of a game, it’s also important to do it in moderation. Responsible gambling is crucial in ensuring that your habits stay healthy and safe, and there are many resources and tools available at UK casinos and sportsbooks to help you keep a healthy relationship with gambling. 

Responsible gambling tools at online gambling platforms aren’t only meant for people who are prone to unhealthy gambling behaviour but are in place to help everyone maintain healthy habits. Here are a few easy things you can do today to help control your gambling:

  • Impose a spending/loss limit — you can set different limits at sportsbooks to put hard caps on certain monetary values, including loss, deposit and wagering limits. 

  • Track your spending/time spent on gambling sites — taking detailed notes on the amount of time and money you spend on gambling can put the problematic elements of your behaviours under a spotlight. You can also find gambling sites that will do this for you.

  • Give yourself a time out — while self-exclusion is a long-term solution for people with gambling addictions, most sites allow you to employ much shorter forced log-out periods if you think you need to pull yourself away from your accounts. This may also pause all marketing information. 

  • Manually disable gambling advertisements — most web browsers allow you to exclude certain types of advertising from your feed, and gambling ads are one of them. Eliminating these reminders of your gambling habits can help you stave off any cravings to make a wager or two when you’re trying to take a break from it. Your sportsbook may also have an option to halt marketing emails and notifications.