Beginners' Guide

A sports spread bet involves predicting the direction that a market within an event will take. You may bet upwards ("buy") expecting to see a positive result e.g. many goals or corners or a win for that side. Alternatively, you may have a downwards bet ("sell") in the hope that the result is zero or negative, where possible!

For example:
Football: Liverpool v Everton: Total Corners Market - Sportsspread Quote 11 - 11.5

You believe that the competitive edge to the Merseyside derby will produce a glut of corners and so buy the market at 11.5 for a £20 stake.

If you are proved right and the result is 16 your profit would be £90 (i.e. (16-11.5)*£20).
However, if on the other the result is 8 your loss would be £70 (i.e. (8-11.5)*£20).

In Running Trading

A unique feature of spread betting is that you can enter and indeed exit a number of markets at any point during the event. In the example above you could elect to increase or decrease your position, thereby taking a profit or cutting a loss, as the game unfolded.

In our example you might have seen 4 corners in the opening ten minutes. This would result in our quote moving to something like 14.25 – 14.75, which would allow you to close your trade by selling at 14.25, yielding a profit of £55 (i.e. (14.25-11.5)*£20).