Football Spread betting can be a volatile betting medium but also very profitable. The most important aspect to understand is that the more convincingly your bet wins the greater the winnings; this works the other way too, if you're incorrect by a wide margin then your losses will be heavier. I will explain using an example for the England vs Ukraine total goals market.
The spread betting firm sets the spread for the total goals market, if you think they are right then don't bet, if you thinkthey are wrong then bet...it really is as simple as that! There's 2 ways to bet, you either buy above or sell below.
Example, they set the spread for England vs Ukraine in the total goals market as 4, which means they expect there to be 4 goals in the game. If you think it will be a 0-0 then you would sell below, if you think it would be a 4-4 thriller, then you buy above; if you think the game will finish with 4 goals then you wouldn't bet because you agree with the way the spread has been set.
The thing to remember is that if you sell below and the game finished 6-3 then you could owe a fair bit of money, depending on how the spread has been set.
You should now understand the mechanics of the bet, your next goal is to understand your liability.
Your liability is set by how wrong you are, so if you're way off then you will owe more than if you're only slightly wrong, you take the amount you're wrong by and multiply it by your stake.
If total goals is set to 4 and you have bought below, and the game finishes 3-3 then you take the spread and subtract the result, which would give you -2. So say you bought under for £100 then you would do the following maths:
100 x -2 = -200
So you would lose £200!
This works the other way round too, so if the game finished 1-0 then you would win...
100 x +3 = £300
I hope the idea of spread betting is less daunting now and you feel like you've got another tool in your punting arsenal to bash those bookies with. There are a wide range of markets, so whether you prefer to bet on correct scores, time of the first goal or the total number of corners, there's always an online spread betting firm willing to gamble with you. Out of the current pool of spread betting firms, I'm happy to recommend IG Index, Extrabet and Paddy Power Trader.
