Fun bets with spread betting

By Deputy Editor Tim Bennett Feb 01, 2010

Tim Bennett

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Once you get the basic principles of spread betting there’s some great news – you can bet on almost anything.

Many people start with financial bets, on share prices, indices, exchange rates and the like. But here are two other suggestions (worth remembering the odds will change regularly).

Politics

The election is approaching. All eyes will soon be on the result – a decisive victory for David Cameron’s conservatives? A shock win for Labour? Or maybe a hung parliament? If you have a view, for example, on the number of seats Gordon Brown will, or won’t win, you can place a bet accordingly at say £10 a seat. Sportingindex.com for example currently quotes Labour at 212-217. If you think they are easily good for at least 217 seats then buy the bet. Since the spread will move between now and the election there’s no need to wait to cash in either – you can close the bet on any trading day. However, as with all bets, watch the spread. If you bought Labour at 217 seats for £10 per seat and changed your mind the next day, you will spend 5 seats, or £50, closing the position at 212.

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Sport

Think you know how many runs England will make during a test match innings? Again you can spread bet the outcome. Say you are offered a spread of 250-270 runs and you think England’s batting order will collapse. Sell the spread at 250 runs for say £5 a run and then hope to make the gap between their (low) total and 250 runs all at £5 per run. Don’t forget though that you’ll be stumping up £5 a run on an open bet if your pessimism about the England run rate proves unfounded.

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Published in Spread betting explained | More articles by Tim Bennett

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