Spread Betting Explained For Beginner Bettors

A surprising number of people really struggle to get their heads around the concept of betting on the spread. In reality, however, nothing could be simpler. Its only that many of the available explanations in books as well as online tend to offer overcomplicated explanations.

The gist of spread betting is this: since spread betting requires of the bettor to go either higher of a price offered by the bookie, or lower of the price offered by the bookie, it all comes down to a simple thing of making your choice based on what you know about the sport you’re betting on. In the event that you anticipate that the outcome will be higher than the price quoted, you will obviously choose to buy. If not, or in other words, if you think the outcome will be lower than the quoted price, you will sell.

Basic Overview

Having originated somewhere in the early 90’s, spread betting has come full circle. During those early years, changes to the rules came hard and fast. But now that a natural position of sorts has been met, betting on the spread has practically matured and the rules governing betting on the spread, settled.

There even today exists the notion that spread betting is an extremely volatile and unpredictable sort of bet to be getting involved with. This certainly can be true with certain markets, but by the same token, there are other markets way more forgiving towards betting the spread.

Begin With Baby Steps

The best way to approach betting on the spread when just starting out is to take baby steps. This means a cautioned tip-toe approach.

A practical example of a baby step would be to choose an involatile market to start with. This could be applying your spread betting prowess to the total number of goals in a football match, or even the number of wickets a certain bowler will take in a cricket Test match.

Initial bets should be small too. Instead of going all-in on a single spread bet, rather try your hand at placing a couple of smaller bets on a few games. This is a good way to learn and to determine how to best proceed.

Do Your Homework

Relying purely on a “gut feeling” won’t serve you in the long run. But by the same token, combining what you know to be true (because you’ve done the research, after all!) with what you feel in your gut, is never a bad way to be going about things.

While betting on a hunch or a feeling alone is nearly always a recipe for disaster, its also true that a bet that for whatever reason just doesn’t feel right, will more often than not turn out to be a bad bet, or simply not the right bet for you personally.

The trick then, is to try and find a couple or more markets you feel comfortable with. Especially as a beginner, there isn’t any sense in trying to master too many markets in record-time. Walking before you try and sprint the spread betting race is possibly the best advice you will ever receive.