During the recession, the stock market is in constant turmoil. It crashes frequently, limiting profit making opportunities. It is because of this that spread betting is considered to be a good choice for earning profits during a down period in the markets. Experts suggest that it is primarily because of this reason that during the peak of the recent recession, spread betting accounts grew from a 1000 in May 2007 to nearly 3000 in September 2008. The most popular arena for betting during recession was commodities such as Crude oil or Gold, the vulnerable currencies and the FTSE and Dow Jones indices. If you think the markets will go down then spread betting lets you speculate on that.

Vulnerable markets brought huge losses for businesses but huge returns for punters. This was the reason why many spread betters started betting on which currency or bank would fall next. The biggest bids were placed on Washington Mutual, just before it collapsed on September 25, 2008. After this, all short bets on banking institutions were suspended.

Spread betting involves understanding the market scenario thoroughly. Primarily, because your losses or profits depend entirely on how wrong or right the bet you have placed is. You can even earn hundreds from a £1 per point bet in a volatile market.

Guidelines for Spread Betting During Recession

During recession it is advised that you spread bet in commodities such as bonds, gold and oil rather than on stocks. Few things that you can keep in mind while spread betting during recession are:

1.     Bet on future prices:

Spread betting providers offer betting opportunities on a wide range of commodities such as metals, oils, gold and many other similar commodities. However, oil and gold are considered to be the most popular commodities for spread betting during a recession. You can even spread bet on the future price of soft commodities like coffee and soybeans in a similar way that you can spread bet on the future price of Crude Oil, Gold, and the DOW etc.

2.     Trade in a currency that suits you:

You should always trade in the currency that suits you the best. For instance, you can spread bet in euros per unit, dollars per unit or pounds per unit. This should be done because the currency in which the commodities are traded in on the exchange is fixed while spread betting.

3.     Bet on futures contract:

Spread betting on commodities futures has similar characteristics to future bets on indices; there is one significant difference, which is that the former does not follow the traditional quarterly cycle (March, June, September and December). This is because spread betting companies use hedging extensively, but are not interested in the physical delivery of the underlying assets. Therefore, spread betting contracts are settled much earlier than the due delivery date.

4.     Determine popular commodities for spread betting:

Oil and gold are most popular for spread betting during recession. However, there are over 40 other commodity markets available. There are some “soft” commodities that are also available for spread betting during recession, such as soybean, cocoa, coffee, sugar, cattle, hogs, pork bellies, orange juice, cotton, wheat, oats, corn, lumber and even potatoes. You have a lot of commodities to select from, so choose carefully, keeping in mind where you can earn maximum profits.

5.     Bet on commodity baskets:

During periods of recession, spread betting contracts on exchange-traded commodities or commodity baskets become popular. Such contracts are on the price of ETFS Grains (listed on the LSE) and ETFS Agricultural (on the Dow Jones Agricultural Index).

6.     Investment horizon should be long:

Commodities such as gold, oil and even bonds remain fairly static over time and just when you are getting bored of their static nature, you will witness a sudden price swing. This is primarily because of the limited amount in which a commodity is available for delivery in the short-term. Such a scenario is mostly seen in agricultural products as their supply cannot be achieved immediately as per demand. Their lead times can extend up to 12 months ore even more. This is because agricultural productions are vulnerable to bad weather or disease. It is because of this that your investment horizon should be longer.

Managing Risk Effectively

In a recession, the markets are very vulnerable and so you should be able to manage your risk levels properly. Some tools for ensuring risk management are:

• Use Stop Losses: These are trading options that you can include in your order to protect yourself from incurring huge losses. You can add them when you initiate a trade or even later on. ‘Stop Losses’ are not guaranteed and markets can even jump between different price levels, which are known as ‘gap’. Markets in recession are volatile and if the market gaps over the level of Stop Loss set by you; your trade will stop only after the next traded price.
• Use Guaranteed Stop Losses: This works in the same way as ‘Stop Loss’, the only difference being that it is guaranteed. This means that even in if the market gaps, your trade will close at the level you have specified. Another thing worth knowing is that in a ‘Guaranteed Stop Loss’ your spread will be a little wider.
• Use Limit Order: These are trading options that help you to fix your profit level. You can add this to your spread bet at your first trade or even later.
• Formulate Stop Loss Positioning: Try not to place your Stop Loss or Guaranteed Stop Loss too close to your opening position. You need to be aware that volatile markets fluctuate a bit before they begin performing. So, in such a case, it is better to have a wider Stop. However, in a vulnerable market scenario, it is advisable to trade only the capital that you can afford losing.
• Know your limits: You need to know beforehand exactly how much you are prepared to risk for every spread bet. You need to ensure that you have enough capital so as to achieve your goal.
• Be aware: You should be totally aware of the risk involved in spread betting, especially during recession. You should formulate your plan of action with a lot of care, as you can end up losing much more than what you initially invested. It is recommended that you trade with only the capital that you can afford to lose. You can even seek the help of financial advisers to place your bets.

The Financial Services Authority in the UK regulates all companies involved in spread betting. This means that capital won during a recession is protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. This protection was of up to £48,000 during the peak of the recent recession. Spread betters were overjoyed by this, as they could claim 100% of the initial £30,000 and around 90% of the subsequent £20,000, all amounting to a maximum claim of £48,000.

The biggest attraction of spread betting during recession is its tax-free gains. There is no stamp duty on trades, no capital gains tax on the profits you earn through betting or commission that needs to be paid to the spread betting firm. The only stamp duty that can be charged is 0.5%, if you trade in actual shares.

These are just a few advantages and things that need to be kept in mind while spread betting during recession or anytime the markets is volatile. Every time you plan to spread bet, get an insight of the market scenario and then only head for trading.

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Tip 1. Market Analysis
Tip 2. Scalping
Tip 3. Break-outs
Tip 4. Reversals
Tip 5. Arbitrage
Other Pointers

Spread betting is not based on luck, like some investors think, and can be highly profitable only when you understand how it works and learn to use its strategies efficiently. There are several strategies one can use in spread betting, but it cannot be said that one particular strategy suits all kinds of investors. Whether or not a particular strategy works for you will depend on your level of experience, the spread betting market you choose and how comfortable and disciplined you are in implementing the strategy.

The 5 Best Financial Spread Betting Tips & Strategies

Tip 1. Careful analysis of market trends

Analysing the market trends is perhaps the most basic and popular of all the strategies you would use in spread betting. Analysis of market refers to making use of the available market information and predicting the trend – upward or downward – of the prices of that particular instrument. Market analysis is of two types – fundamental or technical.

Fundamental analysis – Fundamental analysis involves in considering and using any kind of relevant information – economic, political, or environmental – that can affect the market directly or indirectly. The information collected is analysed, using a long-term approach, to predict the rise or fall of the markets and take an action based on it. For example, if there is news of global events that can lead to decline in oil supply in the future, bettors would predict an increase in oil prices in the future and act accordingly.

As markets tend to get volatile when reacting to some announcement or news, it is safe to wait and observe the price trends during the first few minutes to know which position to take. This spread betting strategy can get tedious as there are so many factors that can affect the market prices and keeping a tab on all would mean tracking the news minute-by-minute.

Technical analysis – Technical analysis is using past market data, sometimes along with indicator charts, to identify past price trends and predict the trends in future. Unlike fundamental analysis, which considers all kinds of information, technical analysis only focuses on the market related data like trading volumes and price trends. The advantage with technical analysis is that it can be done quickly and can be used for all spread betting timeframes, be it for years or intra-day.

Technical analysis also informs you about the stop loss and limit order points. As technical analysis of spread betting in the market is based on statistics and is done with the help of specialised software, it can be used to get minute-by-minute market trends from the past, which makes it a huge hit with day traders.

Understand that technical analysis can be an efficient strategy only when you know how to use the available information and read the charts accurately. Also, technical analysis considers only the historical trends, and not the present trends to determine the future market movements.

Combining Analyses – Some spread bettors combine both fundamental and technical analysis to predict the market trends. By considering the historical data as well as the current events that can affect the market, investors believe they can make better decisions. Combining both forms of market analysis helps the bettor to overcome the limitations of the individual methods, and enables him/her to take a better position.

Tip 2. Scalping

Scalping is a popular spread betting strategy that is widely used by amateur, as well as experienced, traders. A strategy used for minimising risk, scalping involves quickly opening and closing positions, usually to make a small profit. As the prices keep falling or rising throughout the day, you will be presented with numerous opportunities to make profit with this strategy, provided you have the patience to watch the markets closely.

Traders who use this strategy have to keep an eye on the market and try to gain whenever they get an opportunity of making even a few PIPs. The idea here is to grab the small gains, whenever possible, during the day and come up with a significant profit by the end of the day.

The main benefit of scalping is that you get to keep your capital intact, or at least preserve a major part of it. Gaining by a few PIPs whenever you can, you can move towards making a big profit with a number of small gains throughout the day. This spread betting tip can be great for traders who are disciplined and risk adverse.

However, scalping can be a painful strategy to implement if you are impatient. To carry out this strategy efficiently, you need to watch the market throughout the day, for favourable positions where you can gain. Another disadvantage here is that you may end up gaining just a few PIPs, when you could have gained hundreds of them by closing the trade a little later.

Tip 3. Break-outs

The trading breakout strategy is one where you wait for a particular equity to break from the price range, which it has been limited to in the recent past. Spread bettors using this strategy usually consider stocks which have not moved beyond a certain price range for a considerable time, but may break out from the boundaries soon. So when strong price movements are hinted for a particular stock, spread bettors try to make huge capital gains by trading breakouts.

Spread bettors who use this strategy use technical indicators to learn if a stock is probably going to breakout. The possibility of a break-out can also be identified when the trade reaches a price anywhere close to its earlier limits. This is done by keeping a close watch on the price movements. This strategy is also used to check if the stock is going to breakout its past lower limit.

In any case, trading breakout allows traders to take a position where they make a profit ultimately. But then, you should understand that the possibility of breakout failure cannot be ruled out completely. To lock their profits in case the price breakout fails, spread bettors set the stop loss for that particular stock, at its previous upper level. Once the price goes beyond the upper limit and stabilises, you can set up a stop loss at the level where it was broken, to keep your profits intact.

Ideally the best time to place a trade is when the price crosses where the set limit ad closes. Some analysts think the risks are reduced when you wait and see if the price closes on the same side on two successive days. But some think that once you are sure about the old price pattern being broke, you can place the trade and wait to make a profit. The good thing about this spread betting strategy is that the support and resistance levels are well defined, giving you a clear stop-loss position that can be used to trade only in profits.

Tip 4. Reversals

There is always a possibility of a reversal in the market trends, and the reversal strategy uses this premise to help the spread bettor trade for gains. Market trends reversal is based on under or over pricing. The point at which it is most likely to reverse can be determined with the help of the past graphical information or technical charts and moving averages. If you can accurately read the charts and calculate the averages to get a fair idea about when the markets can reverse, you stand a chance to profit.

To begin with, you need to consider the recent lower and upper limits of the index to get an idea about the market’s performance. See if the market is moving into either of these boundaries and keep a tab on the movement of the index. As soon as you find that the markets have started reversing, you can act immediately to take advantage of it.

How successful you are with this spread betting strategy depends on your ability to understand the market reaction and make a move according to it. Sometimes, it could just be a retracement, which is temporary, and not a reversal of the long-term market trends. And being able to identify between a reversal and retracement is essential if you want to take the right decision.

Trading reversal is considered as a low risk strategy because traders make a move only after a reversal is strongly indicated. This helps them cut back the possible loss, while allowing them to make a gain. However, trading reversals in spread betting is also very risky, cannot spot the line between a retracement and a reversal.

Tip 5. Arbitrage

Arbitrage is trading method that a few spread bettors consider for gains. Arbitrage can guarantee profits, but to really gain, you need to have multiple accounts in different spread betting companies. This strategy is implemented with the idea that not all spread betting firms have the same financial spread, and you can use the difference in the spreads to make a profit. For this, you need to keep a track of all your accounts and be quick in buying and selling two trades against each other.

For example, say that company A has a spread of 100p-110p for a stock, and company B has 105p-115p for the same stock. If you have accounts with both the spread betting companies, you can buy the stock at a lower spread of 100p and sell it at 105p and lock in your profit.

But these days, spread betting companies work hand-in-hand in this regard and use specific softwares that help them set the same spreads. Also, the companies use software programs to get alerts about such differences and almost immediately adjust the spreads. Because of this, arbitrage can be considered as a highly risky strategy.

These tips apply to any situation in spread betting, however when a recession kicks in you’re better off using these spread betting tips for a recession.

Spread Betting Pointers

No matter which strategy you use in spread betting, your aim is to minimise your risks. Besides using the above tips, here are a couple of points you should always remember to limit your spread betting risks.

Pointer 1. Stop-loss & Limit Orders

Always use a stop loss to stabilise your earnings by limiting your risks. Although this may stop you from gaining more at times, it will almost always save you from placing bad bets. However, relying only on stop loss is a bad idea. If you feel that a particular bet is really bad, it is best to close it in time, rather than wait for stop-loss.

Limit orders will allow you to close the bet once it reaches a certain point and can help you to trade carefully. The takeaway here is to know when to stop to minimise your loss, rather than waiting till you lose everything.

Pointer 2. Managing Emotions

Emotional investing has never helped any trader. Always, it is best to avoid trading if you are not able to focus on it. At times when you are in a disturbed mood, due to any reason, your judgment will be poor and you may end up taking the worst trading decisions, which will further affect you emotionally.

Usually, amateur spread bettors, who are on a losing streak, tend to get desperate to break even, by placing highly risky trades. While it is natural to get affected with a streak of losses, there is a way to avoid getting emotional about it.

• First of all, remember that spread betting comes with risks. Losing or gaining cannot be guaranteed, and you should be prepared to handle both objectively.
• Be sure to have a clear idea about the markets you are dealing with and the factors that affect its performance. Spend some time to read the technical charts and market reports to understand the historical performance of the market. In short, be prepared for the markets you are venturing into.
• Considering that and the risk-reward ratios, make a trading plan and follow it to the letter.

Financial spread betting is not your game if you don’t have the patience for it. Only when you can spare the time and energy to understand and apply the strategies, while accepting the risks that come along, will you be able to minimise your losses and improve gains.

Start spread betting on the cheap!

First, you need to make sure that you are clued up with some quality spread betting advice. Whilst bonuses do exist and spread betting can be low cost, it is possible to lose more than your original deposit. Budget spread betting appeals to any level of trading enthusiast; however it certainly is not risk free. Low cost spread betting can turn into high cost if you are not careful with stop losses.

Bonuses are perfect for budget spread betting!

Spread betting bonuses do exist and they are becoming more and more common amongst spread betting firms who want to compete or price. The cheaper and more affordable they can make it for their punters, the more custom they will get. For instance, some bookies will offer a “deposit bonus” of around ten percent when you open up an account. This will make spread betting that bit more cost-effective and will dampen the impact of any potential losses.

So cheap it’s practically freebet!

Another type of spread betting bonus is the “free bet” promotion. This allows you to place a bet for free (unsurprisingly) when you first open an account. There are a wide variety of bonuses available including what has become known as spreadback.

No matter how low-cost, the risks are always high

The main thing to remember is that a lot relies on you knowing what you are doing, whether or not you are getting spread betting bonuses. Spread betting can be anything but cheap if you are unskilled or don’t understand that trade that you are making, but it can also be a great way to earn short term income. However, cheap spread betting is an absolute must for anyone who is aware of, and most importantly, understands the risks involved. It’s also great for beginners who are on a budget and want to minimize risk and spend the least possible.

Spread betting is fairly simple, flexible, convenient and in some cases, the cheapest option to gamblers. Plus, opening an account is extremely quick, painless and above all registration is free. Bonuses are also usually offered to those who are opening up new accounts. Add that to the fact that you completely are often completely free of any spread betting taxes and you’re onto an extremely low-cost and budget spread betting formula!

Advantages of Spread Betting

Many spread bettors get into the field because they specialise in a certain area. Say, for instance, that you’re particularly interested in an index – such as the FTSE – and you are quite knowledgeable at the subject. It can be extremely rewarding when your expert knowledge allows you to invest in something and get great profits back, and as far as the benefits of spread betting go, this is a big one. As players have found with poker and some other table games, the chances of getting a return from spread betting are increased if you’ve honed the skill. Knowledge of markets and an ability to recognise trends are real bonuses.

Some other benefits of spread betting include the ability to place a small bet (and thus the stock and trade markets become more accessible to those who can’t afford to invest directly in them), and of course the fact that you can decide when to stop a bet before it’s even started. This allows for a great deal of organisation, and therefore it’s possible to minimise your losses (using stop loss and various strategies).

Features of Spread Betting

The fact that gains are tax-exempt is usually the most attractive of all the advantages of spread betting. Within the UK, the current tax laws state that spread bets are exempt from capital gains tax, and because there is also no stamp duty to be paid (only necessary when you buy actual shares) this is currently the most tax-efficient form of betting. Of course tax laws are subject to change, however.

The wide range of markets available to bet on is another of the benefits of spread betting that has proven very popular. You can choose to buy or sell on indices, bonds, individual market stocks and shares, commodities such as oil or steel, interest rates and currency pairs such as the dollar and the pound. As a result, the advantages of spread betting include being able to buy or sell in markets that are the most predictable at that time, or ones that you know a lot about.

The ability to bet long term or short term is one of the advantages of spread betting that works for most individuals when used properly. You should consider your individual circumstances from the start and which methodology would be most appropriate for you. Are you in between jobs? In this case, short betting will be best, as you can get immediate results whilst watching the clock on a regular basis.

The features and benefits of spread betting come together to form the perfect profit-building platform for almost anyone who is interested in the area. By specialising in a certain area, and building a methodology to suit your own situation, this form more likely to work than those that offer no means of personalisation.

Spread betting history began in the 1930s, when a mathematics teacher-come-bookmaker named Charles K McNeil invented the pastime in the United States of America. Many years passed until the UK cottoned onto the trend in the 1970s when it was again invented by one of London’s best known bankers Stephen Wheeler. Wheeler and his colleagues would discuss gold bullion on such a regular basis that they found they could predict the price for the following week. Stephen Wheeler then began to print off ‘spreads’ for his colleagues to bet on, and thus spread betting in the UK was born. Several years later it kicked off an online community in the 1990s that would bring a new era into spread betting history.

At the time in 1970, gold was very much the market to bet on. This continued well into the 1980s, joined only by a select few other commodities that were ideal for spread betting. It wasn’t until the technology boom in the 1990s, however, that spread betting history came into its own. The development of the Internet and the World Wide Web meant investors could bet online, and on a growing number of different markets such as ecommerce. By the mid 90s, most spread betting companies were conducting their business online, where investors could access everything at the click of a button.

From 1995 to 2000, spread betting history began to plateau as growth slowed down. It’s still a very popular phenomenon within the US and in particular the UK, but things would stay relatively calm for another five years.

In 2005, the world experienced an event that would make spread betting history. This was hurricane Katrina, which interrupted oil production significantly, and therefore drove prices right up. Any significant geographical event, or any other for that matter, that might affect the prices of commodities is important for spread bettors in predicting where the market will go.

The spread betting history story ends with almost 150,000 people taking part on a regular basis, betting on whether they think certain markets will rally or fall over the following hours or days. Whether we will experience another boom as we did from the 1970s to the 1990s we cannot be sure, but spread betting history may well be made if a number of other countries take it on as the UK and the US have done so willingly.

The range of outcomes possible in spread betting is also sometimes referred to as the “spread” itself. Therefore the term is used to describe the financial spread as well as the possibilities that could arise from betting on it.

The term “betting” has its own implications for those who use the spread betting platform. Current UK laws state that a bet is exempt from capital gains tax, which essentially means that you win exactly what you win – no deductions. There’s no stamp duty either, and in fact the only deduction that you’ll have on your profits is the service fee charged by the provider or broker.

The fact that spread betting is called betting, however, is a bone of contention between bookmakers and financial organisations like the Financial Standards Agency (or FSA as it’s also known). In order to keep it tax-free, bookmakers are service providers and agree for it to be termed “spread betting“, but they maintain that they are not themselves “betting companies”. This is for one main reason: bookmakers automatically hedge every spread bet that they process, so that it’s not the company that bets against the customer, which is what happens in traditional bookmaker situations.

It’s important for those who are new to spread betting to understand the difference between this and buying shares on the stock markets. Rather than buying actual shares, spread bettors place a wager on where the market will go. In that way, it’s possible to make money even if the market falls, whereas with shares you lose money when that happens. Spread betting, therefore, provides a way for those who know the markets very well to make money, even if they don’t have a lot to invest in them from the start.

So there you have it, spread betting involves exactly what it says on the tin: betting on a spread. There are several different directions that a market position could take, and if you know the market well then placing a spread bet on it can provide great profit.

Buying stocks and shares directly is not considered to be gambling as such, but spread betting is a different ball game. We need to consider the way that brokers place spread bets before we can answer the question “is spread betting gambling?” Spread betting brokers or service providers do not like to be termed “betting companies”, because they do not work in the same way as a traditional broker, such as one who organises horse racing bets. A traditional broker will bet against the customer, whereas a spread betting company will automatically hedge the opposite bet. While this does change the stakes and the algorithms used to calculate winnings, this doesn’t mean that it is no longer gambling. The question “is spread betting gambling?” still very much stands.

Spread betting is essentially gambling. Especially when compared to investing in stocks. Yes, you are betting on the stock market, but you’re not buying individual stocks and shares. You place a buy or sell bet, depending on whether you think the market will rise or fall. The outcome decides whether you win money or lose it, and therefore the answer to “is spread betting gambling” must be yes, but it is a unique form of gambling.

Some would say that answering “no” to “is spread betting gambling?” is a dangerous move. This is especially important when talking to new spread bettors, or those who aren’t familiar with how it works. The main reason for this is because the potential for loss is unlimited, unless you place a stop loss (or accept the company’s default stop loss) before you begin. A stop loss is essentially a barrier that you set, to stop the bet when it begins to move against you.

Many people find that spread betting is a great pathway from gambling to real investment in stocks, shares, indices and commodities. The answer to questions like “is spread betting gambling?” become simple, because it is gambling, but it can be used for a great deal of good when it comes to learning about market trends. It allows you to gamble in a way that’s familiar to most, and win whether the market rallies or falls. From spread betting, you can learn a lot about the trends in a certain market, and begin to buy shares when you think the market will improve.

So, is spread betting gambling? Yes! But that needn’t be a bad thing.

Once you have signed up to one of the spread betting platforms, have a look around it and get a feel for the software. Do not feel the need to deposit straight away, some platforms have spread betting demo accounts that allow you to bet with practice money. 100% risk free.

Now that you’re familiar, you may want to deposit; but wait! Do you know what the “ask” (or “offer”) and “bid” prices are? And most importantly, do you know what a stop loss is?

The spread betting platform has an ask price which is the price that the platform sells to you. So for example the ask price on the FTSE100 may be 5138. Then there’s the bid price which is the price that you can buy the equity, commodity or whatever it happens to be. So the bid price would then be 5143. So as you can see, the moment you trade with the FTSE100, you immediately incur the loss of 5 points. This loss is known as the spread and gives rise to the name “spread betting”. Some platforms are starting to offer spreadback as a way to decrease the cost to you, the punter.

Now once you have found the instrument or market to trade in, find the trade button and you will receive several options. The first and most blatant is “BUY” or “SELL”. Let it be clear though, there is absolutely nothing being bought or sold. You are merely betting on the movement and no contracts are being exchanged etc. If you choose “BUY” then you are expecting the price to go up as you “purchase” at one price and hope to sell at a later, higher price. If you choose “SELL” then you “sell” at one price and hope to buy at a later, lower price. These are the equivalents of going “long” and “short” in trading. So as an example, you “buy” the FTSE100 at 5138 at £5ppp (pounds per point), the FTSE100 increases 5 points to 5143 and you make a profit of £25. This is essentially how spread betting works.

Another option is the “stop loss order”. Placing a stop loss will guarantee that you don’t lose more than acceptable. With spread betting, you are capable of losing more money than your deposit and debts can run into the thousands. New players need to realise that this is a serious risk and you must know exactly what a stop loss order is.

Spread betting in “real-time” means the prices of markets/instruments respond to events as they occur. What makes spread betting so exhilarating and appealing to so many is the fact that it all happens in real-time. The stock prices are updated instantly and prices rise and fall right in front of your eyes. Watch your screen as you ride a rally or pay close attention as your bet takes a turn for the worst. Instant betting allows you to close and open bets in real time and at precise moments meaning you can have complete control over your bet. Betting in this way is as close as you can get to a real life trading experience and all from the comfort of your own home.

How does real-time spread betting work?

The prices displayed to you on your screen are there for a reason. Amongst other things they are based on speculation, expectations and information. As these variables change, so does the price of each market or instrument. The spread betting platform is instantly updated with this information and the results are then displayed as price changes in real time. It is important that the spread betting firm is constantly keeping up with the latest economic and speculative changes as any slight delay can result in exploitation and mass losses for the firm. To do this effectively, the spread betting system is almost entirely automated and prices are kept as close to their true value as possible.

When can I start playing real-time spread betting?

Right now! We have a list of the very best real-time spread betting platforms right here on this website. Not only that, but we have a whole load of exclusive bonuses to go with it.