Sports betting. No doubt sports betting can be a fun paste time and increase the excitement of the game. Especially if you are winning…right?

Fixed odds betting has been around for centuries. Online sports fixed odds betting for less time, but, no less well established for it. When we think about having a bet most stroll down to a high street bookmaker. Some use a online fixed odds bookmaker. Some might even get tempted away from the highstreet by some of the juicy free bet promotions. Less have considered sports spread betting.

Some of the disadvantages of spread betting such as an not being able to fix your potential loss, as you can with fixed odds betting, are minimised if you choose the right markets.

The highlight of sports spread betting is that the more right you are the more money you make. Let’s take football betting as an example, and, more specifically goal betting.

With a fixed odds betting, if you bet £10 @ 5/6 on Over 2.5 Goals, you know exactly how much you stand to win (or lose) before you place the bet.

As long as there are at least 3 goals, you’ll collect a ‘fixed’ £18.30winnings.

But with sports spread betting, instead of a ‘fixed’ payout, your winnings will vary depending on how many goals there are. And you get paid for every goal above the 2.5 marker!

As an example let’s say a game produced produced 8 goals – 5.5 more than the 2.5 marker. Not unheard of in the English Premiership due to the attacking and fast paced style of play. So you get 5.5 times your stake, if your stake was £10 you’d get: £10 x 5.5 = £55 winnings(plus your stake back).

For the same bet that’s three times the fixed odds winnings.

So, with Sports spread betting the more right you are, the more you win.

What about the downside? The overs market has a benefit in that the downside is limited. For example, an over 2.5 goal bet is limited to 2.5 times your stake.

What’s more, you can limited potential loses further if you know which teams are likely to score more or conceed more goals, thus lessening the chance of producing an under 2.5 goal result.

Sports spread betting rewards the accuracy of bettors betting – the more right you are, the more you win.

You can bet on all the same markets as with regular bookmakers – Corners, Bookings, Time of Goal, Scores and more – but with a few subtle differences.

Instead of offering Under or Over 2.5 goals a sports spread betting company offer a spread. The spread is how they factor in the odds of the likely outcome. Something more realistic would be a spread of between 2.3 to 2.5 Goals. And they call betting Under ‘Selling’ and betting Over ‘Buying’ – essentially it’s all the same.

It is possible to have a spread like this becuase spread betting companies decide that each goal is worth 10 points. So in the above example a 3 goal result would give you five points over the spread (3 goals / 30 points minus 2.5 goals or 25 points). A £10 stake would win you £50.

There are some example below to highlight the some differences between fixed odds betting and sports spread betting.

However, if you don’t choose which market to bet wisely the potential downside can grow rapidly. An under 11 corner bet has a much larger potential down side than an under 2.5 goal bet. Each bet should be ‘looked at’ on it’s own merits. Calculate what the potential downside is first and then see if you think the benefits outweigh the risks. If it means you lose too much (or too big a percentage of your betting bank) don’t bother with it.

Round Up

If you can treble your profits with a single bet it’s well worth thinking about sports spread betting.

It is not difficult to limit your potential losses by choosing the right markets.

To help you get started some sports spread betting providers will allow you to use a small stake and will offer you a free spread bet to get started. Try the online sports spread betting guide for more information.