What's a spread bet?

What's a spread bet?

Spread betting is completely different to fixed-horse betting. You don't know how much you're going to win, you don't know how much you're going to lose, and your stake is a different scenario altogether. Bookmakers will rate horses' chances of winning on an index-based system. They'll give fifty points for a win, thirty for second, twenty for third, and on that basis they'll give a 'quote' to a horse, say, 'Johnny's Boy is twenty-five to thirty'. Now if you don't think Johnny's Boy stands a chance in this race, you 'sell' at twenty-five. But if you think he's going to win, you'll 'buy' at thirty, and you'll buy for a monetary value. Say you'll buy for thirty pounds, you win thirty minus fifty, which is the maximum makeup of points that he can get, and then you 'times' that by your stake. So if he wins, that's twenty points to you, twenty times one, twenty quid in the pocket. If you sell, and he wins, and remember you're selling at twenty-five, it's twenty-five minus fifty, and twenty-five times your stake, so you lose twenty-five pounds. It's complicated, and it's not for the faint-hearted.