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LetsCompareBets guide to spread betting and fixed odds betting

We want to help compare betting…..the clue is in our name! Lets Compare Bets brings our visitors a selection of guides to betting online. There is a lot of information on our site so you may like to bookmark LetsCompareBets.com (Control D). The editor of LetsCompareBets has provided a guide to various types of betting online.

spread betting guide

Spread Betting Explained

Spread betting is an innovative way to make online bets on sports to financial markets. Find our guide to spread betting with sports spread betting explained and financial spread betting explained. Most levels of experience are catered for.

fixed odds betting guide

Fixed Odds Betting Guide

Traditionally fixed odds betting has taken center stage. Online fixed odds betting has opened this past time to the mass market. Making it easier than ever to make sports fixed odds bets or financial fixed odds bets online. Browse the site to find various articles about sports fixed odds betting and financial fixed odds betting.

For further reading and more explanation of spread betting or fixed odds betting visit our parent site at LetsCompareBets.com. Most recent posts can be found below and to the right.

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Posted in: Sports Fixed Odds Betting.

The Cheltenham festival a 4/1 racing bonanza… not just the Gold Cup!

The Cheltenham Festival is here again. One of the most coveted four-day racing events in the UK horse racing calender. Between Tuesday March 16th and Friday March 19th some of the best National Hunt racing horses are showcased. An excellent prelude to the Grand National later in the year. National Hunt horses being those who go over jumps!

The Cheltenham Festival is high profile in the horse racing world and as you’d imagine it is very competitive. This can make it more challenging to choose the best runners to bet on. There are few ‘dead certs’ at the Festival. National Hunt races can be unpredictable and can really take their toll on the horses. On top of the gruelling jumps the horses also have to climb a steep hill at the end of the race which can really tire the horse out.

Cheltenham horse races get a lot of coverage on Channel 4 racing, about four races per day. At the Cheltenham Festival it is unusual for a horse to be odds-on in any of the races and you are guaranteed some bigger price winners.

Back any single winner with bet365 (link) at 4/1 or more on a UK or Irish race televised live on Channel 4 and you can have a free bet to the same stake on the next live Channel 4 race. If your free bet also wins at odds of 4/1 or more, you qualify for a free bet on the next live Channel 4 race. Keep backing those winners and bet365 will keep giving you free bets! There’s everything to gain with bet365’s best odds guaranteed policy; very helpful for finding value prices.

How to find Cheltenham Festival winners

Posted in: Horse Race Betting, Sports Online Betting.
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Spread betting goals, corners, and bookings

Goal Spread Betting rewards the bettor with open ended profits. Take a look at the video for a explanation of how a goal spread bet works.

Goal Spread Betting Explained

The sports spread betting company provides a goal prediction. A goal is worth a number of points. The number of points depends on who you choose to spread bet goals with. In this example, each goal is worth 10 points, and the prediction is a spread between 2.4 and 2.7 goals. In other words 2 or less goals and 3 or more goals.

Choose a stake to decide how much to bet per goal. The stake is divided by the number of points per goal. In the video the stake is £1 per point, so each goal is worth 10 pence.

The result of the goal spread bet is the amount per point X the difference between the prediction and the outcome. Here, 3 goals where scored. That’s 10 pence X .30 (the outcome was 3.0 goals and the upper end of the prediction is 2.7 goals) = 30 pence.

It is possible with some sports spread betting companies to start spread betting with a little as 1p per point with £30 free money to start or if you want a little more excitment bet more per point and get £200 free to kick off.

Corner Spread Betting Explained

The same method applies to spread betting corners. Video shows that it is practically the same, except that, each corner is worth 2 points. Stake £1 and that means 50 pence per point.

Bookings Spread Betting Explained

Here’s how it works for spread betting bookings. Yellow and red cards are worth points. In this example, a yellow is 10 points and a red is 25 points. The sports spread betting company makes a prediciton of how many cards will be issued each game. In this example the spread is between 60 and 64 points. Stake £1 per point and that means that each red card issued after 64 points is worth £25! Remember to check our your potential winnings and losses before you place your bet.

First Goal Spread Betting Explained

It is also possible to spread bet the time of the first goal, explained in this video.

Posted in: Football Spread Betting, Football betting.
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How does sports spread betting work?

Sports spread betting is not just a case of win or lose. Not like with a traditional betting bookmaker.

The rewards of spread betting can outweight those of normal fixed odds betting as we discussed in another post, about how a football goals spread bet can increase the reward by more than 3 times. This post explains the workings of a sports spread bet in more detail, something that wasn’t done in the previous post. Using football as an example first lets look at how sports spread betting differs from traditional betting.

Fixed odds betting. The price of the bet is set at the outset by the bookmaker. Winnings and loses are fixed. Win or lose, you know what’s what.

Spread betting. Winnings or loses depend on the difference between the end result and the sports spread betting company’s marker or prediction.

Most of the bets available with online betting bookmakers are mirrored by the sports spread betting company. Take the totals market for example; total goals, total corners, or total booking points etc. The words used are slightly different but essentially they are the same.

When an online betting bookmaker prices football totals markets they provide a marker. Betting enthusiasts place bets for more or less than the marker. The markers will resemble these; ‘2.5′ goals, ‘11′ corners, and ‘37 – 40′ booking points.

Sports spread betting companies do the same thing. However, the market is a spread. Each goal is worth 10 points, so a spread might look like this, ‘2.3 – 2.5′ goals. A corners spread might look like this, ‘10 – 11′ corners, and a booking points spread like this, ‘37 – 40′ booking points.

Participants get to choose between betting ‘over’ or ‘under’ the marker with fixed odds betting. With sports spread betting the bettor gets to ‘buy’ or ’sell’ the spread.

Sports spread betting explained

Posted in: Football Spread Betting, Football betting.
Tagged: ·

A goal bet with over three times the profit

Goal betting is a great way to increase the excitment of a football game. English football, and especially premiership football, over the years has become more and more of an attacking game.

In this post LetsCompareBets will compare a goal fixed odds bet to a goal spread bet. Spread betting is a great way to boost returns over traditional fixed odds betting.

The good thing about football goal betting is that goals produced by football matches can be predicted. First lets look at what makes up a football bet.

The event. A football game. Any league is good, in the UK or Europe.

The bookmaker makes a prediction. Normally Under or Over 2.5 goals. In other words 2 and below goals, or, 3 or more goals.

The sports betting fan (tha’ts right you and me). People invovled in the betting market.

As we have mentioned the bookmaker places a cut off and prices a bet with fixed odds. Like this,

10/11 – Under 2.5 goals
10/11 – Over 2.5 goals

Sports spread betting companies work in the same way; they invite the bettor to place an Under or Over bet. In stead of pricing the bet with fixed odds it is priced using a spread.

Goal spread betting Vs goal fixed odds betting

Posted in: Football Fixed Odds Betting, Football Spread Betting.
Tagged: · ·

Small stake spread betting companies

Small stake spread betting companies help beginners to financial spread betting learn the ropes. With any spread betting strategy it is good to start trading with real money as soon as possible. This helps instill the traits needed for successful financial spread trading. Begginers benefit from small stake spread betting because it removes some of the pressures with making losing trades.

Stake size is a important factor when it comes to choosing a spread betting company to start spread betting. A minimum stake spread betting comparison is difficult because spread betting companies can change the minimum stake requirements at any time.

A small stake enables a budding spread trader to commit less of their trading bank per trade. Commiting less money per trade risks less of the spread betting bank, and thus reduces the overall risk to the trader.

Each spread bet has to be covered by a margin. It is the margin that determines how much money is needed in the spread betting account to maintain a trade. Margin rates are set by the spread betting provider and are another important factor when choosing the correct provider.

Can you compare small stake spread betting companies?

Posted in: Financial Spread Betting.
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Go long term for profits…

“How do you go about making your betting pay?”

If there was just one area of betting that LetsCompareBets would recommend as being the one to concentrate on, then that area would surely be ante post betting – placing bets on events that take place weeks and months in the future.

Some backers have a strong aversion to any form of ante post betting
- feeling that they could end up losing money on a competitor that
withdraws from the event. Okay, that’s true – but we think that the
benefits of ante post punting far outweigh the drawbacks…

I think we’re all agreed – the main element in successful betting is
to get ‘good value’ prices – prices that are bigger than they should
be. Backers who continually get good value for their money
continually make money!

Getting that good value can be tough in day-to-day betting – the
bookmakers have all the current form at their fingertips, and
they’ve got the weight of public money to guide them in their
pricing.

But with ante post betting the backer has a real chance to get
great odds.

The bookies don’t always do their homework…

Antepost odds for long term profits

Posted in: Sports Arbitrage Betting, Sports Fixed Odds Betting.
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Six Nations Rugby 2010 tips

France have a great home side advantage this year. They play 3 ‘home’ games and just two ‘away’ games. The face two of the most dangerous Nations on home soil; Ireland and England.

Coupled with France’s recent form, beating current World Champs South Africa, and destroying Somoa, they are a good tip for tournament outright winner.

France do face one strong away team which is Wales. So a ‘no Grand Slam’ result also looks like a good tip as well.

Posted in: Six Nations Rugby, Sports Fixed Odds Betting.
Tagged: · ·

The secret of Six Nations rugby….

Bookmakers employ odds compilers to live, eat, sleep and drink sports so that they can predict with a good degree of certainty the probability of certain events happening. Win, lose, draw, goals, corners, trys, sets, and the list goes on… and on.

Now with certain sports the odds compilers are not prepared. One such sport is rugby. In particular Six Nations Rugby.

Why bookmakers are not prepared for the Rugby Six Nations betting season

Posted in: Six Nations Rugby, Sports Fixed Odds Betting.
Tagged: ·

Who would have thought that Betfair does it ‘better’ than the bookmakers

The information contain in this post has been sourced from a research paper carried out to investigageInter-market arbitrage in sports betting.

The authors wanted to investigate the route causes of arbitrage opportunities. They did so by conducting an experiment 5478 football games. They defined intra market sports arbitrage opportunity as a arbitrage conducted in a single market setting, for example, between traditional fixed odds bookmakers.

Previous studies have alluded to the fact that market makers such as traditional betting boomakers have become very efficient at forecasting football markets.

Learn about inter-market sports arbitrage betting on Betfair

Posted in: Arbitrage Betting, Sports Arbitrage Betting, Sports Fixed Odds Betting.
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