Sports Spread Betting Most Popular Spread Bets

Spread betting first originated into view in the mid-1970s, when a British sports bookmaker introduced this high-risk high reward form of sports spread betting. Today the sports spread betting industry has surged in popularity and expanded into financials to the extent that there are more than 500,000 active spread betters in Britain alone!

Among the most popular sports spread bets offered by most companies is 'crosscourts'. This multiplies the winner's and loser's score in each set (so 63 is 18 points) then adds the totals to reach a final number. This can be very volatile, particularly with the possibility of five sets and an 1816 final set.

When the British Open golf is played at Birkdale in June, those fast moving number driven tennis bets have their counterpart in three hole specials offered by Sporting Index. If a player goes 434 that's 48 points. If he goes 768 it is 336, so you get the sort of volatility spread betters love. There is also a healthy demand for Catastrophe Specials - a points index for high scores at the most fearsome holes. The most popular bets are usually those matching up the day's pairings, and on players' overall finishing position. The search for volatility makes unpredictable players such as John Daly popular but you always have alternative possibilities like the the Australian Nick O'Hern who rarely wins, but consistently finishes well up. Sports spread bettors who bet on him know they're getting four days of trying.

There are also a fair number of loyal sports punters who are happy to back their own teams and claim to get double the pleasure when they win and don't mind double the pain when they lose.

Supremacy, based on the margin of victory, remains one of the most popular bets along with the total number of goals. Also, when two English teams meet in the Champions League, the total goals spread is likely to be as much as a goal lower than the same fixture in the Premiership.

The Chelsea-Liverpool semi-finals last year traded at around two. Even so, football's unpredictability and the scarcity of goals make for market volatility. In one football case Arsenal managed a 5-2 win and a 0-0 draw in consecutive matches against Turkish club Fenerbahce. Football is now such a well-developed market - Sporting Index will offer more than 100 different bets on any live televised match - that there are only a limited number of new offers.

For those who enjoy a bet that can last an entire season, there are indexes based on how teams will do in the tournament. Spreadex's index gives 100 points for winning the Champions League, 75 for reaching the final, 50 for the semis, 25 for the last eight and 10 for the final 16. In mid-November, Chelsea and Manchester United were trading at 43 to 46, meaning they would show a small profit as semi-finalists, with Barcelona at 41 to 44 and Liverpool and Arsenal in the low to mid-30s - but both still ahead of Real Madrid at 28 to 31.

More information is available at my sports spread betting guide, a UK website which specialises in offering guides and information on spreadbetting.