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UK SPREAD BETTING OPTIONS - The Best Spread Betting UK Quotes On-line

About Spread Betting UK

Spread Betting in the UK is now almost thirty years old. It was originally developed by a firm called City Index as a sideline to their main business of trading on the financial markets. City had developed indices for shares, government bonds, commodities and currencies as tools to assist their clients to manage risk. Sometime during the mid-1970s, they realised the same techniques could be applied to sporting events.

Since City Index initiated spread betting on sports in the early 1980s, other firms have followed them into the market. The second firm to commence operations was IG Index, which, like City, was originally established to offer speculators a means by which they could take positions on financial markets, and only later diversified into sports betting. A third firm, Sporting Index, was set up in the early 1990s exclusively to offer spreads on sports.

Advantages of Spread Betting:

no betting duty to pay
no capital outlay or commissions
no capital gains tax on profits, under current legislation

Disadvantages of Spread Betting:

The maximum loss that is possible from a spread bet is potentially very large.
Any losses made on a financial spread bet cannot be offset against capital gains on ordinary investments.
Financial spread betting is not suitable for long term investment, since extra cost is incurred when a spread bet is "rolled over" to a new expiry date.
There is a small "counter-party" risk associated with spread betting - your ability to collect profits depends on the finance health of the bookmaker.
It's not just a question of backing winners. You can back a team, a horse, a player, or even a financial market to do well or badly. The range of possible bets is far broader than with fixed odds betting. Suddenly, even a dull nil-nil draw can become interesting if you have gone short on total goals and, since you can continue to trade throughout the action, the excitement continues.