The bet with two prices
A fixed-odds bet is priced once, and the most you can lose is what you staked. A spread market is quoted twice — a price to buy and a price to sell — and you take a side in points, at a chosen amount of money for each point the market moves. That single change is what makes the arithmetic, and the risk, different from anything else on a betting slip.
Two prices, one market
Every market on this desk is quoted as a pair: a lower price you can sell at and a higher price you can buy at. The distance between them is the spread, and it is the first thing a position has to overcome. There is no order book and no counterparty queue — the firm quoting the pair is the party on the other side of your trade, so the two prices are set by the firm rather than discovered between participants.
From that one structure, everything else follows. A position starts behind, because buying means paying the higher price and selling means accepting the lower one. It is valued continuously, because the pair is re-quoted as the underlying events happen. And it can be closed at any time by trading the opposite side of the same pair, which is what makes the running profit and loss on the account meaningful before the event has ended.
You expect the number to finish above the quote
A buy is correct when the compiled index settles higher than the price you paid. The profit is the distance above your entry, in points, at your money per point. Being right by one point is not enough: you need the market to finish above the price you bought, which is already above the middle of the pair.
You expect the number to finish below the quote
A sell is correct when the index settles lower than the price you accepted, or when a time-based index simply runs on. Time-based markets are the clearest case: on a first-goal-time index, a seller gains every minute the goal does not arrive, with no event required at all.
The arithmetic of one position
Take an illustrative market of the shape firms quote: a total goals index defined as the number of goals in the match multiplied by ten, so a five-goal game makes up at 50. Suppose it is quoted 26–29 and you choose £2 per point.
profit = (50 − 29) × £2 = 21 × £2 = +£42
Sell at 26 · £2 per point · the match ends 0–0 → index 0
profit = (26 − 0) × £2 = 26 × £2 = +£52
Buy at 29 · £2 per point · the match ends 1–0 (one goal) → index 10
loss = (10 − 29) × £2 = −19 × £2 = −£38
Read the third line again. £2 is not a stake in the fixed-odds sense and it is not a cap: it is the money attached to each point of movement, and the first point that goes against the position has already cost more than the £2 itself. Working out what a position is worth while it is open, rather than only at the end, is the subject of the running profit and loss page.
What this desk is, and what it is not
These pages explain the mechanism: how the index under a market is compiled, what a position is worth before it settles, what the spread and any financing charge take out of it, what margin is and when it is called, how settlement produces a final number, and what happens when that number is far from the quote.
Buy · the higher price Sell · the lower price The compiled index The spread between them
Nothing on this desk predicts a match, prices a market, or explains how to trade a two-way price profitably. There are no tips, no systems, no staking plans and no rankings of firms, and none of this is investment or financial advice. Spread and index betting is a leveraged-style product: the loss on a position is not limited to the amount put up, and a firm can close a position before it settles. Read the risk page before anything else: when the loss outruns the stake.
The partner link below is a disclosed sponsored link and the only commercial element on this page. It does not recommend a firm, a market or a position, and nothing on this desk claims that any product is available or lawful where you are.
Open the partner accountWhere to go next
- Buying and selling a price — the two sides, the stake per point, and the break-even a position starts behind.
- What the index counts — how a compiled number is defined, weighted and settled.
- Running profit and loss — unrealised and realised, and why the mark uses the other side of the price.
- The spread and the financing — the two charges built into holding a position.
- Margin, calls and stops — the deposit that keeps a position open, and what a stop does not promise.
- When the loss outruns the stake — the case a fixed-odds bet cannot produce.