When the loss outruns the stake
Every other product on a betting slip has a floor: the worst outcome is losing what was staked. A spread position does not have that floor, and the reason is not a fee, a rule or a term — it is the arithmetic of choosing a number of pounds per point instead of an amount to risk.
The same market, six different endings
Take the goals index quoted 26–29, bought at 29, at £5 per point. The whole column on the right is the outcome of one decision and one formula.
| Match | Make-up (goals × 10) | Result at £5 per point |
|---|---|---|
| 0–0, careful game | 0 | (0 − 29) × £5 → −£145 |
| 1–0 | 10 | (10 − 29) × £5 → −£95 |
| 2–1 | 30 | (30 − 29) × £5 → +£5 |
| 3–2 | 50 | (50 − 29) × £5 → +£105 |
| 5–2 | 70 | (70 − 29) × £5 → +£205 |
| 7–3, a rout | 100 | (100 − 29) × £5 → +£355 |
Both tails are the same size in points and the same size in money. The table only looks alarming in the down column because a reader instinctively compares it to a stake — and there is no stake. The £145 loss on a goalless match is twenty-nine times the £5 per point, and the position that produced it could have been opened with a £50 deposit.
The comparison that makes it concrete
a spread position at £5 per point, bought at 29, index makes up at 10: −£95 = 19× that
the same, index makes up at 0: −£145 = 29× that
a bookings index at £5 per point bought at 50, three red cards → make-up 75:
(50 − 75) × £5 = −£125 = 25× the money per point, from three moments in a match
a season index at £20 per point bought at 260, settled 190: (190 − 260) × £20 = −£1,400
Each line is one number multiplied by another. That is the whole mechanism, and it is why the only honest way to describe the risk is not “you can lose more than you expect” but “your loss is proportional to a movement you do not control, and the deposit you were asked for does not bound it”.
Why the index can jump rather than drift
On a share price, an adverse move is usually a sequence of smaller moves and a reader has time to react. A sports index is built from events that arrive all at once.
| Event | Effect on the index it feeds | At £5 per point |
|---|---|---|
| A goal | +10 on the goals index; +10 × the scorer's shirt number on the shirt-number index | £50, or £500 for a number-10 scorer |
| A red card | +25 on the bookings index | £125 |
| Three quick corners | +9 on a corners index weighted at 3 | £45 |
| Minute 90 arriving with no goal | A first-goal-time index runs from 90 for the full match | Up to £450 on a sale at 0 at £5 per point |
None of those events is rare. A position is therefore exposed to a discontinuous move at every moment it is open, and the firm can suspend the market around the event, which removes the option of closing before the jump lands.
What stands between the position and that number
- The margin deposit A requirement set from the money per point, which the margin page sets out. It is a deposit, not a cap: when the mark consumes it, the firm calls for more or closes the position.
- Forced closure Closing early ends the accrual, but it does not undo the move that caused the call. A position closed at a 15-point adverse mark is a realised 15-point loss, whatever the make-up would have been.
- A deficit after closure If the loss at closure exceeds the deposit, the account can be left negative. What a firm does with a negative balance is contractual, not arithmetic.
The practical reading is uncomfortable and should be stated plainly: on this product the size of a position has to be chosen against the worst plausible make-up, not against the deposit, and there is no staking pattern that removes the tail — it only changes which tail a reader meets.
This page explains why the loss is unbounded; it does not offer a method for avoiding that, and nothing on this site recommends a money per point, a market or a moment. Never commit money you cannot afford to lose, never borrow to hold a position, never add to a losing position in order to recover it, and never treat a deposit requirement as a limit on what the position can cost. If any of that is unclear, the honest conclusion is that this product is not suitable.
The link below is the disclosed sponsored link, and it is the only commercial element on this page. Nothing here recommends an operator, and no operator removes the arithmetic this page describes: a position that loses more than the deposit loses more than the deposit wherever it is held.
Open the partner account