Spread betting on sports is more or less the same as with any other form of spread betting. Spread betting on sports involve a bet on a team to win or lose where each point or score determines how much you win or lose. A simple example explains the underlying principles governing spread betting. Let's say that England is playing against Australia in a rugby match where England is the underdog. The spread is 10-6 which means that England can not lose by more than 6 pts before your bet on England begins to give you a profit. If you bet on Australia, Australia has to win by more than 10 pts. If England does the miracle and wins by 10 pts, your spread bet of £10 per point would give you a profit of (10+6) £160. If Australia win by 8 pts, then any bet on Australia loses 2 pts (a £10 per point would be a loss of £20 even when Australia won). This is how the spread betting firm makes their money as the name suggests. The spread is essentially equivalent to a casino's house edge, the commission of a betting exchange or stock broker or the slanted book of a bookmaker. The institution facilitating gambling always has a means of making money or otherwise they wouldn't exist for long.

As spread betting is not a fixed odds form of gambling, it is possible to make money. Remember that it is the spread betting firms profession to set the spreads so that they make money. In effect, they want people to bet either way and on an even book, they make huge sums of money. But if you have expertise in a particular sport, you can make serious money from those who know little but bet on their favourite teams. The spread betting firms attempt to achieve a balanced book where 50% of bets is on one team and 50% on the other as this maximises their profit whatever the outcome. For example, in a match where the home team is a huge underdog, the spread betting firm will ensure that the odds offered will tempt the home fans to bet which makes the odds on the favourites far more attractive. These are the games that you should focus on. If the outcome is 50/50, why not just flip a coin instead?