Spread betting

There are many reasons to spread bet with us, including:

• Powerful platforms: Choose from a range of leading platforms, including our award-winning, proprietary web-based platform and mobile app. We also offer MetaTrader 4 and TradingView. 

• Competitive costs: We offer competitive and reliable pricing, with tight spreads across our product range, from 0.5 pips on EUR/USD, 1 point on major indices, and 0.2 points on Gold. Margin rates start from 3.34% for forex, 5% for indices and commodities, and 20% for shares and ETFs.

• Dedicated client service: Our dedicated customer service team is available to provide comprehensive support whenever the markets are open, from Sunday night through to Friday night.

• An award-winning provider: We're proud of our continued recognition and focus on providing our clients with the best possible spread betting experience. Testament to this, we've received several awards over the years for our trading platform, service and education offering – view our recent awards below.

Recent awards include: No.1 for Commissions & Fees & No.1 Most Currency Pairs, ForexBrokers.com Awards 2025; Best-in-class for Overall Excellence, Mobile Trading App, Platform & Tools, Research; ForexBrokers.com Awards 2025; Best Mobile Trading Platform, ADVFN International Financial Awards 2024; Best Forex Broker, Good Money Guide Awards 2023; Best In-House Analysts, Professional Trader Awards 2023.

Spread betting and CFD trading are both margined products that allow you to take a view on a particular financial market. They can provide similar economic benefits to investing directly in the underlying markets, for example when you might purchase shares in a listed company, or buy physical gold.

There are many similarities between the two products, although CFDs are treated differently for taxation. View our article on spread betting vs CFD trading to learn about the similarities and differences between these two popular forms of trading on the financial markets.

Trading derivatives on shares differs from the traditional investment approach of buying and owning shares. For one thing, you don't own the shares when spread betting, you're just taking a view on which direction the share price will move. Spread betting profits are also tax-free, and there's no stamp duty to pay, unlike traditional investing.

Another key difference is that you can utilise leverage, which means you only need to put up a set percentage of the full value of the trade, with an initial deposit, known as margin. This increases your exposure, and means that any profit or loss you make is magnified, relative to the share's price fluctuations

A key benefit of spread betting is that it's exempt from both capital gains tax and stamp duty. When compared with conventional share trading and CFD trading, it's the only trading product to offer tax-free trading in the UK and Ireland. Tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in the future.

Learn about spread betting with our beginners' guide. Find out what spread betting is and how it works, view our examples, and see our video introduction to spread betting.

All financial trading involves an element of risk, because it's unrealistic to expect all your trades to turn out favourably. The markets can also be unpredictable, and at times highly volatile, which can lead to market gapping, or slippage. However, it's important to note that you can't lose more than your account value as a retail trader, thanks to negative balance protection. Additionally, there are measures you can take to manage your risk.

For example, it's important to have a robust trading plan, with each trade only risking a small percentage of your overall capital. You can also practise trading with our demo account, using virtual funds. Find out if your ideas and strategies work in a test environment, before trading for real.

The main cost to be aware of in spread betting is the spread cost, which is the difference between the sell and buy price of the instrument that you're speculating on. The lower the spread, the lower the spread cost.

Another cost you may pay is an overnight holding cost, which is applied when a 'cash' position is held open past 5pm (EST) or 10pm (UK time).

There are other potential costs that you may incur, such as a fee for using a guaranteed stop-loss order, which guarantees to close your position at the level you've chosen, regardless of market volatility. If the GLSO isn't triggered, the GLSO cost is refunded.

Learn more about our trading costs.

The minimum stake size for spread bets can be as low as 1p per point, depending on the instrument. To find the minimum stake size for a given instrument, enter a 0 into the order ticket.

A spread bet is based on the movement of the last large number within the price shown in the order ticket. Every movement of that number represents one point movement and one multiple of your stake.

Spread betting share prices change when we add the spread, so the price isn't derived directly from the market, whereas CFD share prices are derived directly, and therefore may incur a fee.