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

• 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. Discover our trading platforms

• Competitive costs: we offer competitive and reliable pricing, with tight spreads across our product range, from 0.0 pips on six major pairs with our FX Active account, or 0.5 pips with our standard account, 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. View our trading costs

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

• Award-winning pedigree: we're proud to have received many awards over the years, in recognition of our trading platform, products, overall service and educational offering. Recent awards include: Best Broker for Active Traders, Professional Trader Awards 2025; Best Mobile Trading Platform and Best Spread Betting & CFD Education Tools, ADVFN International Financial Awards 2025; 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, and Research, ForexBrokers.com Awards 2025.

Spread betting and CFD trading are leveraged products that allow you to take a view on a huge number of financial markets. 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 physical gold.

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

Spread betting 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; instead, you're taking a view on which direction the share price will move. Any profits you make when spread betting are 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, but also means that any profit or loss you make is magnified, relative to the share's price fluctuations. Find more about spread betting

A key benefit of spread betting is that it's exempt from both capital gains tax on profits, and stamp duty.

In contrast, profits from both conventional share investing and CFD trading are taxable. When buying shares in the underlying market, stamp duty is also payable, while with CFD trading there's no stamp duty to pay.

Why not start with our introduction to spread betting guide? Find out what spread betting is, how it works, and view our short video.

All financial trading and investing involves an element of risk, no matter how robust your trading strategy. Financial markets can be unpredictable and volatile. This means that your trade could go against you, so it's important to manage your risk carefully. As part of a trading plan, you should only risk a small percentage of your overall capital with each trade.

Highly volatile markets can lead to market gapping, or slippage, where prices suddenly gap. However, you can guard against this by adding a guaranteed stop-loss order (GSLO) to your trade. There is a cost for using a GSLO, but it's refunded in full if it's not triggered while your position remains open.

It's also important to note that you can't lose more than your account value as a retail trader, because your account is covered by negative balance protection.

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.