When numbers get sexy

When it comes to enjoying a flutter, some wagers are sexier than others. Cheering your horse over the line on ladies’ day is a heck of a lot more of a buzz than watching the lottery balls bounce about on a Saturday night – that’s not what Saturday nights are for after all!

Winning is always a blast, and winning big is a dream come true, but most of the time watching your money slip away tends towards the other end of the emotional spectrum. If your horse in the Grand National falls at the first you don’t get a great deal of excitement for your money – it can for a decidedly dispiriting use of your hard earned cash.

But there is another way. It doesn’t need you to be a sports fanatic either.

Financial spread betting (FSB) is a way to sample the intense drama that city traders enjoy on the stock exchange, but in a way that is affordable and easily accessible. What is more FSB is not only guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat it can turn a handsome profit as well. It is possible to turn a modest stake into a stash of cash in the blink of an eye. But the excitement doesn’t end there.

FSB providers routinely offer a desktop console that looks pretty much the same as a real dealing screen. You are immediately cast in the role of a city trader, buying and selling stocks and shares as the numbers spin across the screens. It is strangely gripping.

FSB is more sophisticated than a simple one-off bet. Your stake is tied to the market so the more it moves the more you win – or if you’ve got your sums wrong, the more you lose. It means your bet is almost a living, dynamic thing! Minute to minute, moment by moment, the market twitches and turns and that is instantly reflected in the return – or the cost of your bet.

You get to decide when to cash in or cash out so it’s almost impossible to take your eye off the screen – and when things move in your favour the returns can be spectacular. The way it works is that your stake is, in effect a marker. You bet which way you think a stock or a commodity is going to move and for every point that it moves in your favour you win your stake – so if you’ve staked a pound and the market rises ten points then you will win ten pounds.

The excitement is doubled because that same formula can work against you if you get it wrong – so for a one pound stake that ten point swing can start to get painful pretty quickly.

If you work in an industry that is represented in the world’s stock markets then the likelihood is that you’ll have precisely the sort of insight that professional market traders dream of. There are thousands of different markets around the world, so you’re not limited to what’s happening in the UK, and because it’s global there is no restriction on when you can play. There are even smartphone apps that allow you to play on the go.

Tradefair is one of a suite of providers who offer detailed instructional facilities including a demo app that allows you to learn for free. Even if you only play the demo version you will never see the FTSE or the price of the pound in the same way again. Watching your screen flip from red to green and seeing your winnings climbing higher and higher is a dizzying experience.

It’s certainly a lot more sexy than watching those lottery balls bounce around!