If you’re an affiliate focusing on any kind of sport, you will need no introduction to traditional sports betting. But it has a relatively unknown cousin, which you might have heard of. It’s commonly referred to as spread betting.
Spread betting is similar to the form of wagering that most punters are common with in a few ways, but also has a variety of differences. And for you, as an affiliate, it poses a significant opportunity to increase your bottom line and attract a broader audience – without needing to radically overhaul your content strategy.
Does all of that sound interesting to you? Well you’ve come to the right place then, because that’s what we’re going to discuss in today’s article.
What is spread betting?
Unlike traditional sports bets, spread betting involves placing money on a broader range of outcomes than a single result. For example, you might bet on Liverpool to win a game by 1-3 goals – as opposed to guessing the correct score or just betting on them to win outright.
Because the odds are not fixed, the payout isn’t either. The closer you are to being right, the bigger your winnings are. On the flip side, a player’s losses will be larger if the range they bet on is farther from being correct. This means that they might lose more than what they staked, which is not the case with traditional betting.
What are the pros of spread betting for the player?
Every sports fan thinks they’re an expert and can correctly guess their team’s exact result each weekend. However, anybody who has had a flutter of this kind will know that the reality is quite different.
Andy Mackenzie is the Marketing Communications Manager for Spreadex, an operator offering markets for spread betting within both sports and forex. He explains why spread betting might be a wise choice for the average sports fan and how it’s actually not that difficult to understand.
“The biggest benefit of sports spread betting is that it allows you to be right without needing to be 100% correct. Rather than fixed-odds betting, which in most forms requires an exact, binary prediction, spread betting works on degrees of correctness – in other words, the more right you are, the more you are rewarded.
“Combine this with the sheer number of markets on offer – and the freedom that provides from a betting perspective – and it is clearly the preferred medium for the savvy punter. Take football, for example. Instead of just betting on the outcome of a match, you can bet on how many goals a team will win by. And while that may sound superficially like certain fixed odds markets, the key difference lies in the fact, unlike with fixed odds, you personally will win more the more your chosen team wins by.”
Mackenzie also explains how spread betting can be useful for matches where one team is heavy favourites. The form of wagering offers value where it might be harder to find within fixed odds markets.
“This also has the benefit of allowing you to still make money from a match, race or competition where the odds are overwhelmingly one-sided – something more difficult to do with fixed odds.”
What are the cons for the player?
Though it’s true that this kind of wagering offers the opportunity to win money in markets that would otherwise not be as profitable with traditional betting, coming out victorious is by no means guaranteed.
When you lose a bet in fixed-odds sports wagering, you only lose what you stake. In comparison, spread betting opens the possibility to losing more. For example, if you’re far away from what you guessed then you could lose three times what you staked – just as you might win three times the amount had you guessed right instead.
Why might spread betting be of interest to affiliates?
To drive traffic within spread sports betting, you don’t need to overhaul what you put out. You simply need to educate yourself on what spread betting is, then do the same with your current and target readers (as well as doing the necessary SEO practices and what not). You may still write about sports; just highlight how spread betting can provide punters with an opportunity to find better value in places they may never have otherwise looked.
Some affiliate programs also cover both fixed odds and spread sports betting, meaning that you can double your revenue streams without needing to partner with two different businesses. Moreover, it means that you can try out promoting spread betting risk-free – you know that the other option is tried and tested.
Wrapping things up
Spread betting could be a significant opportunity for affiliates to diversify their income streams and also generate more traffic to their website. If you’re already oriented around fixed-odds sports betting, then getting involved with spread betting affiliate marketing does not require reinventing the wheel.
All you need to do is make sure that you understand what spread betting is, then communicate the opportunities it poses for your players. You can achieve this through creating videos, social media posts, articles, online guides, or in any other way that you fancy.
When choosing an affiliate program, it would be wise to pick one which also offers fixed-odds. Then, you can keep everything in one place – with a familiar avenue enabling you to explore a possible new one.
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