Our Top Picks

Our team has collected  come of the best UK forex brokers for spread betting. Several factors were taken into consideration in order to ensure you the best list of spread betting brokers.

  • If the broker was FCA regulated
  • The platforms of the brokers available for spread betting
  • The minimum deposit to start spread bet with the broker
  • The assets you can spread bet on with the broker
  • The minimum spread on forex charged by the broker
  • The maximum leverage on forex of the broker
  • The minimum bet accepted by the broker when available
Table of Content

Review

  • IG Markets provides spread betting to their UK and Irish clients under their FCA.
  • IG has won several awards for their spread betting service.
  • Spread betting with IG is available via the MT4 platform, proprietary webtrader, mobile apps.
  • IG Spread Betting app is available for both iOS and Android.
  • IG Markets spread betting is available on 17,000 CFD assets, including forex, indices, shares, commodities.
  • The IG minimum deposit is £300 for spread betting traders.
  • IG spreads start from 0.6 pips on forex with a maximum leverage up to 30:1 (retail) and up to 222:1 (professional).
69% of retail CFD accounts lose money
  • Spread betting is provided by AvaTrade to their UK and Irish traders under the FCA.
  • Spread betting is enabled via the AvaTrade MT4 platform.
  • An AvaTrade minimum deposit of £100 is needed for a spread betting client to start.
  • Spread betting with AvaTrade is available on 200+ assets, including forex, stocks, indices, commodities trading, and ETFs.
  • AvaTrade charges fixed spreads from 0.9 pips on forex with a maximum leverage up to 30:1 (retail) and up to 400:1 (professional).
  • The AvaTrade minimum bet is 0.10 per point.
76% of retail investor accounts lose money
  • Pepperstone has FCA regulation in place allowing UK and Irish clients to spread bet.
  • Spread betting with Pepperstone is available on the MT4, MT5, and cTrader platforms.
  • No minimum deposit is needed to start spread betting, though the broker recommends £200.
  • Pepperstone provides 150 instruments to spread bet on including forex, indices, commodities, shares, ETFs.
  • The Pepperstone spreads start from 0 pips with a maximum leverage up to 30:1 for retail clients and up to 500:1 for professional clients.
  • The Pepperstone minimum bet accepted by the broker is £0.20.
74-89% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs
  • FxPro is FCA regulated and provides spread betting to their UK and Irish traders.
  • You can engage in Spread Betting with the FxPro EDGE Spread betting platform.
  • The minimum deposit to open a FxPro account and start spread betting is £100.
  • Spread betting with FxPro can be done on 100+ instruments including forex, shares, indices, metals, and energies.
  • FxPro spreads start from 0 pips on forex depending on the platform with a leverage of up to 30:1 for retail traders and up to 200:1 for professional traders.
72.87% of retail investor accounts lose money
  • Capital.com is regulated by the FCA and enables spread betting under that entity for UK and Irish clients.
  • FCA clients can spread bet on the broker’s Proprietary platform.
  • £20 is the minimum deposit to start spread betting with an Capital.com account.
  • The spread betting service is available on 1000+ Capital.com assets, including forex, indices and more
  • While spread betting, Capital.com raders have access to tight preads with leverage up to 30:1.
84% of retail CFD accounts lose money
  • Oanda is FCA regulated and offers spread betting to their UK and Irish traders.
  • You can spread bet with the Oanda MT4 platform.
  • Oanda offers a spread betting sub-account with 100+ assets, including forex, indices, bonds, commodities, and metals.
  • Oanda does not require a minimum deposit to open a spread betting account.
  • Oanda spreads on forex start from 0.8 pips, with maximum leverage is up to 30:1 (retail) and up to 100:1 for professionals on forex.
CFDs are not available to residents in the United States
  • Spread betting is offered to ActivTrades UK and Irish traders under FCA regulation.
  • Spread betting is available via the ActivTrades MT4, MT5, and ActivTrader platforms.
  • No minimum deposit is needed to start using an ActivTrades account.
  • ActivTrades provides 500+ assets to spread bet on, including forex, shares, indices, and commodities.
  • ActivTrades under FCA while spread betting find spreads from 0.5 pips with leverage up to 30:1 (retail) and 400:1 (professional).
  • ActivTrades UK clients can start engaging in spread betting trading with a minimum stake of 10p per point.
75.7% of retail CFD accounts lose money
  • City Index provides spread betting under the FCA regulation for UK and Irish clients.
  • City Index has won the Best Spread Betting Provider award in 2019.
  • The platforms where City Index allows spread betting are the Webtrader and the MT4 platforms.
  • The City Index minimum deposit is £100 for Spread betting traders.
  • City Index offers 8,000+ markets, including forex, indices, shares, commodities, metals, and bonds.
  • The City Index minimum bet is £10.
  • UK and Irish clients will find City Index spreads start from 0.5 pips on forex with a max. leverage up to 30:1 (retail) and up to 500:1 (professional).
70% of retail CFD accounts lose money
  • LCG offers spread betting for Irish and UK clients under FCA
  • The LCG platforms available for spread betting traders are the LCG Trader and MT4 platforms.
  • LCG clients need to make a £100 minimum deposit to start spread betting.
  • Spread betting is available across 7,000+ LCG assets, including forex, metals, indices, shares, bonds, commodities, and ETFs.
  • Spread betting with LCG comes with spreads from 0.8 pips with a maximum retail leverage of 30:1 and maximum professional leverage of 500:1.
76% of retail investor accounts lose money
  • Markets.com offers spread betting under its FCA entity to UK and Irish traders.
  • Markets.com clients can engage in spread betting via the marketsx platform, as well as MT4 and MT5.
  • Markets.com clients can start spread betting with a minimum deposit of £100.
  • Markets.com has more than 220 assets available for spread betting , including forex, indices, shares, ETFs, and commodities.
  • FCA clients can find spreads on 0.6 pips with maximum leverage is up to 30:1 (retail) and up to 300:1 (professional).
79,90% of retail investor accounts lose money

What is Spread Betting exactly?

Financial Spread betting is betting on the spread of a market and how it is going to move. So, given that you are betting on the spread, your investment is not on the actual asset at all. Instead, the value of your money will rise and fall based on your predictions of the spread movement in that market.

Very simply, you are betting on the spread rising or falling. If you bet on the spread rising and it does, then you will make a profit and vice versa.

Which countries allow spread betting?

Spread betting, due to the perception that it is closer to gambling than investing, is not legal in every country. It is however permitted in the UK, Ireland, Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and some other countries.

With that said, you should always verify with the local regulator as well as with the spread betting company first.

Countries where spread betting is currently illegal include the US, some European countries, China, Japan, and Australia. In some Islamic countries too where gambling is illegal, spread betting is also considered to be illegal regardless of whether you have an Islamic trading account.

Why is spread betting illegal in so many countries?

What makes spread betting illegal in some countries is its very high-risk nature. This and the comparisons that some people make between spread betting and gambling all play a role in its legality within some countries.

To illustrate why many consider spread betting to be very high risk, let’s take a look at the following example. Here’s what would happen if your CFD investment loses 10 pips of value.

Losses with standard trading:

  • Let’s say you are not investing in Forex but rather in a CFD Stock worth $100.
  • If you invest $100 for buying it and it falls to $99.90 (10 pips), you lost only $0.10.

Losses with spread betting:

  • Let’s make the same example. However keep in mind that with spread betting you do not buy the whole asset, which is the $100 stock. In fact what happens is that you have to choose an amount of money to “bet”.
  • If you bet $1 on the rise when the stock is at $100, and it falls to $99,90, you actually lost $1 per every pip ($1 * 10pips = $10).
  • This means that if you would have bet $100, which was the actual value of the CFD stock, you would have lost $1,000.

These same high-risk losses can also lead to profits in other cases.

Forex Spread Betting: How to calculate earnings/losses

To help you calculate your earnings or losses when spread betting, let’s take a look at an example with the major forex currency pair EUR/USD.

Let’s presume that EUR/USD pricing is 1.0940/1.0941

With spread betting, when you bet $10 that the spread will rise, you’ll earn $10 for every pip (0.0001) increment above 1.0941. Let’s say you close the position to 1.0950, you’ve earned 9 pips, equivalent to $90.

But you should be careful because if the spread goes the other way around, you’ll lose a lot of money. In case of a -9pips loss, you’ll lose $90, and not just the $10 you bet in the first place.

In other words, you earn/lose 100% of the investment for every pip rise/fall. 5 pips, for example, equal a +/- 500% on the investment.

There are many spread betting sites where you can find tools and calculators to understand things easily.

Is spread betting worth it?

Spread betting first of all, like any other form of trading, is not without risk to your funds. Only you as a trader who is interested in spread betting can really make the final decision if it is for you or not.

If you are spread betting then you can potentially make big returns within a short period of time, though the all-or-nothing nature of the trading style also means that you could potentially make losses. The margin between significant gains and losses in spread betting is slim. This is something that makes it very exciting and does attract many traders.

However many others tend to avoid this type of account due to its purely speculative and risky nature, and that’s why they usually choose the best lowest spread forex brokers.

Spread betting alternatives

If spread betting has been deemed to be too risky, or even illegal in your country of trading, then you will not be able to engage in spread betting. There is still plenty of other trading types and potential you can engage in.

The recommendation would be to try some other derivative instruments trading. This means that futures, options, or CFDs trading could all be potentially good choices with the exception of the US where CFDs trading is also not permitted.

Check our listing of top forex brokers for more alternatives that may fit your trading needs.

How to choose a spread betting broker

When choosing the best spread betting broker for you, what you are doing is betting on the spread. For that reason, you should try to choose a broker that has the most competitive spreads and the lowest commission in place.

Taxes with spread betting

Spread betting is usually considered to be tax-free in the sense that you will not likely be charged any capital gains tax on earnings and profits you make. Similarly, there would be no rebate possibility in the case of losses.

With that said, it may depend on the country you are spread betting from, and it is always advisable to consult with a professional tax advisor on these matters.


filippo ucchino

About The Author

Filippo Ucchino
Co-Founder - CEO - Broker Expert
Filippo is the co-founder and CEO of InvestinGoal.com. He has 15 years of experience in the financial sector and forex in particular. He started his career as a forex trader in 2005 and then became interested in the whole fintech and crypto sector.
Over this time, he has developed an almost scientific approach to the analysis of brokers, their services, and offerings. In addition, he is an expert in Compliance and Security Policies for consumers protection in this sector.
With InvestinGoal, Filippo’s goal is to bring as much clarity as possible to help users navigate the world of online trading, forex, and cryptocurrencies.

Trading CFDs, FX, and cryptocurrencies involves a high degree of risk. All providers have a percentage of retail investor accounts that lose money when trading CFDs with their company. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money and whether you understand how CFDs, FX, and cryptocurrencies work. Cryptocurrencies can widely fluctuate in prices and are not appropriate for all investors. Trading cryptocurrencies is not supervised by any EU regulatory framework. Your capital is at risk. The present page is intended for teaching purposes only. It shall not be intended as operational advice for investments, nor as an invitation to public savings raising. Any real or simulated result shall represent no warranty as to possible future performances. The speculative activity in forex market, as well as in other markets, implies considerable economic risks; anyone who carries out speculative activity does it on its own responsibility.
ADVERTISER DISCLOSURE: InvestinGoal is completely free to use for all. Though we may receive a commission from brokers we feature, this does not impact the results of our reviews or rankings which are conducted with complete independence and objectivity, following our own impartial methodology. Help us continue to provide the best free broker reviews by opening your account with our links. Please read our Advertiser Disclosure to learn more.
2FC Financial Srl
Via Filippo Argelati, 10,
Milan, Italy
20143

VAT No. IT10004450960
Copyright © 2024 InvestinGoal.com – All rights reserved. / Privacy and Cookie Policy / Basic Terms of Use / Risk Warning / Sitemap