Spread betting

[Cons]

Alec, absolutely correct. A deposit account is required. The best thing you can do is actually open up a bank account here and get a Switch card. Then you can spread bet straight from this bank account instead of depositing money at a particular spread firm.

This gives you many advantages. First of all, you can then play with several spread firms, all from one central bank account.

Secondly, you can play with all the British sportsbooks from this account. Places like BlueSq, Ladbrokes, Sportingbet, Victor Chandler, Totalbet, etc.

That is probably the only reasonable way to do it. The Switch card opens up doors. About odds being available on teletext, it's not so much on Sky Sports, but on regular tv. More people have a tv than an internet connection, so all odds are on teletext (channel 4). If you get Sky Digital you also get all the domestic British channels. Places like Spreadex or William Hill will only post on teletext, while the others will do both. But overall the teletext service seems to be more reliable. Quite often I get odds from teletext that aren't even on the web site. Strange, but true!

[This message has been edited by Cons (edited 05-03-2000).]

[alec]

Cons,
Thank you for your help.

[AussieVamp2]

Cons,

So is teletext standard on most English tvs?

It is something that never caught on here, although you can get it.

[alec]

AussieVamp2,
I believe teletext is a standard feature of the most of TV channels in Europe. And you can watch teletext on the majority of TV sets.
A lot of books post their lines on different teletext pages, and sometimes it is more convenient to watch their lines there, than on Internet, especially when line is being changed in running.
Cons has already said about British channels. I can add that CNN's teletext has some books on it. For example Tipsport, and I guess Intertops.
Somehow in the US I have never heard about teletext at all.

[Cons]

Alec is right. Teletext is standard on all but the cheapest of boxes here. Price updates are faster (maybe cause they've been using this system for so many years), and overall the odds service seems to be much more reliable.

I had no idea though that CNN carried Intertops and Tipsport. Maybe someone knows of a web site where all the sportsbook teletext pages are listed?