
Horse Racing, greyhounds and snooker specialist with thirty years experience of writing about sport across multiple platforms. A QPR and Snooker fan
This blog is not about the ever-increasing type of bets available but rather the most recent type of market, the Binary betting market.

Types Of Bet
Initially used on Forex markets ( Foreign Exchange Rates ) Binary betting has gradually found its way into the Spread Betting industry's armoury.

Best Sports Spread Betting Sites
Example 1
You are focused on a specific event and are making a prediction:
Will the Euro currency be above 1.17 at the close of business tonight?
By Hakan Dahlstrom, CC by 2.0, Wikimedia
If you are confident it will be above 1.17, place a YES bet.
If you believe it will not exceed 1.17, place a NO bet.
When your bet is correct, you will receive a fixed payout.
However, if your prediction is incorrect, you will lose your stake.
Example 2
The 3 markets below are all possibilities as the answer can only be YES or NO.
- WILL THE EPL WINNER COME FROM MANCHESTER?
- WILL THE EPL WINNER COME FROM LONDON?
- WILL CHELSEA FINISH ABOVE ARSENAL
The winnings will be fixed when you place the binary bet, so you know exactly how much you can win or lose.
The Binary markets present a good opportunity to get used to the principles of spreads without some of the inherent risks.
The binary markets often have short expiry times allowing you to place subsequent bets when that market has expired - such as the Euro Currency example above.
As with all forms of betting please gamble responsibly.

How to be Sensible and Gamble Responsibly (Examples)
How Does Binary Betting Differ From Other Spread Betting?
Spread betting brought something new to the table for certain events such as how many cards will be shown or how many corners will be taken.

Spread Betting Advice
The firm set a marker and the punter was required to bet on whether the result would be higher or lower than the range quoted.
If the result was outside that range the punter could win or lose an amount that was many times their stake in extreme cases and so a stop loss was included, limiting profits and losses under certain circumstances.
Some markets such as WHERE WILL A TEAM FINISH IN THE WORLD CUP are made on a graded scale which also meant the result would be finite and liabilities known in advance.
An example could be:
- 100 for 1st
- 50 for 2nd
- 25 for 3rd
- 10 for 4th
- 0 for outside the top four.
The punter's stake was based on probability with Spain maybe 30, Italy 15, and ‘ pot 4 ‘ teams at 1 or less.
The return was the graded score so if Spain won your return would be 100 and if runner up would be 50 representing a profit of 70 or 20 respectively.
For this exercise I am going to base the probability of the winner coming from Liverpool as 10%, Manchester 40% and London 50% as they are easy numbers with which to play.
In the example WILL THE WINNER COME FROM MANCHESTER, which can be seen as a 40% probability the various odds would be something like
Exchange: YES 2.50 ( 6/4 ) NO 1.67 ( 4/6 ).
Bookmaker: YES 2.38 ( 11/8 ) NO 1.57 ( 4/7 ). I am aware of that being 3 options but I shall only use one of them at a time.
They would translate into odds of 9/1, 6/4, and Evens ( 10.0 , 2.50, and 2.00 ) and would be the approximate exchange odds with bookies being slightly less due to the over-round.
Binary is an extension (maybe simplification is a better term) of the spread principle and whilst the odds available will be similar to what a bookmaker would offer in a match bet, they will be lower than the exchanges should the market be available.
The calculation is straightforward enough but an understanding of odds conversion comes in handy.
Binary is given a ‘spread'.
In this case, it maybe 36-40.
As would be the case in Spread Betting one may BUY at the higher figure or SELL at the lower figure.
You BUY if you think they will win and SELL if you don't.
In this instance if you BUY then you effectively stake 40 units, a stake of 40 would mean units of 1 and a stake of 1000 would mean units of 25.
If you lose , your return is 0 and if you win ( whether BUYING or SELLING ), your return is ALWAYS 100 units.
In the case of 40 units being staked this means a win of 60 units, odds of 6/4 ( 2.50 ).
Had you chosen to SELL then your stake is effectively 100-n where n is the lower figure of the range.
Here the stake would be 64 units ( 100-36 ) resulting in a loss of your stake or a return of 100 units, a profit of 36.
This can be converted to odds by dividing the profit by the stake so in this case 36/64 gives odds of between 4/7 and 8/15 ( actually 1.5625 ).
If we look at say a CHELSEA v ARSENAL market
The binary option would ask simply WILL CHELSEA FINISH ABOVE ARSENAL?
Whereas the traditional Spread Betting market would ask
WHERE WILL CHELSEA FINISH IN RELATION TO ARSENAL?
Instead of knowing one's profit or liability in advance, the profit or liability would be decided on the gap between them at the end of the season, which could result in winning or losing many times your initial stake.
