World Cup Qualifier, Saturday, 5.15pm, bet here

You may not have much luck watching England’s World Cup Qualifier on Saturday, but our friends at Sporting Index would like to help you make some money from it…

Save for last-minute injuries, Fabio Capello is expected to field a full-strength side against Ukraine, giving spread bettors and armchair fans – not to mention Croatia manager Slaven Bilic – the hope of seeing a competitive game in England’s penultimate World Cup Qualifier. Although effectively a dead-rubber for the visitors, the partisan home following will ensure a lively encounter at the 31,000-capacity Dnipro Arena, in the country’s third-largest city, Dnipropetrovsk. The newly built stadium may not have the tradition of Ukraine’s regular home, the Olympic Stadium in Kiev – which fits over 80,000 and is currently being renovated to host the 2012 European Championships final – but it is sure to provide an intimidating atmosphere for the Three Lions’ first trip to the country, and a new challenge for Sporting Index’s football spread punters.

Buyers of England’s win index spread

Some expert spread betting info from Sporting Index

The Sporting Index traders have priced up the outright Champions League win index and have installed the two big Spanish sides as the favourites. The current champions, Barcelona, did spread bettors a big favour last season, comfortably winning La Liga, as well as producing an assured performance to beat Manchester United in the final in Rome. Their spread, before a ball has been kicked, is set at 42-45 (100 points for the winner, 75 for runner-up, 50 for losing semi-finalist, 25 for losing quarter-finalist and 10 for last 16) and they will be many people’s idea of the winner again this time around.

However, their arch rivals Real Madrid will also carry a lot of spread bettors’ cash after getting through a shed-load of the stuff this summer to bring in the likes of Ronaldo, Kaka, Benzema and Alonso. Manuel Pelligrini’s side are next best in the index with a 38-41 point spread, but the problem for those who fancy either of these sides on the spreads is that no individual country has won back-to-back competitions for 20 years. Milan were the last club (and Italy the last country) to win it two years in a row back in 1990, so spread sellers of the big Spanish two have some reason for optimism.

A spread bottors guide to the weekend’s big Premiership games

After an international-induced hiatus, England’s top tier returns with some standout games for spread punters to look forward to. As Tottenham host Manchester United and Arsenal make the opposite journey to face Manchester City at Eastlands, one side from each game goes into the weekend with a 100 per cent winning start – but probably not the two teams that most of us would have anticipated at the start of the campaign. Yet the most hotly-contested game of the weekend will surely happen at St Andrews, where Birmingham look to win their first Midlands derby since 2005.

For the benefit of those who wish to make a pretty penny from these clashes, our friends at Sporting Index have kindly provided betting match previews…

Tottenham/ Manchester Utd
(Sat, 5.30pm, ESPN)
Spread punters will be aware that The Red Devils have the upper hand over Spurs, having lost to them just once since the turn of the century. This defeat came 20 games ago at White Hart Lane in May 2001, when United had already long-since been crowned champions.

Spurs fans are used to a never-ending cycle of promising and hope-fuelled pre-seasons followed by disappointment when it comes to the real thing, but after their best-ever Premier League start,

All the cool kids are doing it, why not join them?

We’re more than partial to spicing up a neutral game with a punt, and have found that one of the best ways of doing this is via the fine art of spread betting. It’s not nearly as complicated as it looks on the surface, and in it’s simplest form it is simply a game of higher or lower - a bit like Bruce Forsyth’s Play Your Cards Right, but without the old man, over-sized playing cards and impossibly attractive hostesses.

The Spoiler wanted to let you all know a little bit more about spread betting, and to give you a reason to click on all our wonderful ad banners (HINT!), so we asked our friends at Sporting Index to explain a little bit more about it…

How to spread bet

The first thing a spread betting punter must consider before betting on any event is where the ‘spread’ is pitched. The ‘spread’ is the range that covers the point at which a punter can bet lower (sell) to that at which he can bet higher (buy). Here’s a simple example of how spread betting works…

A man can see a field in the distance and asks the farmer how many sheep are in the field. The farmer isn’t sure, but guesses somewhere between 52-55 sheep. This is the spread and the man must decide whether he thinks the farmer has pitched his prediction too low or too high. He decides that there must be more than 55 so buys (bets higher) at that figure.