Financial betting falls into two areas. Traditional bookmaker bets on the FTSE, stockmarkets etc. and spread betting on finance markets including indices, shares, bonds and commodities.

Blue Square offer odds on the level of the FTSE and Dow Jones at the end of the days trading or the value at the end of year. New at Ladbrokes is the opportunity to bet on changing FTSE values every 5 minutes, every hour and every day.

For those punters wanting to try other markets, Paddy Power will accept bets on the ISEQ Index (Ireland), DAX Index (Germany) and the CAC 40 Index (France). Details of these markets can be found under the 'novelties' section of the Paddy Power sportsbook.

Finance Spread Betting

Spread betting is perhaps the most popular and potentially lucrative for financial markets. If you're new to spread betting or financial spread betting then Capital Spreads offers a very informative beginner's guide and you can also try spread betting for free. Free players get a virtual balance of £10,000 and the trading mirrors the live environment in every way other than you're not playing with real money! Remember spread betting does carry high risk so you should only bet with money you can afford to lose!