Many spread betting brokers used to offer highly attractive spread betting account offers to new traders, as well as incentives for those who introduce new members to their platforms. Due to the highly competitive nature of the industry, many of the most popular brokers have in the past taken to introducing cash incentives and ‘free money’ cash-back to traders who sign up to new accounts. The best of such bonus and cashback offers used to have minimal conditions attached to using the funds, and most of these only required a minimum number of transactions or trade values in order to be able to be eligible to receive this. Many traders have taken advantage of such offers and brokers are now much tighter with their offers.
However, new regulations from the Financial Conduct Authority has made it illegal for spread betting providers to give a bonus for people who sign-up for the service.
To be honest I don’t particularly like spread betting account offers and bonuses. I think they are just a bribe and a dangerous one for that – you can’t rely on an account offer to make a profit. In practice you should be seeking other things from your broker like good execution, tight spreads, competitive margins and safety of your funds above everything else. For instance, what’s the use of a bonus if you can’t withdraw it or the trading platform is crap?
Of the many spread betting brokers available to new traders the best ones now include education programmes and online tutorials – and to some extent these are slowly replacing the free money bonuses that most providers offered in the past.
A more common approach to spread betting account offers are those which will entice new and experienced traders to register with offers of a fixed sum of cash for trading purposes. For traders who already know how to spread bet profitably this can be a risk-free trading opportunity in itself. Similarly, for those who are new and want to learn with real-time market prices and real money this option offers some room for manoeuvre in their early trades.
The choice of spread betting account offers varies and it depends on what an individual trader is looking for. Those with more experience may prefer to disregard the educational incentives for a cash-back offer, whilst new traders may prefer the benefits of these. These are certainly the best way for traders to test new strategies in real market conditions. Spreads are also generally low amongst the large brokers and signing up to spread betting account offers provides a good opportunity for traders to get started as well as develop strategies which may already be profitable. Spread trading account offers may also allow you to keep earning with incentives that include cash for introducing new account holders.
