The new Aviva Premiership season began with a bang at the weekend as defending champions Northampton Saints demolished Gloucester 53-6, Exeter smashed new boys London Welsh 52-0 and Saracens and Leicester both saw more than 50 points scored in total in their games.

The action produced volatile conditions perfect for spread betting on rugby, so just how do punters tackle the spreads when it comes to their rugby union bets?

The beauty with spread betting on rugby is the variety of in-play options available. While fixed odds betting can offer Match Odds, Handicaps, 1st Tryscorer, Winning Margin bands and Over/Under selections for total points and total tries, the spreads offer arguably a wider range of markets.

However it’s important to remember that with spread betting, unlike fixed odds betting, you can lose more than your initial stake should your bet go against you so it’s always wise to pitch your stake size according to the market you are betting on.

The spread betting equivalent to fixed odds Match Odds is the Points Supremacy market where the spread betting companies put out a predicted winning margin in points of one team over the other. Punters can then either buy or sell on the spread if they disagree with the prediction.

For example, the London Welsh v Exeter Points Supremacy quote pre kick-off with Spreadex was Exeter/London Welsh (h) 3 – 6. This means the Spreadex traders expected Exeter to win by between three and six points.

As it turns out, Exeter ran away with the match in a 52-0 win meaning the market made up at 52 resulting in profits of 46 times their stake for buyers at 6 (52 – 6). Those that got with London Welsh and sold at three would have lost 49 times their stake (3 - 52) unless they had closed out in-play to cut their losses.

Total Points is another of the more popular spread betting markets where again punters can buy or sell on the spread betting firm’s predicted number of points to be scored in the match. For Northampton Saints’ 53-6 win over Gloucester, the Spreadex pre-match quote was 38-41.

With this market making up at 59 in the end, buyers at 41 could have made 18 times their stake (59 – 41) while sellers at 38 were again left feeling pain, losing 21 times their stake (38 – 59), unless they had wisely closed out of their bet early on to limit their losses. Punters can also bet on individual Team Points as well as Total Points.

When it comes to betting on tries, the spreads come into their own. Punters can buy or sell on the time of the first Match Try or time of 1st Team Try, the total number of tries, Tryscorers’ Shirts (shirt number of the scorers of all tries in a game, aggregated), Total Try Minutes (the minutes of each try scored in a game, aggregated) or Player Try Minutes (minutes a named player scores a try in a match, aggregated).

So to give examples of some of these markets from the weekend; Time of 1st Bath Try pre kick-off was 36 – 39 meaning sellers at 36 made 35 times their stake when Anthony Watson went over in the first minute against Sale Sharks, Tryscorers’ Shirts pre-match for Northampton v Gloucester was 51 – 55 meaning buyers at 55 made 56 times their stake when the market made up at 111 and David Strettle’s Player Try Minutes spread was 22 – 25 ahead of Saracens’ 34 – 28 win over Wasps meaning buyers at 25 made a huge 138 times their stake when his market settled at 163 after his three tries.

Match Performance offers spread betters the chance to have a bet on how action-packed or dull a game may be by offering a spread based on 10 points awarded per try, five points per successful kick, 10 points per red card and five points per yellow card. Or punters can choose to play the Team Mini Performance markets where the spread is based on one point awarded per point scored by the team with a 25 point bonus awarded for that team winning the game.

Looking at other markets, the Kicking Metres spread takes in the aggregate of the metres of successful kicks per team in a match, Bookings is a spread based on 10 points per yellow card and 25 per red (with a maximum of 35 points per player) while Hotshots covers a named group of players who are awarded 25 points per try they manage to score between them.

For some real volatility, the Team Multi-Points markets take some beating. These markets are formed by multiplying the points scored by a named team in the first half of a match by the points scored by the same team in the second half of a match.

So Northampton’s big weekend win at Franklin Gardens saw Northampton Multi-Points make-up at 696 after the Saints scored 24 points in the first half and 29 points in the second half meaning buyers at 204 pre-match made a whopping 492 times their stake. Sellers, however, were left counting the cost of the champions’ efficiency as they lost more than 500 times their initial stake.

When you consider there are many variations of all the above markets (such as Performance Supremacy or Front Five Try Minutes to name but a few) plus other selections such as 25-10-0 Handicap spreads or a range of binary markets, the spreads really do offer a breadth of betting opportunities.

Ahead of this weekend’s latest round of Aviva Premiership, Guinness Pro12, French Top 14 and Rugby Championship matches give Spreadex’s rugby union spread betting prices a try and see if you end up being a long-term conversion to the spreads!