Sports Spread Betting Blog 23/08/2016: Manchester City v Steaua Bucharest, Champions League play-off, second leg

Manchester City’s 5-0 Champions League first leg, play-off drubbing of Steaua Bucharest last week saw some extreme spread betting make-ups.

So will it be the same again tonight when the Citizens surely complete the formalities of progression to the group stages?

Last week’s affair in Romania saw Total Goal Minutes settle at 270 (which would have been more had Sergio Aguero not missed two penalties), Match Performance make-up at 141 and Shirt Numbers end on 60.

Any spread betters who got on the right side of those markets (and unfortunately for Spreadex, most did) were left in the money while, of course, those who went the wrong way ended up losing more than their initial stake size.

Even the less volatile markets such as Goal Supremacy would have resulted in tidy returns for those who were backing Pep Guardiola’s side last Tuesday.

Buyers of City’s Supremacy at 1.3 would have won 3.7 times their initial stake, although sellers would have lost 2.4 times their initial stake size (unless they had closed out early to cut their losses when City’s superiority soon become evident).

The Goal Supremacy example is an interesting one to compare against the equivalent fixed odds Match Bet price on City.

The City were available at 8/15 pre-match last week meaning a £100 fixed odds bet would only have returned a profit of £53.34 along with the return of the £100 stake.

Spread betters who bought City Supremacy at £100 a point at 1.3 would have earned £370 in profit – quite a difference to the fixed odds match bet equivalent.

As for tonight’s affair, City are, unsurprisingly, again big favourites at 1/6 on the fixed odds, with Steaua 12/1 and the draw 6/1.

On the Supremacy it’s City/Steaua 2.35 – 2.55. This perhaps seem low when you consider that City won by a five goal margin away from home, however Guardiola is likely to rest a number of players ahead of the visit of West Ham on Sunday.

Despite that, Spreadex clients expect the Manchester side to win comfortably again and have been buying on the Supremacy in their droves. Coverage is on BT Sport 2 with kick-off at 7.45pm.