Spread Betting

Ok I'm at absolute base level here with little understanding and no experience yet of punting on spreads. To give you some background on me Ive been betting on sports for years but have been doing it a lot more seriously over the last year or 2 and doing pretty well. The main sport I punt on is rugby but I also gamble on GAA, soccer and golf. About 70% of my betting is done on rugby and of that over 70% is on handicap markets. Occassionally I bet on total points scored or total tries scored but I never bet on first tryscorer, alternative handicaps, last team to score or any market where I feel the bookie has an increased edge.

You can see my rugby bets from this season here http://forum.planet-rugby.com/viewforum.php?f=3 and on the Rugby Betting Thread but you probably have an idea of what type of punter I am now

I signed up with this crowd https://www.sportsspread.com//Default.aspx after stumbling accross them online. I didn't lodge any money, intending to do some research on spreads first. They did send me a 30 euro no deposit bonus yesterday though so I guess thats set my ass in motion , while they aslo offerered me a 100 euro bonus once Ive bet that amount.

My first thoughts [apologies again for my ignorance] when looking into spread betting is that the bookies keep all the likely outcomes for themselves the greedy bastards. Like when I bet on a handicap market the bookie draws a line and I can gamble either side of it. For example looking at the Wales/Australia match I can bet on Aus[-3] @ 10/11 or Wales[-3]
@ 10/11 with most sites. However with spread betting the bookie keeps the likely outcomes for themselves and forces the punter to bet outside that range yes? I just looked at the market for the same match on Sports Spread and you can sell under 3 points or buy over 5 points which makes it much harder than bettiing on a straight handicap. The other issue I have at this stage is that you are not rewarded with increased odds the further away from the "spread" you get. For example if I bet on Australia to beat the 5 point spread with 1 euro a point I receive the same odds on the first point[Australia 6 up] as the
10th when in reality the latter happening is far less likely

So Im obviously clueless here bout what Im dealing with and would welcome and advice opinions from those in the know. I wont be diving in too heavy for a long time if ever. What are the pros/cons of spreads compared to handicap betting and what are the house's margins like?

Thank you in advance