Spread betting refers to speculating on the direction of a financial market without actually owning the underlying security. It involves placing a bet on the price movement of a security. A spread betting company quotes two prices, the bid and ask price (also called the spread), and investors bet whether the price of the underlying security will be lower than the bid or higher than the ask. The spread bettor does not actually own the underlying security in spread betting, they simply speculate on its price movement. - Quoted from Investopedia.com

The Hollywood Stock Exchange is a fun stock market simulation game played on the web with about 200,000 registered users and about 30-40 thousand active traders. These links are to additional reference material which go beyond the basic site by HSX Entertainment, most of which are by devoted fans of the game. Some additional links are listed which are useful for fans of the game.