Pretty much the same thing… Also with spread betting when you place a bet you place it as £ per point as opposed to lot size. It’s a bit easier than having to calculate positions sizes.
For an Alpari uk spread betting account (which I have), on mt4 you place a volume bet where 1 = £1 per pip and 0.10 is 10p per pip. There is no difference between a spreadbetting account and a normal account apart from the tax free point. Alpari set your leverage to 1:500 by default so expect to blow your account unless you really know what you are doing. I changed my leverage.