I was curious why there is such a huge spread too. Is it hard to get money into Bitstamp? I have not used the site but it seems like a great arbitrage opportunity for someone.
I should indeed add that it takes longer than normal to get money into bitstamp. Dont know why. I even opened a support tiket (waiting for more than a week now... normally it is a few days)
I don't know where you live but normally it takes 24/48 hours, now waiting almost a full week!