The bookmaking industry is one of the most competitive around. There are dozens of top-rated bookies, let alone once you start to add in those with a lesser reputation to the mix. That’s why the different companies try to come up with more and more ways to bring in customers and, more importantly, keep them. I’ve been exploring these various offers on these pages and now I’m going to tell you about one in particular.
When you tend to write as much about bookmakers and their offers as I do there’s something really enjoyable about one that’s nice and easy to understand and explain. That’s certainly the case with the Best Odds Guarantee, given that it basically does what it says on the tin. Compared to some offers and deals that are so convoluted that it takes several pages worth of script to explain them, the BOG promotion stands out because of its simplicity.
What Exactly Is A Best Odds Guarantee?
In essence the offer is as follows: you take an early price for your chosen horse and if it wins but its starting price was higher than the price you took then you get paid out at the higher price. It’s that simple.
Let’s look at an example to make things clearer. You have chosen to place a bet on MadeUpHorse and when you look at the odds on the morning of the race you see that it’s 8/1. They’re good odds, you know from form that the horse stands a real chance despite what the bookies reckon so you place a £10 bet on it. Just before the race begins you look at the odds and notice that MadeUpHorse is priced at 10/1. Disaster!
Now ordinarily your £10 bet at 8/1 would see you get a £90 return, including your stake, which is less than the £110 including your stake you’d have received if you’d placed your bet on the starting price. The problem is that they can be shorter than early prices, so you don’t really want to miss out on the odds in the morning that could be longer than those in the afternoon.
This is why you want to ensure that you place your bets with a bookmaker that has a Best Odds Guarantee (BOG) offer. If you’d have done that when you placed your MadeUpHorse bet then you’d have been paid out at 10/1 rather than 8/1 anyway, because that’s how the offer works.
Things To Look Out For
There are several things you’ll want to keep your eye out for when it comes to this offer. One of the first things is that these guarantees don’t normally kick in until the day of the race. This means that ante post bets aren’t covered, which makes perfect sense when you realise that the whole point of an ante post bet is to take advantage of really early prices, with the downside that you would lose your money if your horse doesn’t run. You can bet on the likes of the Grand National months in advance of the race so it would be a bit much to also allow you to have the best odds guarantee.
One of the other chief things that I always think it’s worth pointing out is that this doesn’t work in reverse. What I mean by that is that if you look at the odds at ten in the morning and they’re 10/1 and then you look again at lunchtime and they’re 8/1 but you don’t place your bet until lunch, you don’t get paid at there higher rate. I know that sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised at the number of people who contact me and ask why they didn’t get paid at the higher odds, even though they didn’t place their bet until the odds had dropped.
There are a number of things that might catch you out if tend to be a high-roller. For example, some bookies put a limit of how much they’re willing to pay out via the offer. For most punters it’s not going to be a problem as the limit tends to be on winnings in the region of about £50,000, but it’s worth mentioning nevertheless. Likewise some bookmakers will have a BOG for horse racing but not the greyhounds, so don’t assume the sport you like is covered.
The final thing I’ll mention is that the Best Odds Guarantee is normally applicable to all UK and Irish racing. Some bookmakers will also offer it for races further afield, such as in America or France, but mostly only offer it for racing that takes place on these shores. Even the ones that do apply the guarantee to foreign races normally only allow it on selected events, so make sure you keep an eye out for that if you tend to enjoy more exotic bets.
How To Claim
The beauty of the Best Odds Guarantee is that it is usually applied automatically. Most punters don’t have time to sit and look at the SP of every single bet they’ve placed, so online bookmakers ensure that the system takes care of all of that for you. Believe me, it’s a lovely surprise when you log into your account and see you’ve been paid more than you were expected to.
Best Odds Guaranteed Variations
As I mentioned at the start, bookmakers know that they need to work hard to win your business. For that reason, some companies have decided that a Best Odds Guarantee on its own isn’t enough, especially when pretty much all of the reputable bookies offer it. That’s where enhanced BOG offers might be applied.
The idea behind enhanced BOG is simple; not content with merely paying you out at the higher odds when your horse wins, selected bookmakers will actually pay you at higher odds than the starting price.
Using another example to better illustrate my point, imagine you’ve placed a bet on AnotherMadeUpHorse with odds of 5/1. It’s starting price ends up being 7/1, so with a straight Best Odds Guarantee you’d be paid out at that higher rate. With enhanced best odds guaranteed, however, you actually get paid out at 15/2 (or 7.5/1 should such a fraction be possible).
The only added thing to note is that there might be a lower limit how much they pay out with the offer, a limit of £200 for example. Using the above case, that means that a £50 bet would normally result in £250 worth of winnings, increased to £375 thanks to the offer.
Because of the limit of £200 winnings being valid, however, your first £200 would be paid at 15/2 but the remaining balance would be paid at 5/1. That all makes it seem a little bit complicated but, as always, the computer does the maths for you. The only thing you need to know is that if you’re a high-roller this may not work out totally in your favour.
Price Promise
I’ll tell you about the Price Promise offer in more detail elsewhere, but it’s something that a lot of people often confuse with the Best Odds Guarantee. For that reason I thought I’d just outline it quickly here and explain why the two differ.
The Price Promise says that if a rival bookmaker to the one you placed your bet with had better odds than they did, the company you placed the bet with will pay you out at that higher rate. It’s only available through certain bookies on certain races and with specific rivals in mind, but it’s still a worthwhile offer.
Obviously that differs from the Best Odds Guarantee because BOG is a company competing with itself, not with rivals. Hope that makes things slightly clearer for you and you know what you’re getting now.