Whatever you might want to say about bookmakers, and anyone who has ever placed a bet will usually have a lot to say about them, they know what they’re doing. If they have decided that only four places will be paid out on for a race, then there is a good reason for their choice.
Sometimes, though, you can find bookmakers offering a promotion that sees extra places paid out on in a given race or sporting event. There can be numerous reasons for this, but the main one is so as to attract as many punters as possible to place their wagers with the bookie in question rather than a rival.
Current Offers
On selected races each day, Betfred will have additional places for each way bets. These will normally be enhancing races with 2, 3 or 4 place to 3, 4 or 5 places.
How Extra Places Work
If you’re looking at a bookmaker’s page on a given race and have seen that there is a promotion in place offering to pay out on extra places, you might well find yourself wondering how it works. In essence, it is simply a bookie saying that they will payout on each-way bets when a horse finishes outside of the usual places. In most instances, bookmakers will pay out on a horse finishing in the top three or four places. When extra places are offered, however, they will extend that amount to mean that a horse might be paid out on if they come fourth or fifth, say.
The good thing is that punters don’t need to do much in order to take advantage of such an offer. Sometimes a bookie will say that you have to opt-in in order to take advantage of the offer, but other than that, your involvement will be limited. If your horse finishes within the extra places, then you will find that your chosen bookmaker pays you out automatically, just as they would if your selection had finished inside the normal places and there was no promotion in play. In other words, you don’t need to do anything in order to take advantage of the offer.
It’s Not Just Horse Racing
It is fair to say that horse racing is the sport that will most commonly find itself on the receiving end of an extra places offer, largely because it is horse racing that uses places more than most other sports. It isn’t the only one that does so, however. It is not out of the realms of the possible that greyhound racing could find itself the subject of an offer, for example, whilst golf is another sport that will be used for this kind of promotion. The exact details of the offer will obviously vary, but the theory around it will remain pretty much the same for all sports.
In essence, you will be paid out if your greyhound or golfer ends the tournament within a given number of places from the eventual winner. In golf, things can be complicated slightly by the fact that so many places can often finish in the same position as each other, resulting in dead heat rules coming into play. Again, though, you don’t need to worry too much about that, with the bookmakers taking care of it all and paying you out the correct amount based on your stake money and the odds of your selection. If you like to bet on golf, though, it is something worth looking out for.
The Sorts of Events the Offer Applies To
As you might imagine, it is not every race meeting or golf tournament that will result in bookmakers putting forward these enhancements. Instead, it tends to be the ones that are the most popular with punters. Bookies know that they have to win custom from their rivals, so when big race meetings come around or one of the Majors is being played, you will find that they will all start making offers to win your bets. The Grand National is one of the best known events for this, given the tricky nature of the race, so don’t be surprised if bookmakers offer a large number of places for the race.
The key thing to think about is whether bookies feel as though there will be a lot of competition for a given event. Most punters will only place bets with the same few bookmakers, but when a big race or tournament comes around, other people look for companies to place bets with. When that happens, extra places are one of the easy promotions that bookies can use in order to win custom, but you are just as capable of taking advantage of the offer as anyone else. When this happens, it is worth looking to see which bookie has the most generous offer and seeing if their odds match up.
Things to Think About
One of the main things to look out for when it comes to additional places is how the bookmaker that you’re placing your bet with treats the wagers. That is to say, many will pay out on places at 1/4 or 1/5 of the odds that you took when you placed the bet. When it comes to the these places, though, you might well find that the odds are broken down differently to the normal places. That is to say, a bookmaker might offer 1/5 odds on a race with extra places when fewer would have 1/4 odds.
Something else to consider is that if the field is smaller than expected, a bookie is likely to reduce the number of places on offer, given that they don’t want to be in a position whereby they have to pay out regardless of where your selection finishes. There may well also be a scenario whereby there is a limit on your stake size, limiting how much you could end up winning if your horse, golfer or greyhound finishes in those extra places.