Sometimes near misses are a good thing. If you step off the bus just as the rain stops, for example. Or if you’re sat on the train waiting for it to leave and see someone irritating from work running towards it, only for the doors to close just before he can get on board. They’re the sort of close calls that you’re never likely to complain about. It’s an entirely different matter when it comes to betting, however, and a close shave means that you miss out on a win.
It might be that you’ve placed a bet on the first goalscorer in a game and the player you’ve selected has a penalty saved. Other times you may have opted for a horse to win the race, only to see it miss out by a head and your stake disappear into the bookie’s coffers. Often it’s the sports that you know the least well that you seem to struggle with, going with your best guess only to see that it’s not quite be good enough. If that all sounds like you then you’ll want to have a look at 888sport’s most recent offer, which is designed to appeal to those who fancy a flutter on American sports.
What’s the Offer On?
888sport’s American Dream offer is specifically for accumulators placed on American sports. To be clear, that doesn’t mean Premier League teams with an American player in the side or if you’re betting on the American team in the Ryder Cup. Instead, it’s a promotion for accas placed on any of the big five sports played in the United States. These are:
- Major League Baseball (MLB)
- Major League Soccer (MLS)
- National Hockey League (NHL)
- National Football League (NFL)
- National Basketball Association (NBA)
How Does the Promotion Work?
If you’d like to get a piece of the action as far as this promotion is concerned, all you need to do is place an accumulator with five legs or more on any of the American sports I’ve just mentioned. Make sure that each leg of the acca has minimum odds of 3/10 (1.3) and a stake of at least £5, then if one leg of your accumulator isn’t a winner you’ll get your stake refunded as a free bet.
Your bet has to be placed using real money, so any free bets that you’ve gained from other promotions can’t be used for your initial wager. In fact, no other promotions can be used alongside this one, meaning that something like a profit boost token can’t be played when you’re placing your bet. It’s also worth noting that the highest stake you’ll get refunded as a free bet is £25.
How Do the Free Bets Work?
This is where things are slightly tricky when compared to some other offers. You’ll get your free bet token credited to your account within 72 hours of all legs of your accumulator being settled. That’s not too unusual. One thing that is a bit different to how some bookies operate is that the amount of the free bet token will be rounded down to the nearest £5.
That means that if your stake is, say, £9 and one leg of your acca narrowly misses out then you’ll receive a free bet token worth £5. If it’s £12 then you’ll get £10 and so on, all the way up to a maximum refund of £25. Once you’ve got the free bet token in your account you’ll have seven days to use it before it expires.
You’ll need to use your free bet token in its entirety, so if you want to place a stake of £3 then you’ll find that the entire £5 token is used for it. You can’t use your free bet tokens on permutation bets nor on each-way wagers. The last thing I’ll mention regarding the free bet is that you can’t use it alongside real money. That means that if you’ve got a free bet of £5 then you won’t be able to place a bet with a stake of £10, unless you’ve got another £5 free bet token.
Anything Else to Think About?
As always with these sort of offers, there are a few things in the terms and conditions that you should think about ahead of placing your bet. None of them are particularly controversial, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore them. For starters, only one of the legs of your accumulator can be a loser for your stake to be refunded. All of the rest of your selections have to win.
Voided legs won’t count, so if you have a five-fold acca and one of them is void then you won’t be eligible for the promotion. You’ll also need to steer clear of special ‘Enhanced Multiples’ bets if you want to be eligible for the offer.
Should You Take Advantage of This Offer?
Personally, I think this is a great opportunity to have a go at betting on some sports you might not normally consider looking at. If you’ve steered away from the National Hockey League or Major League Baseball in the past, for example, then you could head to 888Sport and do so, safe in the knowledge that a bet that narrowly misses out will result in your essentially getting your money back, even if it is as a free bet. You could also use this offer if you don’t always do accumulators for exactly the same reason.
Whenever I’m asked whether someone should take advantage of a promotion from a bookie I always ask them the same question: would you place this bet normally? If the answer is ‘yes’, then it’s a no-brainer. If, however, you don’t normally opt for this sort of wager then it’s worth thinking about what you’ll get out of it. In this instance, it’s a chance to have a look at a sport or type of bet that you might not otherwise play. It’s relatively low-entry, with the minimum bet starting at just £5 and the maximum you’ll be able to get back £25. If this is similar to your usual stake, then, I’d say it’s worth using.