It’s not very often that bookmakers give you the chance to win money when it’s 100% free to do so. That’s why I’m such a bit fan of BetVictor’s Golden Goal competition, in which you’re asked to select the first goalscorer and the time of the first goal in a specific match from a set of fixtures. You also have to have a guess at the correct score of the match and if you get it right then you could be in with a chance of winning part of a £25,000 prize pot.
How to Play
When Golden Goal was first introduced as a concept BetVictor only required people to guess the first goalscorer and the time of the goal in the selected match. The problem was that too many people were successful with their guesses, meaning that the jackpot was being spread too thinly. One week 926 people correctly guessed that Zlatan Ibrahimovic would score for Manchester United in the 19th minute of their match, so they were each rewarded with the grand sum of…£27. Not especially something to write home about!
That’s why they decided to add the need to predict the correct score of the match. The hope was that it would stop so many people winning. Also, because the £25,000 rolls over when it’s not won, BetVictor figured there would be more rollovers giving people a higher share of the pot when it’s eventually won. If you consistently managed to pick the correct score and goalscorer in the past then don’t worry, your endeavours will not go unrewarded. Instead you’ll be given a £5 free bet, which is a nice gesture.
The match you need to identify the goalscorer, time and full-time score for is selected each week and as a rule of thumb it’s often the last game on a Sunday. They tend to go for big games, though, so if Manchester United are playing Liverpool on a Saturday lunchtime, then don’t be surprised if that’s the game of choice. In terms of what you need to do, then, it’s as follows:
- Select the player you believe will score the opening goal of the selected fixture
- Select the time you think they’ll score said goal – times are broken down into one minute intervals
- Select what you think the full-time score will be
All of the options are featured within a dropdown menu, so you don’t need to think too hard about which players play for which teams or anything like that. Of course, that means that the ‘correct score’ has to be taken from their list, so if you think a match is going to end up 10-0 then you’re likely to be disappointed. When you’re done, though, your selections should look something like this:
Things To Bear In Mind
You can’t change your pick once you’ve pressed the ‘Predict’ button. So, make sure you think things through carefully. You can have more than one go at it, as I’ll explain in a minute, but when it comes to the one free attempt you get every time the competition’s running you’re locked into your choices once you’ve made them. The only time that’s not the case is if the player you’ve selected ends up not being in the match day squad, in which case you can have another go.
Own goals don’t count. This one seems obvious, but it’s worth pointing out just in case. The reason there might be some confusion is that ‘own goal’ is a selection you can make as the scorer of the first goal, but you don’t have to specify the player. If you select ‘own goal’ then an own goal, as defined by Opta, scored by anyone on the pitch will count. If you select Wayne Rooney, say, and he scores first but it is an own goal then it won’t count. Sorry.
Pick 44-45 or 89-90 for more time. The Golden Goal format is only valid over 90 minutes, so extra-time in cup matches won’t count. Obviously, it’s impossible for BetVictor to predict how much stoppage time will be added to the end of both halves of a game, so any time the referee adds on will be included as part of 44-45 minute predictions in the first-half and 89-90 minute predictions in the second-half. Selecting one of those could, therefore, allow you quite a bit of extra time in which the opening goal could be scored.
Getting Extra Entries
Everyone with a Betvictor account can have a shot at the Golden Goal for free. Whether you’re a new customer or have been with them long-term, you’ll get a free go on each match, every week. If you’d like more than one shot, however, then you’ll be able to get two more as long as you turnover a given amount of money.
If you bet £25 via your account within the week leading up to kick-off of the selected match then you’ll get another go at predicting it. If you turnover £50 then you’ll get two more goes. That money can be placed on either sports bets or casino games, too, so you don’t need to worry about trying to find loads of bets to place if you’re typically more of a blackjack or roulette kind of person.
The Prize
As I said earlier, the prize for this particular competition is £25,000 per week and it will roll over if it’s not won. That means that if no one wins it for, say, three weeks then the pot will be £100,000 on week four. One thing you do need to know is that you share the prize with anyone else who makes the same correct predictions as you, so you might well win and yet end up with quite a small share of the pot – remember the £27 winners I told you about before.
Every now and then BetVictor might decide to do a bit of a promotional push and make the pot bigger than usual. At the start of the Premier League campaign in 2017-2018, for example, they made the initial pot £50,000 before reverting to £25,000 in the following weeks. That’s something worth keeping an eye on.
How Easy Is It To Win?
I have been doing the competition every week since it started and have yet to win. That’s a sign of absolutely nothing, of course, but it’s an indication that it isn’t exactly simple to walk away victorious. Having said that, it was rare for just one person to win the jackpot when all you needed to do was guess the first scorer and timing of the first goal. More often than not you’d have a couple of hundred people guessing correctly when it was a popular goalscorer and popular time to go for.
The stats say it’s not simple, either. Strictly speaking you’ve got a 1 in 90 chance of guessing the correct time and somewhere between a 1 in 22 to 1 in 34 chance of guessing the correct goalscorer, depending on how many subs are used. That said, there’s obviously more chance that a striker or midfielder will score than a defender or goalkeeper, so that would alter the chances a little.
Looking at the selection I made above, I’d have had the following odds through Betvictor if I’d placed the wagers as three separate bets:
- Henrikh Mkhitaryan as first goalscorer: 19/4
- First goal in 18th minute: N/A
- Man United win 3-1: 21/2
- Multiple bet on available selections: 66/1
Betting on the specific minute of the first goal isn’t something that they offer as a mainstream bet, but the other two together would offer odds of 66/1, suggesting it isn’t exactly astronomically impossible. If you’re hoping to win the pot all to yourself then my suggestions would be as follows:
- Avoid selecting popular times such as the 17th, 23rd and 27th minute
- Avoid picking players who score lots of goals – that’s who most people will pick
- Opt for a typical scoreline like 1-0, 1-1 or 2-1. Fewer games than you think end with big scorelines