What Is Best Odds Guaranteed?
What Is Best Odds Guaranteed?
Sports betting has never been so popular and the betting markets are bigger than ever with so many different types of bets available. This means the bookies are desperate to get your custom ahead of their competitors. One way that they do this is to give sign-up offers to new customers. Once they have your custom, they don’t want to lose it so they try and come up with enticing promotions for existing customers too. One such offer is Best Odds Guaranteed or BOG as it’s often called.
Best Odds Guaranteed as a fantastic offer that ensures you always get the best odds for your bet selections. You will generally only find this offer on the greyhound and horse racing markets.
If you place a bet and then the starting price (the odds when the race starts) of your bet selection is higher than when you placed it, the bookie will pay out at the higher odds should your bet win.
The introduction of Best Odds Guaranteed was a genius incentive and big game changer in the sports betting industry. It eliminates the risk of missing out if the odds on your selection drift out to a higher price after you’ve placed your bet. The assurance of BOG can make your betting experience more pleasurable because you know you’ll always get the best returns should your bets win.
How Does Best Guaranteed Odds Work?
When placing a bet on a horse or a greyhound, most bettors lock the price in when they back it. Bookies do offer the option to take the Starting Price (SP) but given the amount of BOG races on offer from the bookies, it’s unlikely doing this will be of a benefit to you.
To expand on this, if the race was offering Best Odds Guaranteed and at the time you decided to back a horse, it had odds of 8 (7/1). If you decided to take the SP and the odds then shortened to 5 (4/1) and the horse won, you would only get paid at 5 (4/1). This is why it’s better to take the odds on offer at the time you place the bet. Had you taken the odds on offer at 8 (7/1), you would be paid at that price if your horse were to win.
On the other hand, let’s say you took the odds on offer at 8 (7/1) and then the odds drifted out to 10 (11/1) when the race started. Should your horse win, the bookies would then pay your returns at the starting price of 10 (11/1). This is the beauty of Best Odds Guaranteed, you will always get the best price available. As always though, this won’t guarantee your horse will win!
Let’s look at some examples of Best Odds Guaranteed to breakdown what the above would look like:
Example 1:
- You place a bet of £10 on a greyhound at odds of 8 (7/1)
- The Starting Price of the greyhound is 10 (11/1)
- The greyhound wins
- Thanks to BOG your payout is higher (£10 x 10) instead of (£10 x 8)
- This means your returns are £100 (£10 x 10) instead of £80 (£10 x 8)
Example 2:
- You place a bet of £10 on a horse at odds of 8 (7/1)
- The Starting Price of the horse is 5 (4/1)
- The horse wins
- Thanks to BOG your payout is higher (£10 x 8) instead of (£10 x 5)
- This means your returns are £80 (£10 x 8) instead of £50 (£10 x 5)
As you can see, if your horse/dog wins, you can’t lose out. The BOG is especially enjoyable when your selection wins and the SP is higher than the odds you took.
Examples Of Best Odds Guaranteed In Action
Going back to the previous examples of where one winner provided better odds from the Starting Price and the other winner provided better odds from the price it was backed at, let’s have a look at real life examples of those scenarios.
Backed Price
So in this case, the bettor has had £10 on the horse D Art D Art in the 2:50 at Punchestown and they opted to take the odds of 10.0 (9/1).
D Art D Art absolutely romped it home as a clear winner. When the final result is published, we can see that it ended up with a starting price of 7.0 (6/1).
As Best Odds Guaranteed applied to this race, the bettor was always going to get the highest price when their horse won. But what was the outcome from this bet?
- You placed a bet of £10 on D Art D Art at odds of 10 (9/1)
- The Starting Price of the D Art D Art was 7 (6/1)
- D Art D Art won the race
- Thanks to BOG your payout is higher (£10 x 10) instead of (£10 x 7)
- This means your returns are £100 (£10 x 10) instead of £70 (£10 x 7)
Starting Price
So in this case, the bettor has had £10 on the horse Modern Utopia in the 3:15 at Nottingham and they opted to take the odds of 8.0 (7/1).
This time Modern Utopia cruised to victory. When the final result is published, we can see that it ended up with a starting price of 9.0 (8/1).
Again, Best Odds Guaranteed applied to this race so the bettor will get the best price. So what was the outcome from this bet?
- You placed a bet of £10 on Modern Utopia at odds of 8 (7/1)
- The Starting Price of the Modern Utopia was 9 (8/1)
- Modern Utopia won the race
- Thanks to BOG your payout is higher (£10 x 9) instead of (£10 x 8)
- This means your returns are £90 (£10 x 9) instead of £80 (£10 x 8)
As you can see, the bettor has benefited in both cases here. If BOG wasn’t available for the second example, the bet would have returned £10 less as they would have only got returns for the price they backed at and not the increased starting price.
Bookies Offering Best Odds Guaranteed (BOG)
Best Odds Guaranteed really is a cracking offer from the bookies and it’s important grab value from the bookies whenever you get a chance to. Taking advantage of BOG offers helps bettors to maximise potential profits and lock them in.
As with a lot of betting, there are a ridiculous amount of rules and unlike the set in stone Rule 4, each bookie has their own variation of rules when it comes to Best Odds Guaranteed.
Let’s have a look at what some of the top bookmakers are offering to help you find the best value on offer:
Bookie | Horses | Greyhounds | Multiples | Time Available |
Bet365 | Y | Y | Y | 8:00 AM |
SkyBet | Y | N | N | 9:00 AM |
VBET | Y | N | Y | 12:01 AM |
Betfred | Y | N | Y | 8:00 AM |
Coral | Y | N | Y | 8:00 AM |
Paddy Power | Y | N | N | 8:00 AM |
BetVictor | Y | Y | Y | 8:00 AM |
That’s a high level overview of what’s on offer but let’s dig a little deeper inside their offers.
Bet365 Best Odds Guaranteed
Bet365 gains the upper hand when BOG can be used because they offer it on every single greyhound race and every single horse race within the UK and Ireland. Any bets outside of this jurisdiction will not qualify though. Any bets placed after 8:00 am on the day of the race will qualify for Best Odds Guaranteed. Bet365 BOG offer is eligible on all singles, each way, multiples and show cast bets. It’s also worth noting that Bet365 also include Bet Boosts and Extra Place races in their BOG offering. The Best Odds Guaranteed exclusions from Bet365 are Tote bets, Ante-Post bets and Each Way Extra bets. One other thing, whilst some bookies put a cap on the maximum you can win using BOG, Bet365 don’t have a limit in place.
Sky Bet Best Odds Guaranteed
Sky Bet are nowhere near as generous as Bet365 and tend to make you jump through hoops to take advantage of their Best Odds Guaranteed offer. To qualify for their BOG offer you have to be part of the Sky Bet Club which involves placing £30 of bets each week. They do offer rewards for being part of the Sky Bet Club but it seems a bit steep to have to join it to get Best Odds Guaranteed when plenty of other bookies offer it as standard.
Once you’ve joined their club, what other hurdles are in your way? With Sky Bet it’s probably easier to tell you what types of bets don’t qualify. Best Odds Guaranteed is available from 9:00 AM and only on UK and Irish horse racing. BOG doesn’t apply to Tote bets, Ante-post bets, Extra Place races, Price Boosts, enhanced accumulators or any specials.
If you like Sky Bet then the BOG offer is there but I don’t think anybody would think bad of you if you decided to give it a miss.
VBET
Okay, VBET aren’t amongst the biggest or better known bookmakers but they don’t lack in their Best Odds Guaranteed offering to customers. As with some other bookies, they offer BOG on all UK and Irish horse races, but not on the greyhounds. Like Bet365, they also have no limit on how much you can win from a win on a Best Odds Guaranteed race.
One notable difference with VBET is that they offer BOG from midnight. If you’re a night owl, you might find some great odds that will be included in their BOG offering before the markets are open to the early birds.
As with all bookies, there are restrictions in place which means the BOG offer doesn’t apply to Tote bets, Ante-post bets, Price Boosts, VBET-packaged multiple bets or any other ‘specials’
Betfred
As with most other bookies, Betfred offer Best Odds Guaranteed on all UK and Irish horse racing. Their terms state that BOG is available on selected races but in truth it’s available on pretty much every race unless it is a ‘Super Extra Place Race’ of which there can be one or two per day. Bettors can lock into the Betfred BOG offer from 8:00 am on the morning of the races.
As you’d expect, Betfred also have a list of exclusions from their Best Odds Guaranteed offer: Ante-Post bets, Tote bets, specials markets, boosts, Super Extra Place races, Lucky 15’s, 31’s and 63’s.
Coral
Coral’s offering is pretty standard in that they only offer BOG on all UK and Irish horse races and you can take advantage of the offer from 8:00 am on race day. The usual restrictions apply regarding Ante-Post and Tote bets, special offers, boosts etc. They do have some additional exclusions such as betting without and place markets. If you are unsure, always check the terms and conditions at the bookmakers.
There are a couple of things that stood out with Coral’s Best Odds Guaranteed terms though:
- Their BOG offer is limited to £50,000 per customer per day
- BOG is excluded to customers who open accounts and deposit using PayPal, Paysafe, Skrill or Neteller
Paddy Power
You can get involved in the Best Odds Guaranteed offer at Paddy Power from 8:00 am every day and it applies to all horse racing in the UK and Ireland. However, to be eligible for their BOG offer, you must opt-in on the promotions page.
Best Odds Guaranteed at Paddy only applies to singles and multiple bets on win or each-way markets. In terms of exclusions, pretty much the same as most of the other cookies but worth checking their terms if you’re unsure.
One surprise with Paddy Power is the cap they have in place on winnings from Best Odds Guaranteed. The maximum payout a customer can receive is £1,000 per day.
BetVictor
You can place bets on all UK and Irish horse races from 9:00 am to take advantage of the Best Odds Guaranteed deal from BetVictor. They do restrict customers to a maximum of £25,000 in winnings per day.
Other than the winnings cap, BetVictor are pretty relaxed about everything else. Unlike the others, they don’t impose any restrictions to bet multiples, special offers or boosts.
Which Bookmaker To Use
So in the previous section we looked at what each of the top bookies are offering with the Best Odds Guaranteed deals. Whilst they each have their own little twists to the offering, let’s look at some generic things to consider when choosing which bookie to use Best Odds Guaranteed with:
- Bookmaker: Always use a reputable bookie that provides good customer service.
- Markets: Try and find a bookmaker that offers Best Odds Guaranteed on the markets you’re interested in.
- Simplicity: Try to find a bookies that offers a nice user-friendly website that you’re comfortable with and makes placing bets easy.
- Support: Most bookmakers try to help their customers but it’s helpful if they have good customer service to assist you if you have any queries
- Bonuses: Look out for any offers or promotions that you can use to enhance your BOG bets. For example, Bet365 are the only bookie that allow Super Boosts as part of their BOG offering.
Betting Strategies To Maximise Best Odds Guaranteed
Best Odds Guaranteed is a good addition to any betting strategy but to make the most out of it, there are some things you might want to consider:
- Bet Early: Sometimes the odds are higher in the mornings so it’s worth checking early before they shorten. The beauty of BOG is that you won’t be disadvantaged if the odds drift out.
- Analyse The Markets: Always do your research on the markets you’re interested in. Consider horse form, jockey form and race conditions so your decisions are informed.
- Find Value: Look for odds that look higher than expected. BOG prevents you from losing out as if the odds increase or decrease, you’ll always get the best price.
- Variety: Even if you have a preferred bookmaker, it can pay to shop around as the odds may be better at another. This will help you find the best value bets.
Mistakes To Avoid With Best Odds Guaranteed
We know that BOG is a great promotion but in order to maximise your chances of success, there are some common mistakes you need to mindful of:
- Not Researching: Relying on the BOG to cover you can lead to bad decision making. Make sure you research the markets and competitors before placing your bets.
- Ignoring The Rules: Make sure you know the terms and conditions of the BOG offer at the bookies you’re using. Some bookmakers have restrictions in place on what qualifies for the BOG offer.
- Ignoring Bookie Promotions: Yes, Best Odds Guaranteed is a great offer but don’t ignore what else might be on offer. It might be possible to combine other offers with the BOG offer to maximise your chances and potential winnings.
- Chasing Losses: This applies to any type of bets, not just BOG. Make sure you stick to your strategy and affordability. Never chase losses, it can lead to big trouble.
Using BOG As Part Of A Matched Betting Strategy
Best Odds Guaranteed can be an extremely useful offer when it comes to Matched Betting. Whether you’re doing horse racing refunds,
Horse racing reloads or using free bets, BOG has the potential to increase your profits above expectations.
Let’s have a look at a couple of scenarios where matched bettors might benefit from Best Odds Guaranteed.
Horse Racing Refunds
As the bookies started getting more competitive, most of them rolled out the Best Odds Guaranteed offer. At first, BOG included boosts and promotions but then things started to tighten up. A lot of bookies realised they were giving a little bit too much value away so they started adding exclusions to their BOG offering. One such exclusion was horse racing refunds where bettors can get money back if their selected horse finishes second or third.
Fortunately, there are still one or two bookmakers that allow racing refunds and BOG together. One of the bigger players that allows this on selected horse races is Betfred.
Let’s look at example of how you can benefit from such an offer when matched betting:
As you can see, this race includes both Best Odds Guaranteed and Free Bet 2nd.
You then use the Outplayed Oddsmatcher Tool to see what matches are available. You find a great match for a horse called Tout Sur Moi in the 3.28pm race at Wincanton.
So, you just need to place the qualifying bet which would be done as follows:
- £10 back bet at Betfred on Tout Sur Moi to win at odds of 6.0 (5/1)
- £10 lay bet at Matchbook against Tout Sur Moi winning at odds of 6.0 (5/1)
By placing this back and lay bet, you will have no qualifying loss as Outplayed customers can take advantage of 0% commission at Matchbook.
So you are keeping your fingers crossed that Tout Sur Moi will finish second in the race but just before the race begins, you notice the odds have drifted out to 11 (10/1). Ordinarily this isn’t a good sign as it suggests confidence in the horse winning has dropped in the market. However, this is horse racing and there are no guarantees!
Unexpectedly, Tout Sur Moi romps home as the winner. This means you miss out on the free bet for second place but where does this leave your bet?
If Tout Sur Moi finished second: You would have come out even but would have been given a £10 free bet.
Tout Sur Moi wins: As it won, you don’t get any credits. However, with the BOG offer, you get paid out at odds of 11 (10/1). This means your returns would be £10 (stake) x 11 (odds) = £110. This isn’t all profit though as there is a liability to pay at the Matchbook Exchange so you overall outcome would look like this:
- Returns = £110, less £10 stake, less £50 exchange liability = £50 profit.
So you can see that thanks to Best Odds Guaranteed you have come out of this smelling of roses. Instead of a free £10 bet, you have made £50 profit. Putting this into perspective, had you got the free £10 bet, you could have expected to make approximately £8+ profit.
Free Bets
We will use the same example as the horse racing refunds but this time let’s look at the impact of Best odds Guaranteed when using free bets.
So you have £10 in free bets which you are going to place on Tout Sur Moi at odds of 6.0 (5/1) again. In order to calculate the lay, you would use the Matched Betting Calculator.
This is how the figures would look on the calculator:
As this is a free bet, you’re just looking to lock in guaranteed profit. As the calculator suggests, after you’ve placed your back bet, you then need to place a lay bet of £8.33 at Matchbook. No matter what happens, you will be in profit of either £8.35 if your horse wins or £8.33 if it doesn’t.
- Tout Sur Moi wins: £10 (free bet stake) x 6 (odds) = £50 returned. £50 - £41.65 (lay liability) = £8.35 profit.
- Tout Sur Moi loses: £10 (free bet stake) x 6 (odds) = £0 returned. Because the horse lost you get your stake of £8.33 back from the exchange = £8.33 profit.
So how does Best Odds Guaranteed change the outcome of the bet if Tout Sur Moi wins when using a free bet?
- £10 (free bet stake) x 11 (odds) = £100 returns as you don’t get your stake back with free bets. The liability deduction for the lay bet at the exchange will still be £41.65. £100 (returns) - £41.65 (liability) = £58.35 profit.
As you can see, by BOG paying out at odds of 11 (10/1) instead of 6 (5/1), you have made an extra £50 in profit.
Summary
Best Odds Guaranteed (BOG) is an incredible promotion that took the horse racing industry by storm. BOG ensures you'll always get the best odds whilst providing the potential for some amazing increased profits. It also provides a layer of security and can make your betting experience much more rewarding and enjoyable.
Because BOG has no complex hurdles to negotiate, it’s perfect for both novice and expert bettors. It’s a huge addition to any betting strategy as it maximises your opportunities at no extra cost.
Due to its popularity with bettors, it’s likely to be a promotion that will always remain and may even evolve in the future. Therefore, if it’s not something you’ve looked at before, jump on the bandwagon and get involved. It’s a no-brainer for any bettor to take advantage of the potential benefits available.
Updated: 8 Nov 2024
The Author
Paul brings over four years of Matched Betting experience to Outplayed. His extensive background in financial services and e-commerce, combined with his expertise in online marketing and Matched Betting, makes him a valuable asset to the team.