Are you a regular punter on the horses? Have you noticed a change to the popular Best Odds Guaranteed promotion at certain operators? Well, since December last year, there have been changes happening to the BOG deal, depending on which bookmaker you are using.
Popular offer undergoing reactionary changes
The Best Odds Guaranteed offer is popular with punters because it means that a customer gets paid out at a bigger SP if the SP is larger than the odds at which the selection was backed. So that ensures the end-user a nice bit of value.
The Best Odds Guaranteed, where applicable, was commonly triggered as soon as a race was priced up. But that is shifting away because bookmakers are starting to place restrictions on their Best Odds Guaranteed promotions. But why?
Restrictions in time
William Hill, for example, was only making Best Odds Guaranteed applicable to races from midnight on the same day. That was an alteration they made last December. But now they have changed their BOG terms further. The Best Odds Guaranteed promotion will only apply to bets made after 10 am on the day of the race. William Hill has capped maximum benefits from it to £25,000 as well.
Notably, other major operators like BetVictor and Paddy Power Betfair have also switched to limiting the Best Odds Guaranteed to wagers placed on the day of a given race.
Falling revenues the reason
This has simply been a reaction to a drop in revenues that the industry saw in 2019. It was reported that there was a general 10% drop in revenue in the last 12 months, a 15% drop in revenue from horse racing compared to the previous year.
So because of those rising costs of horse racing for bookmakers, it means that they have had to start cutting things back somewhere. So instead of having BOG apply to all bets on a race from the time that it is priced up, to just the bets placed with a short window, it will allow the bookmakers to pay out less.
Does that spell the start of the end for Best Odds Guaranteed as a product overall? If purses have to be tightened further, then maybe. It would only take one operator to sever the promotion, for more to follow suit.
