Special Offers in Betting and How to Approach Them

This was a popular choice on the poll, so thought I would get right into it.

All bookmakers run special offers and sign up promotions to try and entice you to bet on them or sign up to their site.

Before I go on, I will make the difference between the two clear.

A sign up offer is usually a majority enhanced price on a well fancied outcome. Such as, Manchester City to beat Aston Villa, should be 1/10 now 50/1 or something to that effect. The bookies know they are highly likely to lose on this bet but their hope is once your signed up to their site, they retain your custom. They will go as far as to say that its max stake £1 and/or the returns are in free bets, meaning either you only make £50 on the bet and/or you have to spending the winnings with them.

A special offer is usually an enhanced price bet on anything from singles to multiples. They will run these for one of 2 reasons. Either they are trying to balance their book (attract money onto one outcome to balance the money taken on the other) or push a high margin line (A bet that they can work a high margin into the price due to it having a higher risk than other bets) or they are pushing a loss leading deal with similar reasons for the enhanced sign up offers. They know they are likely to make a loss on this bet but the hope is that the people who place bets on it, if it goes on to win, will restake their winnings and more on their site.

My advice here is to always choose your bet and look for offers accordingly, never the other way round. Never bet on something a bookmaker has recommended blindly because it looks a good price. Always try to spot these loss leading bets and avoid high margin boosts and multis as single outright wagers give the highest value long term.