Guaranteed Bet Launched by BetVictor
BetVictor, the company that was formerly known as Victor Chandler, has launched what it claims is on online first for the gambling industry by making a £500 lay-to-lose guarantee. The move comes after the company initiated talks with the Horseracing Bettors Forum and allows customers to select a Guaranteed Bet option.
The offer will apply to Win bets as well as the Win part of Each-Way wagers that are placed at any point after eleven in the morning on the day of a race. It will be available for any grade of race, too, meaning that customers will have a wealth of choices available to them, should they wish to take advantage of BetVictor’s new promotion.
What Is a Guaranteed Bet?
The obvious question that punters will ask is what, exactly, a Guaranteed Bet actually is. The answer is that it is a guarantee that people will be able to place a bet, even if their accounts have been restricted in the past. In other words, should a bettor have been told in the past that their account is being restricted in terms of the bets they’re allowed to place, they’ll still be able to place a Guaranteed Bet.
The move to offer Guaranteed Bets comes not long after a House of Lords committee suggested to bookmakers that if they didn’t stop limiting customers’ accounts then regulatory intervention might be necessary. This seems like a move to stop that from the being the case, allowing the betting industry to continue to ‘self-regulate’ and not fear government intervention.
BetVictor have also intimated that even customers who have had their accounts cancelled or suspended in the past will be able to take part in the promotion after applying to do so. Such accounts will be evaluated as and when people approach BetVictor, with the company obviously wary of making a blanket promise without knowing why an account was suspended in the first place.
How It Will Work
Initially BetVictor are saying that this will be a trial, though the intention is there to roll it out to more bets and with the ability to win more money if it proves to be a success. How it will work in its current form is that it will come up as an option when customers go to place a bet. The market will come up alongside the other markets on a race as ‘Guaranteed Bet’.
The winning amount of money is limited to £500, with the Win and Win part of an Each-Way bet the only things that it will be offered on initially. That means that a £50 bet on a horse with odds of 10/1, for example, would be a valid bet to be placed using the market. It will be in place for First Past The Post and the Official Result will be the one that’s counted.
An important thing to note is that other offers provided on horse racing by BetVictor won’t be available on the Guaranteed Bet market. This means that the likes of Best Odds Guaranteed and Run For Your Money won’t be in place if you’ve placed a Guaranteed Bet. The best thing to do is to weigh up which offer will return you the most winnings and opt for that one.
The Horseracing Bettors Forum Is in Favour of the Move
Given that the move to offer the Guaranteed Bet was made after consultation with the Horseracing Bettors Forum, it’s not overly surprising that they’re entirely in favour of it. The consultation between BetVictor and the HBF has been going on for more than twelve months and the organisation’s Chairman, Matt Bisogno, has said that they’re ‘heartened’ by the move.
Bisogno also commented on the ‘forward-thinking approach’ of BetVictor, though there was a note of caution in his words. He spoke of the ‘positive step forward for British and Irish racing bettors’, with the under-current suggesting that it is just the start of what the Horseracing Bettors Forum hopes will happen moving forward, including the rest of the industry following suit.
Is This Just The Start?
BetVictor have claimed that this is an industry first and as far as the online sector is concerned that’s definitely the case. Both Ladbrokes and Coral have made the same offer to punters for some time now, but only if they place bets in one of their shops. The move to offer it to online punters is certainly a first, with BetVictor pointing to their own ‘strong and proud horse racing heritage’ as the reason why they’ve done it.
The question both bettors and the Horseracing Betting Forum will want an answer to is whether or not other companies will now look to follow suit and also offer this sort of betting to punters online. After all, whenever one betting company creates an offer or a deal it’s not long before others offer the same thing in order to ensure that they don’t lose out on potential customers moving forward.
