Minimum Bet Guarantee: Betting When Banned?

You may just be getting into matched betting and have heard about losing your accounts.

Or you may be an experienced bettor who has had your accounts restricted by killjoy bookies.

Either way, this guide is for you. We’re going to teach you exactly what a minimum bet guarantee is and how you can use it even if you’ve been gubbed.

Bookmakers actually helping regular customers will probably come as a shock to most people. It certainly did to us. 

Bet then again the bookies hate us. It’s kinda in the name – Beating Betting.

We’re all about providing the best strategies to help you extract as much profit with as minimal risk as possible.

The strategy that we’re about to show you will allow you to continue doing this without any fear of getting banned!

It is also referred to as ‘lay to lose’ by some bookmakers. This is a great offer to get familiar with. 

What is Minimum Bet Guarantee?

Brought in by a few bookmakers Minimum Bet Guarantee allows anyone to bet on selected markets irrespective of whether they have been restricted or not.

Sounds too good to be true, right?

Well, there are some stipulations put on these bets but we’re going to run down each bookmaker and the rules involved. 

The main one being you are only allowed to win a certain amount. The good news is this is up to £500 at most bookmakers.

Even better than that we’re going to show you how you can use minimum bet guarantee to lock in profit whatever the outcome of horse races.

Which Bookmakers Offer Minimum Bet Guarantee?

Sky Bet

This guarantee will be available on all UK and Irish Class 1 and Class 2 races and will be applied from 10 am on the day of the race.

All customers will be able to back their selections to win £500 in the main “Win” market in all qualifying races from 10 am on the day of the race.

For example £500 at evens, £250 at 2/1, £50 at 10/1 etc.

This guarantee will only apply to the win part of all each-way bets and will not apply to multiples.

Betfair

The Betfair Sportsbook has rolled out its £500 ‘Minimum Bet To Win Guarantee’ to cover all UK and Irish racing.

The Guarantee applies from 10:00 am on the morning of the race for winnings up to £500 on the win market.

Bet Victor

The market will apply to all UK and Irish horse races from 11 am daily. It is not available on other racing at this time

£500.

Win market only.

William Hill

Must win a minimum of £500

Applies to all UK and Irish horse racing

Applies only to bets struck after final declaration stage (final field confirmation)

Win Singles Only

Main Win Markets Only

Ladbrokes

In shop ONLY.

Guaranteed to lay bets to lose at least £5,000 per customer on all races shown on ITV

They have also brought in a daily guarantee to lay all bets placed on Class 4 and above handicaps, Listed, Group and Graded races to lose at least £2,000 – and on any other UK or Irish race to lose at least £500 – from 11 am.

Coral 

In shop ONLY.

To lose at least £5,000 guarantee per customer races: (from 9 am) – to include all Channel 4 races.

To lose at least £2,000 per customer guarantee races: (from 11 am) – to include all non-televised Class 4 and above handicaps, Listed and Group/Graded races in the UK.

Coral may also offer the £5k & £2k guarantees on other selected UK & International races at their discretion. These guarantees would be advertised in shops on the day of race.

Minimum Bet Guarantee Strategy

As minimum bet guarantee is only available for horse racing we are going to start taking a look at the markets. 

Bookmakers will only accept bets after a certain time on race day so there’s no point us looking any earlier than that. 

When that time comes, we can open the website of the bookies mentioned above. For this example, we’ll focus on Betfair Sportsbook. Remember this is different to Betfair Exchange. 

Make sure you are placing your back bets with Sportsbook in order to qualify for the offer.

To make the most of these opportunities we are going to use the matched betting system. This involves looking for high back bets at the above bookmakers and then place lay bets at a betting exchange for lower odds.

We have Betfair Sportsbook open and are comparing the odds to Smarkets Exchange. 

Odds at an exchange tend to move quicker than those at the bookmaker. This is especially true as it gets closer to the off.

This is often what provides us with opportunities to find the difference.

There’s a horse called Elegant Love that seems to be getting a lot of bets coming in for it on Smarkets. 

Before we get into the minimum bet guarantee strategy we’re going to share a valuable tip.

How to Calculate the Back Amount

A certain amount needs to be wagered in order to trigger the offer. This is the easiest way you can work out how much you need to stake to trigger it.

500 / (bookmakers odds – 1)

So for our example, it would be:

500 / (2.5 – 1) =

500 / 1.5 = 333.33

We will call that a stake of £334. Easy!

Looking at Smarkets we can see Elegant love is available to lay for 2.36

This discrepancy in odds is enough to make some profit. Remember we want to back high and lay low. 

If we input all the information into a matched betting calculator it will tell us our lay stake and the expected profit. 

The lay stake is £356.84. 

This is a high amount. Make sure you have the bankroll to cover this. Also, make sure the exchange has enough liquid in it to get matched. 

Tip – you can make the back stake smaller by choosing bets with higher odds.

Double check everything and if it is all good place the back bet at Betfair Sportsbook and then immediately place the lay bet at Smarkets.

There we have it, with two bets placed we now stand to win £15.70 whether Elegant Love wins or not! 

You can sit back and watch the race knowing you’re quids in or you can move onto the next offer.

With even more potential profit on the horizon, we’re going to move on.

Under Laying for More Profit

With the above example showing you how you can lock in a profit to win whatever the outcome. This next example will show you how to alter the stakes to stack them in favour of certain horses. 

By doing this it will lead to bigger winnings should that chosen horse cross the line in first place. 

We’ll explain all below.

It’s the technique as before, we’re looking for horses whose odds are starting to go lower on the exchange than the bookmaker. We have William Hill and Betfair Exchange open.

Looking at both there is a horse called The Fiddler which is showing promise. 

So we do our back bet calculation in preparation.

500 / (2.75 – 1) =

500 / 1.75 = 285.71

Rounding this up it gives us a back stake of £285. Remember we have to win £500 to trigger the offer.

The odds for The Fiddler on Betfair Exchange are now consistently hovering below our back odds. This is the time we need to spring into action. 

For the next step, we need an underlaying calculator which will show us the lay stake. All we have to do is enter the information.

As you can see, if we follow the first minimum bet guarantee strategy and split the stake evenly, we would stand to win £34.67 whatever horse won. 

However, from our research before the race, we had good faith that The Fiddler could go out and win the race. 

We could just go out and take a punt like inexperienced bettors do. We would stand to win more money but we’d also stand to lose a lot of money.

Horse racing is incredibly unpredictable. If it wasn’t we’d all be making a living off the bookies. Just when you think you’re getting the hang of things a sure-fire bet has a poor race and ends up wiping out your bankroll.

This is why the under-laying strategy is genius. 

If The Fiddler goes onto win the race, as we hope it does, we will win £85.05. That’s more than double what we would win if we split the stake evenly. 

If for some reason it doesn’t happen and finishes anywhere outside of first we’ll break even. Meaning we won’t win anything but importantly we won’t lose anything. 

The back and lay bets we have placed cancel each other out. 

This is why it’s such a good strategy. It protects your bankroll, you simply pick yourself up and go on to the next bet. No love lost. 

For this reason, we don’t recommend using the underlay strategy every time.  

There are at least four bookmakers that offer minimum bet guarantee. If you were to use the first strategy on three of them and take home smaller profits whatever the outcome.  

You could then underlay one race and try to really boost your profits!

This is how a basic strategy becomes a very profitable one. 

What if I’m Gubbed or Banned?

You may have seen earlier in the article we mentioned that this is suitable for bettors who have been gubbed or banned. 

That is completely correct. 

Amazingly, bookmakers have been pressured to start offering something to the customers they have been restricting and banning for years.

After all, these customers are only playing the game well.

Minimum bet guarantee started in Australia and gained some traction as a compromise between gamblers and bookmakers. 

It’s only recently that UK bookmakers have started to dip their toes in.

It seems to be going well. Coral and Ladbrokes have also rolled out a minimum bet guarantee offer in their shops.

Hopefully, this offer goes online and other bookmakers start to follow suit.

If your account has been gubbed you should still be able to reach this offer. Just make sure to check bookmakers terms and conditions to ensure you’re betting on the correct markets at the correct times.

If your account has been banned, get in contact with the relevant customer support. Mention you want to bet on the minimum bet guarantee/lay to lose offer. They should reinstate the account for that purpose only.

Is it Suitable for Beginners? 

This offer is perfectly acceptable for newbie and intermediate bettors to complete. By its definition, it is pretty much open to anyone.

However, we don’t recommend you start with this unless you have accounts that have been gubbed or banned. 

This is because there are a whole host of better offers out there.

Complete the sign-up and reload offers first as they are about the easiest and best way to make money and beat the bookies.