In the world of betting, punters should always be on the lookout for any edge that they can get over the bookmaker. The reason it is important to remain vigilant for such edges at all times is that they don’t come around very often, meaning that they chance of getting one over on the company that you place most of your bets with is slim. Of course, bookies know that they need to work hard to entice customers, especially given the sheer number of betting companies that exist in the modern era offering punters plenty of different choices.
As a result, there are always offers and promotions that you can take advantage of. One thing to understand is that there is a different between a promotion of offer and a concession. In short, a concession is something that is available most of the time and that pays out in cash. That is as opposed to offers and promos, which come around every so often and tend to be paid out in the likes of free bets or bonuses. It is an important distinction that is worth understanding so that you know when you need to pounce.
Concessions Explained
There are a wealth of different concessions offered by bookmakers on a regular basis. Here is a short, but far from exhaustive, list:
- Best Odds Guaranteed
- Extra Places
- Better Each-Way Odds As Standard
- Non-Runner No Bet On The Day
- Extra Payouts On Lucky Bets
- Payout If You Team Goes 2-0 Up
These are mostly markets that are constantly running and that you don’t need to do anything to take advantage of. If a bookmaker is running a Best Odds Guarantee, for example, then you will suddenly see more money in your account when your horse wins than you were expecting to receive. Equally, your stake will simply be refunded to you if the bookie in question has a Non-Runner, No Bet offer in place without you needing to apply for it.
Whether it’s a concession on football, horse racing or some other sport, there’s nothing that you need to do. At the same time, concession offers tend to be paid out in cash. That means that you can withdraw any associated money immediately and don’t need to meet any conditions first in order to do so. They are always applicable to a specific market or sport and punters don’t need to be concerned with making anything happen to get the money into their bank accounts if that’s what they wish to do.
The Comparison With Promotions
Though this piece is predominantly about concessions, it is worth looking at offers and promotions in order to draw a clear line between them. Promotions and offers differ from concessions on account of the fact that they are usually temporary, often require you to opt-in to them or are somehow restricted in another way. On top of that, an offer or a promotion will usually only pay out in something like a free-bet or a bonus, meaning that you need to meet more conditions before being able to withdraw the associated money.
An example of a promotion might be something like a free £5 bet if you place £20 worth of bets on football matches. Whilst the £5 is something that you can definitely bet with, it will almost always be a free-bet token rather than cash that you can withdraw. The £20 worth of bets that you’ll have to place to earn the £5 free bet will usually have to be on markets with odds of Evens or greater, too. They’re all small conditions that have to be met, including the need to opt-in to the offer before you choose to place your £20 worth of bets.
That is just one example, but it gives you an indication of the way in which promotions and offers will differ from concessions. They are always short-lived, as opposed to constantly available, meaning that you need to take advantage of them whilst you can or else they’ll be lost forever. It is this time-limit that makes offers and promotions stand out, more than even the content of them on some occasions. As long as you get in there quickly enough, you’ll be able to use them to get a slight edge over your bookmaker of choice.
Making Use Of Concessions
The most enjoyable thing about concessions is the fact that you don’t need to do anything specific to take advantage of them. Indeed, the only thing that you’ll want to keep an out for is that the bookmaker that you bet with most regularly offers them. Some concessions will be limited to specific bookies, though nowadays most companies have some form of the same bet as each other. In other words, it might not be phrased the same way but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t available if you look in the right place and do what you can to use it.
In order to truly take advantage of concessions, the main thing to do is nothing. That is to say, you should never place a bet that you weren’t planning to place just because there is a concession available on it. If you don’t tend to place bets on football normally, for example, then it is pointless to try to take advantage of a Payout If You Team Goes 2-0 Up concession because you won’t really know what you’re betting on. If, on the other hand, you regularly places bets on football matches then that concession is ideal.
Concessions are designed to be taken advantage of by bettors that go about their daily betting business. The only thing that you need to concern yourself with is whether a different bookie from the one that you normally use offers better concessions or ones that suit your betting patterns more. If you’re betting with Company A and Company B are offering a concession on your favourite sport whilst Company A isn’t, it might be worth making the switch, at least for those bets in particular when you’re placing them.