When looking around at various bookmakers, you will see that many have odds boosts available to you. These could be called different things, from odds boosts to price boosts, price rush, price promise, and other things.
Basically, though, they all offer you the same, an enhanced price on a selection to win. For example, the regular price for this selection is 3/1, and that has now been boosted to 4/1, so if you place a bet, you are getting a bigger than normal price.
When price boosts were first introduced, they were quite rare to see. That progressed to them being used at all major events, which increased the popularity of them, and now we see them almost daily from some bookmakers, such is the demand from punters. We are even at the stage now where you can choose which of your own bets you boost, rather than siding only with the selections a bookmaker decides to boost themselves.
Why Do Bookmakers Create Odds Boosts?
The simple answer to this is for exposure and to try and bring in new customers. The betting industry is an extremely competitive market, and each bookmaker does all they can to try and stand out from the crowd and bring in business. They all do this in different ways, with varying points of focus, but one of the most popular is to offer bonuses and boosts, which a price boost would come under.
The idea is to catch people’s eye, which could be by creating something that makes a player sign up so they can get it or to get an existing customer to place a bet on something because they see the bigger price on offer.
The slight hit on profit by having larger payouts is something that bookmakers are happy to take if the boosted selection wins, of course, because they know of the exposure it gives them.
Where to Find Odds Boosts
You may think that bookmakers will hide away their price boosts because they don’t want people to bet on them and get the bigger prices, but that is actually the opposite of what they want to do. The reason for creating price boosts is to encourage people to bet or attract potential new customers, so they want them to be seen.
For this reason, some bookmakers have created pages on their websites where all price boosts can be seen together for easy access. Elsewhere, some bookmakers put them with the relevant pages on their site, but always highlighted and usually right at the top of the page, so no one misses out.
As an example of this, any Premier League football price boosts will be shown on the main football betting landing page, as well as the Premier League betting page, and of course, on the page of the game the boosts are for.
The only thing you need to consider about odds boosts is when you look because these are usually only created and added on the day of an event. So, if you are looking two or three days before a round of football games, you may not find the odds boosts. This isn’t because the bookmaker is hiding them and doesn’t want you to see them. Instead, it is simply because they haven’t been created yet.
Not everyone can bet at the last minute, but if you browse your bookmaker on the day of the games you want to bet on, this is when you are most likely to see the price boosts on offer.
Should You Bet on Odds Boosts?
One of the biggest myths in betting is that you shouldn’t place your bet on a selection if the odds of them to win have been boosted. This is simply not the case, there is no way that a bookmaker has any kind of inside knowledge or influence which helps them work out what selections to price boost.
Of course, they could really think a team is going to lose and boost their odds to win in a game because they are happy to be against them, but that is just the odds compilers with your bookmaker having a different opinion to you. Sometimes you will get it right, other times, they will, that’s the beauty of betting.
So, if you log onto your betting site to place a bet and see that the selection that you want to win is available with a price boost, don’t let that put you off. Be grateful for the extra value you are receiving and place the bet as you were going to.
When betting, if you are looking in depth at your wagers and what you place, you may have a minimum price in your head that you want for the selection. But there shouldn’t be a maximum, if you are happy to take 3/1, and you get offered 4/1, that just means you are getting bigger value on your bet.
The one trap that punters should look to avoid falling in with price boosts is placing them just because you’ve seen the price. Don’t go off your thinking and choose something else to bet on just because a big price is on offer. If you didn’t fancy the selection before seeing the price, you need to have a serious think and work out whether there is any value there before you place a bet on a price boost.
Of course, if you think the selection now offers value, thanks to the boost, then you could bet, but don’t just bet for the sake of it because of the boost.
Boost Your Own Odds
The price boosts on offer with bookmakers have already evolved and changed due to the competitive nature of the market. Rather than having price boosts on fixed selections, which are chosen by your bookmaker, it is now possible to have price boosts in your account, which you can use to place on any selection you wish.
These are limited, of course, and in some instances, are for specific sports, for example, one price boost per day on football and one per day on horse racing. However, this solves the problem that some people have with price boosts, which is that bookmakers are choosing where to put them. Now, thanks to being able to boost your own odds, you can choose where you put the price boosts yourself on the bets that you think are most likely to win.
The price boosts you can add yourself may not quite be as large as some others, but if you want to specifically boost a selection of your own, and this isn’t available elsewhere at boosted odds, some bookmakers will now let you do that, giving punters complete control.
