Best odds guaranteed (BOG)
Best odds guaranteed (BOG) is a bookmaker concession on racing: if you take a fixed price and the official starting price (SP) comes back bigger, your winning bet is settled at the SP instead. If the SP is shorter, you keep the price you took. It is found mostly on UK and Irish horse racing, sometimes on greyhounds, and the rules around it differ from one bookmaker to the next.
How a BOG bet is settled
At settlement the bookmaker compares two prices and pays whichever returns more: the odds you took and the SP. Say you back a horse at 4/1 in the morning, an implied chance of 20%, and it wins at an SP of 6/1, roughly 14.3%. A €10 win bet returns €70 rather than €50.
The concession only ever moves upwards.
Practice varies, so the terms matter more than the label. Many firms start BOG on the morning of the race, often from 8am, and leave out ante-post bets, Tote bets, free bets and full-cover bets such as a Lucky 15; some cap the extra winnings or require an opt-in. Where a free bet is involved, remember the stake is not returned either way.
BOG compared with backing at SP
BOG is most often confused with simply betting at the starting price, so here are the two set against each other on a qualifying race.
Price taken with BOG | Bet struck at SP |
|---|---|
| Horse drifts from 4/1 to 6/1: paid at 6/1 | Paid at 6/1 |
| Horse shortens from 4/1 to 2/1: paid at 4/1 | Paid at 2/1 |
| Settled price known as a floor when you bet | Price unknown until the off |
| Only qualifying races and bet types | Available on any race priced at SP |
What BOG is not
BOG changes the settlement of a winning or placed bet, not the horse’s chance of winning. The bookmaker’s margin is still built into both prices, so a drift to a longer SP is a better payout on the same overround, not free value.
It is also separate from a price promise or enhanced odds offer, which some operators run under their own rules and often exclude from BOG.
