Best bookmaker offers: how to make the most of your 2023 Cheltenham Festival betting

The busiest betting week of the year is halfway through but bookmakers still have plenty of special free bet offers lined up to try to attract punters during the Cheltenham Festival, which started on Tuesday.

Sky Bet are continuing their money back offer on the first race every day of the festival, continuing with the Turners Novices' Chase (1.30), which kicks off day three on Thursday.

Losing win bets are refunded as cash up to £2 on the first bet placed. Customers with a Sky Bet account can also do the ITV7, a free-to-play game where a prize of £300,000 is up for grabs for picking the seven winners of the selected races on Thursday.

The jackpot is increased on Gold Cup day with £500,000 on offer, so there is £800,000 in jackpot prizes to be won over the next two days.

Paddy Power are offering three free bets, ranging from £2 to £25, for new and existing customers betting online across the week. It's the final day of the free bets on Thursday, with one free bet to be used on any race that day.

Paddy Power are also offering 'Paddy's Pick 5', through which punters betting online can land a share of £50,000 every day of the festival for selecting the winners of the five selected races at the Cheltenham Festival.

Coral customers can play the Super Series game, online or in store with a 'Connect' card, every day of the festival for free. Players must pick a horse to place in every race – place terms are those offered by Coral, not Tote terms – and will be knocked out of the competition if they fail to do so. The last ones standing win a share of the £50,000 prize pool.

Betfred are giving all online customers, who have previously placed a bet, a £1 free bet to use on any race at the Cheltenham Festival. There is an extra incentive, however, as the customer who gets the biggest return from their £1 free bet wins £100,000.

Those who place Cheltenham Festival accas with William Hill will benefit from 'Acca Freedom', which allows customers to either boost their accumulator odds or insure your acca against one result – meaning if that one fails, you get your money back up to £20.

At Tote, customers betting online can expect a Placepot minimum guaranteed pool of £1,000,000 every day of the Cheltenham Festival, so you could be in with a share if selecting a horse to place in the first six races.

Betfair are offering a completely free £2 bet for all customers on Cheltenham Festival multiples. They will also offer punters who stake £10 on multiples – this can be lots of small-stakes multiples, or one of £10 – a free £10 bet, valid for 48 hours, to use on other multiple bets on all four days of the festival.

Customers using bet365 can expect a price promise for every race of the festival shown live on ITV. They will match or beat the best price for any horse, every day of the festival.

Bet365 are also offering a bet boost on selected horses in every race during the Cheltenham Festival, which is for new and existing customers.

Best Cheltenham bookie offers

By Keith Melrose, Racing Post betting editor

Even though their long-standing 4-1 offer on ITV races recently came to an end, bet365 have ensured that they will still be top of many punters' lists at Cheltenham courtesy of their price promise. They are in effect guaranteeing top price on all ITV races this week, between 10am on the day of the race and 15 minutes before the off. If you bet win singles with major firms (the guarantee applies to only six other bookmakers: Ladbrokes, Coral, William Hill, Sky Bet, Paddy Power and BoyleSports) then this offer is likely to be among the most attractive to you.

The other bread-and-butter offers you should be considering concern enhanced each-way terms. At the time of writing, these are being offered to various degrees on the Supreme (four places generally, but watch out because sponsors Sky Bet are yet to move and are famous for big offers on this race), Ultima (eight places with Sky Bet, but six and seven are widely available), Mares' Hurdle (four places with Sky Bet and Unibet) and Boodles (six places generally).

The various offers on multiples are necessarily kept on a tight leash as they could lead to huge liabilities for firms. Betfair Sportsbook are leading the way here, for a £2 stake that you can potentially boost with the enhanced place terms mentioned above. If you are a multiples punter, their £10 free bet offer on Tuesday looks a more attractive option, so long as your multiple odds come out longer than evens and you will use the free bet on Wednesday or Thursday. Both of these offers are subject to opt-in, so don't just place the bets and expect the cashback.

And don't ignore the humble Placepot. Strictly speaking, the £1million guarantee from Tote is unlikely to come into play as all four days of last year's Cheltenham Festival had a bigger Placepot pool than that. However, the hype created by the guarantee is likely to have a significant positive effect on pools sizes, so with the right results Placepot dividends could get even tastier this week.

2023 Cheltenham Festival: best betting offers

• bet365 have a new customer offer available if you sign up for Cheltenham. Sign up here.
• Paddy Power are giving away free bets to new and existing customers, and all you need is an account. Sign up for Cheltenham here.
• Sky Bet are offering new customers free bets for Cheltenham when they sign up. You can get them, along with money-back specials and extra places, here.
• Betfair have lots of offers, extra places and money-back offers for Cheltenham. Sign up for a new account here.
• New William Hill customers can claim free bets for Cheltenham here and benefit from their money-back offers here.
• To get a free bet from Ladbrokes for Cheltenham – simply sign up to a new account here.
• Sign up for a new Coral account ready for Cheltenham. They have an offer for new customers here.
• If you're a new customer, Tote will give you a free bet for Cheltenham. Sign up here to claim.
• Commercial notice: This article contains affiliate links. Offers are handpicked and come from operators that our experts have first-hand experience of. Opening an account via one of these links will earn revenue for the Racing Post, which will be used to continue producing our award-winning coverage of horseracing.

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