For years Black Friday has had customers engaging in fisticuffs over discounted TV’s and cheap hair dryers. And with some ridiculous sales suspiciously close to christmas, it’s not hard to see why everyone gets a little over excited at the prospect of some juicy bargains.
This year even the bookies are getting involved with some offers. And, in the true spirit of the day, they’re suitably off the wall. We’ve covered the relevant offers below and will update throughout the day as more come in. Many are for new customers only, but there are some existing customer price boosts as well.
So, if you’ve been dreaming of the day when you’d get odds of 50/1 for Man City to beat Burnley, now’s your chance…
Best Black Friday Betting Deals (New Customers)
Please Note: Black Friday next takes place on 25th November 2022. Due to the short lived nature of the offers we won’t have details of what’s up for grabs until nearer the time, with promotions normally starting the weekend before and running the whole week.
The bonus king never fails to disappoint us with his offers. This time you can get £50 in bonuses when you sign up and bet £10, made up of a combination of sports free bets and casino free spins.
What Kinds of Offers Can We Expect?
Predicting what the bookies will offer can be pretty difficult as it’s usually a flurry of last minute activity with each site trying to outdo each other with the silliest offers. Generally speaking though expect to see a lot of big enhanced odds offers with massive prices but low maximum bets. It’s not uncommon to see maximum bets of £1 but odds of 50/1 or more on popular bets that have a good chance of coming in.
In most cases the offers do tend to be event related either backing a heavy favourite to win, such as Man United to beat Shrewsbury Town at home, or linked to something happening – such as a goal to be scored by either team or any card or corner to be awarded. Some bookmakers try to appeal to the novice market as well by offering novelty bets on TV shows or even something as silly as ‘the sun to rise’.
The bookies aren’t daft though and whilst many of the bets can be considered bankers the payout is normally as free bets, not cash. This means you’ll need to bet with your winnings before they can be withdrawn. Pretty much all of these offers are also limited to new customers only as they’re mainly a way for the betting site to acquire new business.
What is Black Friday?
We’re assuming that most of you have heard of Black Friday. But, for those of you who have been living under a rock for the last few years, here’s what you need to know.
The Black Friday sales originated in the USA and takes place on the day after Thanksgiving. Various sources have disputed the origin of the name but it is largely attributed to being the day on which retailers go into profit for the year (ie: they are ‘in the black’).
The day after Thanksgiving is also seen by many Americans as the first day of the run up to Christmas – rather than the middle of July like we seem to do in the UK – and many stores started dishing out promotions on this day to attract customers through their doors. An especially wise move, considering that the day is a holiday in the USA – essentially making it the equivalent of the boxing day sales found here in Blighty.
Competition between stores made the sales and discounts get bigger and bigger until they morphed into the behemoths you see today. Discounts of 70%+ are not uncommon, with special ‘door buster’ promotions offered (at a huge loss to the store) to the first x number of customers through the door on the day.
Some stores even hand out gift vouchers to reward customers who decided to forego the traditional thanksgiving dinner and instead choose to camp outside a department store overnight waiting for it to open in order to snag the best deals.
Black Friday in the UK
Black Friday first came to the UK proper in 2013 when Asda, now owned by American retail giants Walmart, decided to run the sale in the UK. After a relatively quiet start things picked up pace in 2014, with other shops joining in and also offering sales. Since then it’s snowballed into a huge pre-christmas shopping event with almost every major retailer participating.
Think we’re exaggerating? We’re really not – research by SaleCycle showed that in 2017 approximately 91% of UK retailers offered some kind of black friday promotion.
Ironically Asda pulled out of Black Friday a couple of years later and since 2015 they haven’t ran any specific sales, despite the fact that they started the whole thing in the UK. Whilst they claim this is to offer year round sales instead of one crazy day, it’s highly likely to do with video footage of shoppers literally fighting over TV’s in one of their stores.
Things really started to kick off in 2015 with £3.3 billion spent over the Black Friday weekend. This year is expected to be even bigger with projected takings of £5b, much of which is likely to be online.