Online betting company Betfair has announced that it will give London Marathon runners the chance to back themselves with a free £20 bet and raise extra money for their chosen charity.
The company has set up the website back-yourself.com, which will be live for the week leading up to the race. On the website, runners competing in this year’s London Marathon get a free £20 bet on whether they will reach their target time.
The site asks runners to enter a number of details about their running history, training efforts and target time and then calculates the odds of them hitting their target. Runners can then place their £20 free bet.
If the target time is reached, the runner will need to send a screenshot of their official time to Betfair, and the bookmakers will donate the winnings plus their £20 stake to the runner’s fundraising page. If the target time is missed, the £20 free stake will be donated to Cancer Research UK, the London Marathon official charity.
Naomi Totten, Spokesperson for Betfair, commented “The London Marathon is a truly admirable test of human endurance, nobody enters the 26 mile race half-heartedly. With just a few days to go, runners will be unable to thrash out any more long runs and will be focusing on carb loading and maximising their fundraising so that they know it’s all been worth it.
“We’ve decided to reward the gruelling training that runners up and down the country have put themselves through over the past 6 months, and give them a chance to really boost their charity efforts by backing themselves with a free £20 bet.”
Betfair is one of the world’s largest international online sports betting providers and pioneered the betting exchange in 2000. Betfair’s exchange enables customers to bet at odds sought by themselves or offered by other customers. The company now also operates a complementary fixed odds Sportsbook. In addition to sports betting, Betfair offers a portfolio of products including casino, exchange games and poker. Betfair currently employs over 1,000 people worldwide and holds betting licences in Great Britain, Bulgaria, Gibraltar, the US, Italy, Denmark, Spain and Malta.
www.betfair.com
www.virginmoneylondonmarathon.com
