Custom Bets, Odds on Request, Novelty: What UK Bookmakers Offer
Can You Bet "On Anything You Want"?
Request-a-Bet, Specials, Novelties — these are different facets of the same trend: bookmakers' willingness to adapt to their customers. How did such bets become mainstream? Can a betting company calculate custom odds just for you? And what kinds of non-sports bets are truly worth exploring? We’ll cover it all and offer some intriguing options. For instance, you can already bet on the next Glastonbury headliner.
Novelty bets
How to Attract New Clients? Stand Out from the Competition. In short, this is exactly how Novelty Bets skyrocketed in popularity at the end of the last century. When everyone was offering bets on horse racing and football, you needed to stand out — for instance, by letting people wager on the name of the future royal heir. That’s exactly what Coral did. And the trend took off...
Nowadays, the biggest attention-grabbers are MMA fighters and participants in “pop fights.” Jake Paul barely finished his lackluster bout with Mike Tyson before people were already speculating about his next opponent. This type of wager has become one of the most popular Novelty Bets on platforms like Unibet.
Special and Novelty bets attract players not just with their original themes (although that’s a big part of their charm). They’re almost always long-term wagers, offering jaw-dropping odds as a result. Plus, bookmakers often struggle to assess probabilities accurately, making these markets a prime hunting ground for value bettors.
If you’re willing to wait, you can even bet on who will succeed Trump as the next U.S. president. We’ve shared more details on the frontrunners and how to place such bets here.
Of course, traditional sports betting still delivers the biggest payouts. Over the past 30 years, the largest wins have ranged between £500,000 and £700,000. While Novelty bets might bring in less overall, the margins are phenomenal! Tens or even hundreds of thousands have been won from just a few pounds.
The Biggest Novelty Bets Wins of the Last 60 Years
Bet/Year |
Odds |
Money Won |
Name of the Bettor |
Man on the Moon/1963 |
100/1 |
£10,000 |
David Threlfall |
Accumulator: Cliff Richard to be knighted, U2 to stay active, TV shows like Home and Away to air before 2000/1989 |
6,479/1 |
£194,400 |
Anonym |
X Factor to out-rate Strictly Come Dancing/2008 |
20/1 |
£50,000 |
Piers Morgan |
Of course, these kinds of bets often rely more on intuition than analysis. But who could resist the thrill of wagering on the heroes of their favorite TV show? Nearly all major players in the market offer odds on Strictly Come Dancing, with Bluefox providing a slightly more appealing option.
Chris McCausland to Win the Strictly Come Dancing
Odds on Request and Bet Builders
Remember how we talked about the boom in Novelty bets being tied to predicting the name and gender of a future royal heir? Do you know how that idea even came to bookmakers? It was suggested by punters themselves, who flooded betting shops with requests. For a while, you could genuinely ask a bookmaker to calculate a personalized line on almost any event. But those days are long gone.
Betting rules are now regulated by the UK Gambling Commission and must be standardized for everyone. Otherwise, operators risk fines — or worse. Modern bookmakers have all but forgotten the days when someone could walk into a shop and request odds on, say, their son playing for Arsenal. Our recent inquiry to Bet365 about such a bet left them utterly confused.
That said, a partially personalized approach still exists. Pinnacle claims it can provide "specific odds" on request. This seems to mean a slight extension of the betting line. For instance, if the publicly available market offers a total of over 4.5 goals in a hypothetical Chelsea vs. Liverpool match, they might adjust it to 5.5 based on your personal request. However, all terms should be confirmed with the specific bookmaker.
The most popular form of personalized interaction today is the so-called Bet Builders. These are primarily available for sports events. This type of customizable bet allows you to combine multiple selections from the same match or across different fixtures into a single wager.
For example, want to bet that both Lewandowski and Haaland will score in their respective matches in the next Champions League round, and that a third game will have over 10 corners? No problem! Here’s a step-by-step guide for doing this with Unibet.
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Find the fixture you want
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Make your selections
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Add another game to the same bet if needed
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Check your odds
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Place your bet
A similar option is available on Betfred, where you can create your own Bet Builder. Additionally, they sometimes allow you to select one of the most popular Bet Builders created by other users. For instance, for the upcoming match between Manchester City and Tottenham, a popular Bet Builder looks like this.
Summary
Unfortunately, in today’s betting landscape, you can’t truly bet “on anything.” At best, bookmakers can slightly extend their lines or help you create a personalized Bet Builder. The “golden era” is now a thing of the past, but its legacy lives on in the form of Novelty and Special Bets, staples among almost all bookmakers. These alternatives to traditional bets are less predictable but often offer significant value.
Of course, treating these bets as investments would be overly risky. However, they’re not designed for large wagers. For example, representatives from Bet365 shared with us that the minimum stake in the UK on the winner of I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here is just £0.10.
Leicester
Chelsea
Arsenal
Nottingham Forest
Manchester City
Tottenham
Celta
Barcelona
Hellas Verona
Inter Milan
