TVG Network offers a couple of different free contests for its users. TVG Super 8 and TVG Cash Keeper are free contests with real cash prizes. The best part? These are not impossible contests to win and they aren’t your run-of-the-mill random draws. They are truly handicapping contests and another way for horseplayers to stay involved from afar.
TVG’s Super 8 contest runs every Sunday. Handicappers are given eight races to handicap and choose a winner in. Players who correctly select the winner in all eight races share $100,000. But, one doesn’t need to go a perfect 8 for 8 to win a prize. TVG and its sponsor pays out in four separate pools. Players who correctly select five, six or seven winners also win!
- All players who go 5 for 8 share $3,000
- All players who go 6 for 8 share $5,000
- All players who go 7 for 8 share $8,000
This is a great, risk-free opportunity for horseplayers to work on their craft and give themselves a chance to win some real money.
The TVG Cash Keeper contest is a bit more complicated. It runs two days on Friday and Saturday. Players are given a mythical bankroll of $1000 to start. Players must answer ten handicapping questions over a two day period. On each of the ten questions, players can risk as much of their bankroll as they’d like. After completing the ten questions, players keep what’s left of their bankroll in real cash.
While other ADWs like Twin Spires, DRF Bets and Bet America offer promos and opt ins, neither they, nor other ADWs offer free contests that are risk-free and that allow horseplayers an opportunity to make money based on their handicapping acumen.
In 2019, much of the horse racing industry is trying to figure out how to grow the game and bring in new horseplayers. While sign up bonuses are the preferred tactic for ADWs to gain users, they imply and require both real money deposits and a minimum amount of gambling of those dollars on the part of the user. That can be an overwhelming proposition for a new horseplayer. If Twin Spires, as an example, were to offer its users free contests similar to those of TVG, it will attract more users to its platform and a larger database of horseplayers to market to.
It would be nice if DRF Bets, Twin Spires and others would take a page from TVG’s playbook. For weekend warriors and players like me who really spend the majority of their bankroll on big race days, attracting us to your ADW on a weekly basis will make us more likely to use your ADW on Derby Day, Travers Day and for the Breeder’s Cup.
If you’re a horseplayer and you’re not playing the TVG Network free contests, you should be. You literally have nothing to lose. You should also consider asking your preferred ADW to offer similar contests.
