I’m often asked what happens to bets placed on postponed matches, so I thought it was worth producing this quick guide to explain how it works.
We’ll cover what typically happens to different types of bets, including singles and accumulators, and what you should do if a sporting event is postponed after you’ve already placed your bet on it.
Reasons Why Matches Get Postponed
- Bad Weather
- Waterlogged Pitch
- Safety Concerns
- Health Issues (including Pandemics)
Postponements can sometimes be announced at the last minute, so it’s not uncommon to end up in a situation where you’ve already placed a bet.
If so, here’s what happens at the vast majority of good bookmakers, and online and mobile betting sites.
Single Bets
In almost all cases, if you’ve placed a single bet on a postponed match or event, your bet will be declared void and you will get your money back.
The bet will never, ever be declared as a loser.
A small minority of bookies might try to roll your bet over and apply it to the revised date for the fixture. But really, they should not do this, because the circumstances of the rearranged match could be totally different to the original.
Any reputable bookie or betting site will gladly refund your stake.
This applies on the assumption that the match is rearranged to take place on a different day. If the kick off is merely delayed until later on the same day, then this does not class as a postponement and your bet will stand.
Accumulators and Multiples
So what happens if your bet on a postponed event was part of a multiple or accumulator? Does this mean the entire thing get declared void?
Fortunately not. Instead, under the rules found at almost all online bookies, the void bet is simply removed from the accumulator, and the remainder of your bet stands.
For example, if you place an 8-leg acca and one match is postponed, it becomes a 7-leg acca instead. You don’t need to do anything, this will happen automatically.
The odds of your accumulator will be reduced to allow for the bet that has been removed, but the rest of it is not affected.
Outrights & Season Bets
If you’ve placed a bet that spans an entire tournament or season, then the postponement of any individual matches within that season will not affect your bet.
Even if the end of the season is delayed, as it was in 2020 due to Covid-19, the bet will stand providing the tournament can be completed and a winner is announced.
What To Do If The Event You Bet On Is Postponed
The first and most important thing is don’t panic – you haven’t lost your money!
Give it a few hours after the postponement is announced, and then log into your betting app or the bookie’s website.
If your bet was a single, then you should see your stake returned to your real money balance.
If it was a multiple or accumulator, then you can check your betting history and you should see that the bet has been updated. It still won’t be settled until all the results are known.
Be patient, don’t do this immediately as it can sometimes take them a while to settle their betting markets. This is normal, so don’t worry if you don’t see it happen straight away.
There are some bookies who have different rules to those I’ve described here, but this does apply to the vast majority of sites I have ever seen, reviewed or bet with personally.
After a few hours, if you still don’t see anything happen in your account, you should contact the betting site’s customer support team via phone, e-mail or live chat, and ask what’s going on and when the market will be settled.
Conclusion
This is a question I see asked a lot, so I hope that this article has given you some confidence when it comes to knowing what happens to bets on postponed events.
If you have any other betting questions, send us a message and we’ll do our best to answ3er them in future Mobile Betting Site knowledge base guides.
Last Updated on February 25, 2021
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