ITV7 Races for this Saturday

If there is one thing sure to get a punter’s interest, it is the chance to win a significant sum for a minimal outlay. The allure of the small stake/big win combo is the reason why lotteries and football accumulator bets enjoy such appeal.

Each weekend, legions of bettors lay out a couple of pounds on the lottery, football accas, or racing combo bets in the hope of landing a substantial windfall. But what if we could hit such a jackpot without staking a penny? Thanks to the booming area of free-to-play games, we can.

In the UK, one of the highest-profile and most popular free-to-play games is the horse racing-based ITV7 competition. Completely free to enter and offering the chance to potentially win tens of thousands of pounds, this Sky Bet-powered competition has understandably become a smash hit with racing fans. But what exactly is the ITV7 competition, and how do you play?

How Does the ITV7 Work?

As the brains behind the popular Super 6 football prediction competition, Sky Bet have experience in creating a free-to-play game that appeals to the masses. ITV7 is effectively the horse racing version of Super 6.

Whereas in Super 6 your task is to predict six correct scores, ITV7 challenges you to predict the winner of seven specified horse races. The ITV7 game is available every Saturday and at a selection of multi-day meetings throughout the season, including the Cheltenham Festival and Royal Ascot. The seven selected races are almost always chosen from the live TV menu for that day.

How Do You Enter ITV7?

You can enter ITV7 via the ITV7 website or the ITV7 app, which is available to download for iOS and Android devices.

If you already have a Sky Bet account – for Sky Bet, Super 6, Fantasy Football, or any other Sky Bet product – you can use these details to log in to ITV7. Alternatively, it is quick and easy to register for a new ITV7 account via the website or app.

Having signed in to the website or app, simply select the “Enter” option from the main horizontal menu. This will bring up the list of runners for the first race in the next available ITV7 game. Select “Pick” to make your selection for that race and repeat until you have selected a horse in all seven races.

Finally, you will be taken to the Tiebreaker screen and asked to predict the winning distance in the last of the seven races included in the ITV7 game.

You can edit your ITV7 picks and tie-breaker answer until the entry period closes, i.e. just before the first of the seven races begins. Once the competition starts, you can use the website and app to track your progress.

What Happens if I Pick a Non-Runner?

If one of your ITV7 selections is a non-runner, it will be replaced by the SP (starting price) favourite for the race. In the event that there are joint favourites, your selection will revert to the joint favourite with the lowest race card number. For example, if you have a non-runner in a race where numbers 1 and 4 start as joint favourites, number 1 will be your ITV7 selection for that race.

If you want to minimise the chance of selecting a non-runner, the best advice is to wait until as late as possible before making your selections.

How Do You Win ITV7 and What Are the Prizes?

To win the ITV7 Jackpot, you must correctly predict the winner of all seven races included in the game round. In the event that more than one entrant predicts all seven winners, the tiebreaker question is used to determine the winner. If the entries are still tied, the prize will be split between the winning entries.

Picking the winner of seven competitive races certainly isn’t easy. However, if you manage to pull it off you will be richly rewarded. The ITV7 jackpot is typically £50,000 for a standard Saturday fixture, sometimes rising to £100,000, £250,000 or even more at the biggest events such as the Cheltenham Festival. In 2022, Chesterfield punter Jordan Reynolds scooped a boosted £500,000 jackpot by selecting all seven winners on Gold Cup Day at the Cheltenham Festival!

Keep an eye out for the six Sunday Series fixtures during the spring and summer months. The ITV7 jackpot for these meetings begins at £25,000 but rolls over if it isn’t won, creating the potential for a £150,000 jackpot at the last of the Sunday Series fixtures.

Consolation Prizes

In the event that no entrant predicts all seven winners, a consolation prize of £1,000 will be awarded to the entrant with the best record. Performance in the game is ranked as follows:

• 1. – 7 wins
• 2. – 6 wins, 1 placed
• 3. – 6 wins, 0 placed
• 4. – 5 wins, 2 placed
• 5. – 5 wins, 1 placed
• 6. – 5 wins, 0 placed
• 7. – 4 wins, 3 placed
• 8. – 4 wins, 2 placed
• 9. – 4 wins, 1 placed
• 10. – 4 wins, 0 placed
• 11. – 3 wins, 4 placed
• 12. – 3 wins, 3 placed
• 13. – 3 wins, 2 placed
• 14. – 3 wins, 1 placed
• 15. – 3 wins, 0 placed

In there is a tie, the winning distance tiebreaker question will again be used to determine the winner. Consolation prizes are only awarded if nobody picks all seven winners to claim the jackpot.

Non-Broadcast ITV7 Competitions

The highest-profile ITV7 games with the biggest jackpots centre around the race days broadcast live by ITV. However, for those seeking more of the free-to-play fun, additional “non-broadcast” games are available throughout the year.

Non-broadcast games operate in the same way as the broadcast games and offer a £1,000 jackpot and a £100 consolation prize. That’s significantly lower than the broadcast games, but remember, it doesn’t cost you anything to enter. Details of upcoming Non-Broadcast Competitions can be found on the ITV7 website or app.

ITV7 vs Accumulator Bets

The standard ITV7 jackpot of £50,000 falls into the life-changing category for most punters. However, there are those who believe that such a return doesn’t reflect the difficulty in selecting seven winners. Perhaps an accumulator bet may be a better option.

The first obvious drawback to that theory is that an accumulator bet will cost you your stake, whereas the ITV7 game is completely free. As to the value represented by the £50,000, that largely depends on the odds of the horses you include in your bet.

Say, for example, you select seven well-fancied runners at an average price of 2/1, a £1 seven-fold would return “only” £2,187. But what if you included seven selections with average odds of 8/1? In this case, a £1 seven-fold would return £4,782,969 in theory, although most major UK bookmakers cap horse racing returns at £1 million.

For many punters, the ITV7 has become a part of their racing routine – an addition to their regular singles, doubles, and Lucky 15s that offers the chance to win a big prize for the cost of nothing at all.