A Good Bet with Virgin Bet: Responsible and Sports-Focused Betting

A GOOD BET

What it is

What we do

DOING THINGS BETTER LIES AT THE HEART OF EVERYTHING WE DO.

Prioritising safety

Player safety and well-being are always our top priority. We want to ensure our customers have access to the tools and the support they need to keep their betting safe and fun.

Driving positive change

We believe that betting can be a force for good. And that good can be poured back into sports communities across the country, to make sport more accessible for all, and to give all the unsung heroes in and around them the recognition they deserve.

Exceptional Rewards

We’re passionate about giving our customers exceptional rewards. Whether it’s through fantastic betting promotions or accessing the wider Virgin world to take advantage of exclusive offers, we want our players to live a life more Virgin.

Visit our promotions page to see all the great offers and rewards available to our customers right now.

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Rewriting Ladies’ day

In the world of horse racing, countless women contribute to its spectacle, yet their invaluable roles are often overlooked. At Virgin Bet, we’re passionate about making sport more inclusive and shining a spotlight on these extraordinary individuals within the industry.

To throw our support behind this initiative, we launched our inaugural ‘Women’s Day’ at Ayr Racecourse in March 2024. The event featured two insightful panels hosted by Scottish presenting star Natalie Pike, designed to introduce racing fans to some of the remarkable women doing incredible work in horse racing.

Throughout the day we provided opportunities for female attendees to pick the ‘Best Turned Out’ award - a prize gifted to the groom of the horse which has been best prepared before the race - and present the trophies to the winners.

After the success of the first event, we rolled out the initiative at two other racecourses, Doncaster in November 2024 and Kempton April 2025. The days followed the same format and both were again hosted by Natalie Pike.

In Doncaster, we ran two panel sessions. The first, Women of Horse Racing, featured Sophie Green (trainee clerk at Southwell Racecourse), Charlotte Russell (GM of Go Racing In Yorkshire), and Rachel Harwood (Executive Director at Doncaster Racecourse). The second panel, Creative Inclusivity in Racing, welcomed Dawn Goodfellow (CEO, Racing Welfare) and Emma Kay (founder of WalkSafe).

At Kempton, we brought everyone together for one bumper panel. Speakers included Gemma Waterhouse (COO, Racing Welfare), Laura Perkins (Veterinary Nurse, Kingsclere Vets), Hayley Moore (Racing Presenter and former amateur jockey), and Emma Kay (Founder & CEO). The conversation? How they got there, the challenges they've faced, and why getting more girls into racing matters.

As our Marketing Director Dominic Vye put it:
“Horse racing owes much of its success to the incredible women who contribute so much behind the scenes, and it’s time we celebrate their achievements. At Virgin Bet, as part of our A Good Bet platform, we want to make sport more accessible and highlight brilliance, whoever it comes from — and this initiative is doing just that.”

Charity Donation

Profits from the 2024/25 racing season will be donated to Racing Welfare, a UK charity who provides help with health and well-being, housing, financial assistance, and career development for people within the industry. Throughout the season we have have donated £28,000 to Racing Welfare.

Throughout the 2024/25 racing season, we donated a percentage of profits from Virgin Bet-sponsored race days to Racing Welfare — a UK charity that supports people in the racing industry with health and wellbeing, housing, financial assistance, and career development. In total, we donated £28,000 to Racing Welfare over the course of the season.

When asked how the donation would support them CEO Gemma Waterhouse said: “We have 17 welfare officers now. We help anyone from the crisis support side right through to the preventative piece, trying to get to people early before they spiral into a crisis. If we can help support people earlier in the process, we are going to have a better outcome.

Those welfare officers cost quite a lot of money, so the donation from Virgin Bet is actually paying for a whole welfare officer. We were very short of officers last year and Virgin Bet came to the rescue. They help on average four to six people a day so will have a massive impact.”

Recognizing the Every day Heroes

For Virgin Bet sponsored races we have elevated the ‘Best Turned Out’ award - a prize gifted to the groom of the horse which has been best prepared before the race - by increasing the winner’s prize and entering all winning grooms into an additional prize draw.

Additionally, we have introduced groom runner-up prizes for all horses entered in the feature race of the meeting.

Why? Because we want to shout about the un-sung heroes in horse racing, pushing the industry to do more to recognise the hard work that goes on behind the scenes helping to make these brilliant events.

A Grand Isn’t Grand

With many UK football clubs raising season ticket prices over £1,000 this year, we took a stand against this by sponsoring the ‘A Grand Isn’t Grand’ campaign, promoted by the Sport Social Podcast Network. The campaign put fans first and awarded eight deserving English football season ticket holders with £1,000 towards their ticket.

Dominic Vye, Marketing Director at Virgin Bet said “At Virgin Bet, we believe that ‘A Grand isn’t Grand’ when it comes to the cost of being a football fan.

“We are committed to making sport accessible for all, and with rising season ticket prices, this campaign is our way of supporting fans who help make the sport so special.”

“This campaign is beyond just a refund; this is about celebrating the role fans play in the game and supporting their continued access to the sport they love.”

Responsible Gambling

We continue to work with The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) and other industry bodies to help ensure our customers are betting safely and responsibly, and have the tools to keep it fun.

Personal Safety Partnership

We’ve launched our first-ever Personal Safety Partnership with WalkSafe, the UK’s leading personal safety app. The free-to-download WalkSafe+ app, helps users plan routes, share journeys, and stay safe when walking alone. It also includes real-time community updates and a unique Safe Spaces feature, showing nearby locations where users can seek refuge if they feel unsafe.

Our partnership with WalkSafe is all about championing safety at racing events across the country — giving fans extra peace of mind when travelling to and from race days, especially if they’re going solo.

WalkSafe will attend a selected number of Virgin Bet sponsored races, throughout the season. Racegoers will be able to learn more about the innovative and free-to-download app and get the chance to speak with Founder, Emma Kay who strives every day to educate and highlight the importance of safety in all walks of life.

Sam Sadi, CEO of LiveScore Group said: “At Virgin Bet, as part of our ‘A Good Bet’ brand proposition, we want to make sporting events a safe environment for women and men from start to finish, including traveling to and from a venue from home. By working with the excellent people at WalkSafe, this initiative is doing exactly that and is a first for the racing industry.’

Emma Kay, Founder of WalkSafe added: “We are so pleased to be working with Virgin Bet to highlight personal safety at sporting events. Partnerships like this shine a spotlight on the safety concerns people may have, and the app provides the technology, as well as the confidence and support they may need to get home safely.

Virgin Bet is operated by Virgin Bet Limited, of Office 7.01, 7th Floor World Trade Centre, 6 Bayside Road, Gibraltar, GX11 1AA

Making a complaint

Virgin Bet Limited is licensed and regulated in Great Britain by the Gambling Commission (No: 54310) and in Gibraltar by the Government of Gibraltar and the Gibraltar Gambling Commissioner (RGL No. 114 and 115)

VIRGIN and the Virgin Signature logo are trade marks of Virgin Enterprises Limited and are used under licence

DOING THINGS BETTER LIES AT THE HEART OF EVERYTHING WE DO.​

DOING THINGS BETTER LIES AT THE HEART OF EVERYTHING WE DO.