About Us - What is OLBG?

OLBG was founded in 2002 by Antony Portno

Antony had recently been made redundant so found time on his hands to explore the relatively new world wide web. Some of the information he was looking for wasn't there so he bought a couple of books to teach himself coding and set about building some informational websites. Antony was a big sports betting fan, particularly enjoying betting on NFL, horse racing and football, so one of the sites he built was Online Betting Guide with the aim of helping users to navigate the new world of online betting. Our founder Antony remains the Chairman of OLBG today.

Back in 2002 online betting was very new. bet365 had only launched online out of a portacabin in a Stoke car park in March 2001, so the vast majority of bets were still being placed in high street betting shops or via a phone call. The web needed a reliable and trustworthy website to help sports bettors and online betting guide set about fulfilling that role. 

The now famous tipster competitions began in August 2003 with the forum arriving in the summer of 2004. The forum was an idea from an early member PhilB. Thanks Phil! OLBG has been shaped by ideas from its users, so if you have any suggestions as to how we can improve please do not hesitate to get in touch, we would love to hear from you. 

It was the forum which really kick started the growth of the OLBG community with a very active group of friendly sports betters chatting daily about their experiences and sharing their knowledge to help each other out. This community steadily grew based on some core values of working together, wanting to learn from each other, not criticising others, not gloating and generally being friendly and having fun!

Perhaps obvious values but other communities at the time were different, poorly moderated and often not nice places to be. So OLBG attracted knowledgeable sports bettors who felt comfortable sharing their expertise in such a friendly environment.

What was initially a bit of fun started to become a business. One of the sites earliest members, The Shark, become an employee in 2005 to help Antony to develop the business, Richard Moffat is the current CEO of OLBG. From there the team steadily grew as the site did. Many of the team at OLBG were users of the site before they joined the team. 

If you would love to work for OLBG then do follow OLBG on linked in and keep an eye out for any job opportunities. OLBG has been built by its users for its users so having a group of past, current and future members helping us to shape it is important to us; your ideas and opinions will always be listened to and taken seriously. 

To send your ideas in and for customer service enquiries please use the OLBG contact form which can be found at the bottom of every page on the site. OLBG runs a small Head Office for administrative purposes which is located at the address of Castle Park Programme, The Pithay, Bristol, BS1 2NB. Telephone 0117 3184152 and email support@olbg.com .However most the team work from home so please use the contact form to get in touch. 

By September 2005 we had reached 1000 members.

Over the years the tipster competition has grown; new sports, leagues, countries and betting markets have been added regularly and many updates have resulted in it being by far the most advanced tipster competition available. 

By September 2008 we had reached 50,000 members.

By October 2009 over £100,000 in prize money had been given away. 

In 2011 we gave up on www.online-betting-guide.co.uk as it took far too long to say and switched to the much shorter OLBG.com as that was what our users were calling us anyway.

By February 2012, our 10th birthday, we had reached 100,000 members. 

We have always encouraged our users to explain their tips and this has resulted in hugely useful content which stands out from other sites where often just tips are given without any reasoning. By reading why a tipster recommends a good bet we can learn from that tipster but also it helps that tipster to really show off their knowledge and expertise. The more knowledgeable tipsters who demonstrate their expertise will gain more followers. 

As mobile usage grew we developed apps to make it easier for users to consume this amazing content. The first apps were launched in 2012 and to date we have generated  over 1.1m app installs. So if you add your tips to OLBG, a lot of people will see them!

2012 was also the year in which we began our sponsorship of the OLBG Mares Hurdle, a key horse race on day one of the Cheltenham Festival. The big race was supported by the road to Cheltenham programme which involved sponsoring a number of other live televised races through the season. This gave OLBG huge exposure. 

We wanted our members to be a part a big part of the sponsorship so we included some of their tips in the toilets around Cheltenham (on posters above the urinals or on the backs of toilet doors). This was a way to showcase our top tipsters. We shared 10 different tips around the course. Amazingly the first 8 tips ALL WON! With some at big prices. Wow! We tried to replicate this in following years and altogether we finished with a profit.

The sponsorship lasted 8 years and provided many "money can't buy" experiences for our members such as choosing the best turned out horse, presenting trophies, enjoying VIP hospitality in amazing boxes and mixing with horse racing trainers, jockeys and owners. This really helped us to grow our awareness and especially our army of superb horse racing tipsters. 

We had a bit of an imbalance with not as many football tipsters as horse racing tipsters so in the run up to Euro 2016 we invested in a TV advertising campaign aimed at football fans who hadn't heard of OLBG. Backed up with youtube advertising, branded taxis & promo events around football grounds, we attracted more amazing football tipsters. 

Providing experiences for our members has extended to football as well. We have given away hundreds of tickets including VIP hospitality at many grounds including matches at Wembley such as FA Cup Finals and internationals. Not to mention signed football shirts, TVs and other amazing prizes. 

We are also very proud of all our members who have given to the OLBG charity scheme. If you win a prize at OLBG you can donate this to a charity and OLBG will double that donation. So far over £28,000 has been raised for sports related charities such as Greatwood, Heros, The Injured Jockey Fund, Retired Greyhound Fund and The Great Football Giveaway. 

Some 500,000 people have joined OLBG over the years, the OLBG app has been installed more than 1.1million times and we have now given away over £850,000 in prize money. 

The growth of OLBG has been a huge amount of fun for many involved and we hope this continues as the more sports bettors who join our community and share their knowledge, the more we can all learn. If you haven't yet joined, please do so, we would love to welcome you. If you are a member then thank you for all you do and if you know a friend who would like it here please invite them to join in.