Sports betting is a difficult pursuit at the best of times. When the chance comes along to get a free ride or some cash back insurance, any sports bettor would be crazy not to jump at the chance. Despite this, the question remains, are all sports betting bonuses created equal?
Are All Sportsbook Bonuses Created Equal? The simple answer is no. It is possible to find bonuses which yield much more benefit than others. Tier One bonuses offer multiplied winnings, odds boosts, early payouts or bonus bets for in game achievements. Tier 2 bonuses offer insurance which pay when a bet loses. While not increasing profit they are useful in protecting bankroll.
Tier 1 Bonus Offers
Tier 1 bonuses are those that allow the bettor to extract maximum value. One of the distinguishing traits that defines a Tier 1 Bonus is that the bettor does NOT have to lose the bet to gain the bonus value.
Of course no bettor would ever place a bet with the intention of having it lose. By nature sports bettors bet to win. Being able to capitalise on bonus value in the process of nailing a winning bet is a hallmark of a profitable bettor.
Here are some examples of Tier 1 Bonus Bet promotions commonly seen around mobile and online sportsbooks.
Multiplied Winnings
The multiplied winnings bonus is a promotion you simply cannot miss. The constant hunt for value is what consume sports bettors but this type of bonus drops value right at your feet.
Here is an example from The Stars Group’s top shelf Australian Sportsbook Beteasy.
Double Winnings: BetEasy Australia
This bonus offers a 2x winnings paid in real cash, in this case on a regular season Friday Night AFL (Australian Football) game. Remember winnings is another way of saying profit so the bonus includes doubling the amount actually won but not the original stake.
So what does the value look like? Well in this case if the Essendon Bombers started as favorites at -200 (1.50 decimal odds) with the bonus includes the bettor could ‘buy’ the bombers at +100 (2.00 decimal). Clearly if the bettor believes the bombers were a good bet at -200 then at +100 they are a no brainer.
The real cash component makes this bonus even sweeter. Many books will pay bonuses in bonus cash which means to realise the profit it must be bet again and with a risk of it being lost. With bonus cash bets only paying profit and not stake it would have to be turned over at odds of +100 (a coin flip) to realise the money in actual cash. As a real cash bonus this issue is avoided.
The only limitation of this bonus offer is that there is an upper limit on wagers that qualify for the bonus. In this case. Beteasy have a sophisticated rewards system and so the upper limit varies for each bettor. It is usually around the $25 mark.
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Odds Boosts
A self explanatory offer and similar to the winnings multiplier. Essentially this has the same effect of increasing the overall payout on a winning bet. The bottom line is if you bet well on these markets you stand to make significant return.
Here is an example from Fanduel’s mobile sportsbook in New Jersey. In this case you are able to grab Rafael Nadal to win in straight sets during a third round match at Wimbledon at odds of +150 up from +120. A potential profit increase of 25%. Very useful.
The limitation here is the max bet size $50 however I personally see that as generous. The total return (including stake) on a $50 outlay becomes $125 instead of the original figure of $110. An extra $15 real cash straight into account for no extra risk.
Be mindful that sportsbook offer odds boost to incentivise customers to bet and often they choose markets that can be slightly more volatile. The above example is a classic case where they are enticing the bettor to go to a set betting market. If you intended to bet on that outcome in that specific market then happy days. If you had no intention of betting in the market then be careful. Sometimes the odds boost, while attractive, may not be applied to a ‘good’ bet. Just weigh the market up first before blindly chasing the boosted odds.
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Early Payouts
Simply put the early payout is a gift to all sports bettors from the betting gods. Here is an example of an early payout promotion from the exceptional US mobile sportsbook, Pointsbet.
As the graphic suggests, bettors are paid out as a winner if their selected team, on qualifying MLB games, leads by 3 or more runs. For example you wager on the Yankees and during the second innings, with runners on, DJ LeMahieu sends one out of the park. As a result the Yankees go up 3 to nothing. Pointsbet will pay you out as a winner right there and then. If the Yankees were to lose their way and in turn lose the game, you are still a winner. Simple yet chock full of value.
What’s the catch? Well before you try to out think the sportsbooks, you must use this promotion as it is intended and in the spirit of he offer. If you were to bet on the Yankees, then also bet on their opponent, in the hopes that the Yankees would give up a 3 run lead and you get paid on both sides of the market, you will very quickly be banned from future promotions. Similarly if you were to attempt to take up the offer using multiple accounts you will be banned. These promotions are just too good to risk missing out on future offerings.
Like an early payout? Click here for all you need to know about the sportsbook cash out feature!
In Game Achievement Bonuses
These types of bonuses are generally great value and a ton of fun. Sports betting should always include an element of fun. The following example is again from the Pointsbet US mobile betting app.
The ‘Let It Fly Fridays’ is just plain fun. In this case an MLB Moneyline bet placed on any one of the teams listed, Pittsburgh Pirates, Milwaukee Brewers or Los Angeles Angels qualifies the bettor to access the power player named in the promotion. The in-game achievement being a home run hit by the selected player adds bonus bets to the bettors account.
Let’s take the Angels for instance. They were on the road to the Houston Astros. A qualifying moneyline bet of $50 on the Angels meant that for every home run Mike trout hit a $20 bonus bet would be credited to the bettor’s account. Pre-game, LA Moneyline was paying +192 for a potential total return of $146 from the $50 outlay. A clear profit of $96.
Sure enough in the top of the 8th Mike Trout sends one over the fence and the Angels take a 5 – 2 lead. The bettor collects a $20 bonus bet and then watches as the Angels hold on to close it out 5 – 4. Not only does the bettor collect $96 profit but also a very useful $20 bonus bet to be loaded into any market of their choosing. The thrill of watching Trout go deep late in the game to not only secure the bonus bet but improve the chances of the Angels winning is what these bet types are all about.
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One thing to be careful of here is that in all three cases on this particular Let It Fly Friday, the promotional team was the underdog. The sportsbook clearly was enticing bettors to wager on the underdog. There is nothing wrong with doing that but, while attractive, the promotion is probably not reason enough to be on a team. You need to believe your selection can win the game in its own right. Heck it’s the MLB, underdogs have a habit of winning regularly.
Here is another very creative example. This one is again from Beteasy in Australia. On a side note, the Stars Group, who own Beteasy are in partnership with FoxBet in the US. These types of promotions will be saturating the US market in the very near future! Good news for all of us!
The Chase the Ace promotion was focussed on a third round Wimbledon match between American Reilly Opelka and Canadian Milos Raonic. Here a $25 moneyline bet on either player unlocked the in game achievement of collecting a bonus bet per Ace hit by your player. The actual bonus amount per Ace is decided by spinning a wheel when the bet is placed.The value can range from 50c through to $10 per Ace. The caveat being your player had to go on to win the match for you to actually receive the bonuses.
Out of interest Raonic went on to win the match in straight sets and served 13 Aces. Useful bonuses achieved for all Raonic bettors.
Tier Two Bonuses
These bonuses still hold great value for bettors but for a different reason to Tier 1 bonuses. IN the case of Tier 2 the bonus is a return of some value on a losing bet. No one intends to place a bet that loses but we all place them, regularly. In doing so if you are able to mitigate some loses by receiving a return anyway well it all helps to keep you profitable in the long term.
Insurance
Like all forms of insurance you first must suffer loss before it pays out. In this case it’s a lost wager. What insurance offers the holder of the policy is peace of mind. It is no different in the world of sports betting.
Most good sportsbooks offer these promotions and there are plenty of good ones around in the marketplace. Some of the better ones I have seen are the the above example from Fanduel New Jersey and below again Pointsbet US.
The 4+ leg any sport parlay insurance is a genuinely good offer. There is an art to placing a quality parlay. If done incorrectly they can be a bet type that rids the bettor of any value. If they are done correctly they can multiply odds and become super account boosters.
The reason the above examples are so good is that they allow the bettor to scour markets from across all sports and find great bets to add to the parlay. If the bet was limited to just one sport then at times it is hard to find 4 or more genuinely good bets. When the net is cast wider to include all sports then the bettor has a much greater chance of building a rock solid parlay.
The Fanduel example has an upper limit of $25 while the Pointsbet offering is an incredible $50. Both carry with them minimum per leg qualifying odd, Fanduel -200 (1.50 decimal) and Pointsbet a generous -500 (1.20 decimal). They also have minimum total parlay odds but generally meeting that requirement happens without any problem.
Both offers will return to the bettor a refund. The difference here is really the total amount eligible for the insurance. Fanduel offers $25 and Pointsbet offers $50 but both are a real cash back refund. Simply put that is a wonderful offer. Any recreational bettor with access to legal Fanduel or Pointsbet betting jurisdictions, would be crazy not to try their luck at these offers on a daily basis. Long may these offers continue!
Lure Bonuses
Ok so strictly speaking all promotional markets are intended to lure bettors to wager. However sometimes bonus offers arise that might appear to offer something for the bettor but actually when it boils down to it there is little to be gained.
A classic example is the above bonus bet promotion offered from a sportsbook on Australian Football. Again I have gone to the Australian market to find this example as it is a matured market and therefore some of these lower value offers are appearing. This type of example can be found across many of the corporate books in Australia.
The crux of the promotion is that the bettor is able to place a three leg same game multi (parlay bet), in this case on Australian Football, and if one leg fails they receive their money back in the form of a bonus bet, up to the value of $50.
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A same game multi is where multiple markets from the same game can be parlayed together, something that is normally not allowed as the outcome of one leg may influence the likelihood of another occurring. In the NFL (and these bet types are coming to the NFL) a bettor may select the moneyline result, then choose the same team to have more rushing yards and finally to score the last touchdown of the game. All well and good except that typically in these bet types you pay a price, in the form of juice, for the privilege of placing this bet. The final odds, in my experience, are well below true odds, to the point where it is almost impossible to find true value.
Of course then with the sportsbook gaining huge edge they can throw up, almost permanently, an offer of bonus cash back if one leg fails. Even with the insurance it’s difficult to see a reason to bet these markets. Still if you can make it work then, by all means cash in on the bonus offer.
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The Game Starts Now!
Bonus bets are a wonderful thing. Some may say they are like pizza, there is no such thing as a bad one. Maybe that is true. What we do know is that using them to your advantage can make a big difference in the long run, not to mention the fun coupons that the achieved bonus bets can be! Do your research, read the fine print and go your hardest.