The online betting industry is hyper competitive, and every major betting site on the internet offers bonuses to new players. When betting sites compete, the individual sports bettor gains. As a player, you get to take advantage of these betting bonuses and pocket extra cash. In most cases, online betting bonuses are offered as percentage match deposit bonuses. What that means is that any amount you deposit is matched at a certain percentage rate. For example, a 10% bonus means that you’ll get an extra 10% added to your first deposit at that betting site.
This page lists details and conditions to be aware of for all type of gambling incentive offers, categorized below to help you find the right promotion tailored to your personal tastes.
Find All Types Of Offers And Promotions
You can find the best online betting bonuses by visiting any of our highest-recommended betting sites. The sites that we recommend are the largest and most well known betting sites on the internet. These sites stick to their word and they tend to have more money to throw at new players.
If you want to look for your own online betting bonuses, the main thing we recommend you do is read the terms and conditions for each betting site. You want to make sure that there are no catches associated with getting the bonus money. Once you have that out of the way, you can look for the bonuses that offer the most money to new sign-ups.
Sports Betting Bonuses – Online sportsbooks offer deposit bonuses to all new customers who sign up and make a deposit. The average match rate for sports betting bonuses is around 10%. This means that if you sign up and deposit $200, you’ll get an extra $20 as an added bonus.
Best Poker Bonuses – Online poker sites also offer signup bonuses in the same fashion as sports betting sites. The difference is that internet poker sites typically offer much more generous deposit bonuses. A typical poker site will give you something like 100% up to $600 extra on your first deposit there.
A 100% match rate at a poker site means that your first deposit there is doubled. So if you deposit $200, you’ll get an extra $200 on top of that. The maximum amount for online poker bonuses is around the $600 to $1000 range. These bonuses are great for new players who are building bankrolls.
Poker betting sites also have their own clearing requirements. The exact rules are a little different at every poker site, but the basic idea is that you have to play real money poker to clear the bonus. You will usually receive the bonus money in increments of $5 or $10 until the entire bonus has been released.
Online poker betting bonuses take a little bit longer to clear, but they are not ridiculous. If you play poker on a regular basis, you won’t have a problem clearing the entire bonus. And if you never make it around to clearing the entire bonus, you at least get to keep whatever bonus money you have already cleared.
Online Casino Bonuses – Online casino sites offer the biggest bonuses of them all. At a casino betting site, you can find bonuses that range from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. The downside is that casino betting bonuses take longer to clear and are more difficult to clear profitably.
Casino betting sites structure their bonuses in a similar fashion to the other bonuses we’ve talked about so far. They offer a percentage match rate and maximum bonus for all first deposits made by new players. The casino then sets aside the bonus money in a separate account until you have met the wagering requirements.
Most casinos set their wagering requirements somewhere around the 15x to 20x range. This means that you have to wager the entire bonus + deposit amount a total of 15 times before the money can be withdrawn. You don’t have to lose that money; you are only asked to wager that much. Even so, this can take a long time and be difficult to accomplish due the house edge that is built into most casino games.
Are Online Betting Bonus Offers Legit?
Surprisingly, most online betting bonuses are legitimate offers. Once you make a deposit and get your bonus money, the cash is yours to keep. You’ll have to meet certain wagering requirements before you can withdraw the cash, but those requirements are not over-the-top. After you clear your bonus, you can cash it out or use it make more bets.
Online betting sites are willing to pay good marketing money in the forms of bonuses. These online betting bonuses are offered as an incentive for players to sign up at “Betting Site X” instead of “Betting Site Y.” Essentially, these bonuses are free money that you get to keep.
The purpose of online betting bonuses is two-fold. For one, the goal is to attract new players and spread the word about the betting site. Secondly, the bonus gives each player a chance to try out the betting software and get a feel for the betting site without having risk a bunch of his or her own money.
Poker sites are especially generous with their bonuses because they need new players online constantly to keep the games running. It’s a difficult situation for poker sites because they need players to stick around in order to keep new players coming in. As a result, poker sites are willing to give away a lot of money to attract new players.
In summary, online betting bonuses are legitimate offers. However, we still recommend that you always read the terms and conditions before you sign up. Large and well known betting sites are dependable in this area, but small and unknown betting sites should be approached with a little more caution.
Sign up bonus : A great way to start
When you join an online bookmaker, one of the best things about doing so is that you are eligible to receive a sign up bonus. This usually takes the form of a sum of money put into your account by the company you have just opened an account with and whilst the sum you receive can vary from bookmaker to bookmaker, it usually is around the amount of money you either deposit into your account initially and use to make your first bet with (therefore the more you deposit, the more bonus you receive up to a pre-determined amount), or as a percentage of the amount you deposit in an account and place on a bet.
Whilst there are rules in place to ensure that you don’t abuse the system and try and withdraw the bonus money to your account, the bonus you receive upon sign up is an excellent want to start gambling on the site and perhaps try your hand at some of the different types of sportsbooks and markets on offer with the online bookmakers. After all, once you have made your initial bet of say, $20, the other $20 you receive from the company is a free chance or two for you to win more money!
If you are relatively new to online gambling then your sign up bonus is the perfect way to learn how to use the site you have just registered on without losing any more of your money. Once you have deposited some money in your account and made your first bet, your sign up bonus will be credited to your account within a few days. Once it has been added to your account you will be able to use this money to place bets on whatever you like. A good idea is to scour the site and look at possible markets that you think are profitable and use these markets to place bets.
It is best to consider the sign up bonus as a free bet of the same value you have initially laid and therefore, another chance for you to recoup your initial stake. Say your initial $20 bet is on Arsenal to beat Liverpool, you may decide to use your $20 free bet to back Manchester United to beat Everton. That way you have two chances to recoup, or improve on, your original $20 stake at no extra cost to you. And if both results go your way, you will make a nice tidy profit, all of which can be withdrawn from your account if you choose to do so.
Sign up bonuses are a great way to learn about the site and different market, whether or not they are profitable to you depends on your skill as a punter!
How does welcome bonuses work?
If you are a complete novice to online betting and how the sign up bonuses work, you may be tempted to think that if a bookmaker will give you $20, if you make a bet of $20, then he is in effect giving you a $20 free bet. While that is the case, you need to remember that the system does not quite work that way.
Simply put, that is because if it did, there would be nothing stopping you putting $20 in your account. Betting $20 and then removing the $20 sign up bonus you receive from a bookmaker from your account immediately! Of course this makes no financial sense and is not allowed.
Instead what happens is that a sign up bonus is paid into your new account with the bookmaker in question, once you have made your first bet. However you are not allowed to withdraw this money from your account immediately and you must only use it to bet with. An example of how the bonus system works is thus;
Harold joins Bwin and deposits $50 into his account and places a $50 bet on Real Madrid to beat Espanyol. Bwin’s offer is that Harolds first bet will be matched bya free bet to the same value (up to $200) from them, so shortly after Harold places his bet, he receives $50 from the company. Harold can then use this $50 to make another bet any time he likes. However he cannot withdraw the money until he has made bet, or bets, up to $50.
Once Harold has bet the $50 bonus, he can then withdraw any winnings he receives from that bet whenever he likes. It is only the initial $50 bonus money he cannot withdraw from his account and that MUST be used on betting.
So continuing from our example, let us say Harold then puts the $50 he received from Bwin on Barcelona to beat Getafe. He now has two $50 bets running and his account will be $0. Lets say Real Madrid draw with Espanyol. Harold therefore loses his first bet. However Barcelona duly defeat Getafe at odds of even money, meaning the Free bet Harold made won. Harold’s account now reads $100 and he can now withdraw $100 of that if he chooses to do so as he has already made the required $50 bet with the sign up bonus, or he can leave the money in his account and use it for further bets in the future, or he can withdraw some and leave some in the account to use at a later date.
The important thing to remember with the sign up bonus is that once you have made your bet or bets using the full bonus, any money made after that is yours to do with as you please.
How to get the best betting bonus from your bookmaker
The first step you need to take to ensure you get a good bonus from any site is to do a little research on the internet. A quick search of betting sites will bring up a myriad of sites that all offer a new customer a bonus incentive to join. However don’t be misled by some of the claims. Many may offer a $200, $250 or 300 Euro free bet if you join, however this will only be available if you stake the same amount of your own money on your first bet. There are some bookmakers however who tend to offer good deals for the new customer and listed here are a few companies who are excellent starting points : 888sport, Bwin, Sportingbet, Centrebet, Interwetten, Bodog, Betus, Betfair, Bet365, Expekt, Ladbrokes, Unibet, William Hill and Betsson.
If you have a preference for a specific site but their bonus offer does not quite match up to something you can find elsewhere then why not send them an email? Explain to the site that you want to join them but that you have found a better offer with another online site. They can only refuse to match that offer at worst and you may well find that rather than lose a new customer, a bookmaker or betting exchange may well offer you a similar bonus to join up with them! Asking never hurts, especially when it is your money on the table!
Lastly remember that while you can usually have one signup bonus from a bookmaker, there is nothing to stop you signing up with other bookmakers at a later date and receiving another bonus then. Keeping one eye on the offers available on the internet is relatively simple. A quick search of the bookmakers online will give you an idea of the offers available and if you time it right, you can often get another excellent signing bonus from joining a new bookmaker at the right time.
