Sports betting strategies
Keeping the betting bonuses
Almost every bookmaker offers different betting bonuses when you sign up as a new customer or sometimes even for active customers. The amounts can range from 5€, 10€ and all the way up to 100€ or more.
Of course you cannot withdraw the money instantly when you receive the bonus, otherwise it would be free money and we know - there is no such thing in a world we live in.
Instead, the bookmaker hopes you're a non-prepared beginner and will leave your deposit and their bonus with them.
You won't. You will take a large part of their betting bonuses with you!
To do that, you will need two separate betting accounts. One with a regular bookmaker, where you'll sign up as a new customer, and one at a sports betting exchange.
You should start with reading our tutorial for exchange betting to get an Idea how lay betting (betting against) works. You don't need to deal with the complete trading procedure, a simple lay bet will be enough.
Open your sports betting exchange account, like instructed in our tutorial, with the biggest betting exchange. This is the one, where you'll payout your bonus amounts. Click here to visit the biggest betting exchange >>
Once you're done with opening your new betting exchange account, you don't have to deposit funds yet. For now, let's continue with the strategy and you'll decide how much to deposit later.
Don't worry - your money is always in safe hands with a sports betting exchange and payouts are never at risk!
The next step is to find a suitable bookmakers offer. (the list of complete betting bonuses is on the bottom of this page). For instance here (click) - you're entitled for a 100% bonus up to 100€. Here are some details about the offer (copied from their page):
In order to qualify for your bonus, please follow these simple instructions:
Open an account, make a deposit of €10* or more and you will be entitled to a 100% bonus on your qualifying deposit up to a maximum of €100*.
Once you open your account we will send you a 10 digit Offer Code ending in NCDBS via email. To claim your bonus, simply make a qualifying deposit, visit the Enter Offer Code page in Members and enter the code.
To bet with your bonus, simply play through the amount of your deposit once on the sports and markets of your choice.You will need to play through your deposit and bonus three times prior to making a withdrawal. Any bets placed containing selections at odds of less than 1.50 will not count towards any rollover requirement.
Bets placed on asian handicap, goal line and Baseball money line markets, both pre-game and In-Play do not count towards any rollover requirement.
What does that mean? You'll open your account and deposit 100€ if you wish to receive an extra 100€ reward.
They send you the code which you'll need to enter and the money will be added to your account. But you cannot play with it (yet) until you haven't played through your deposit.
According to their terms, you should bet your deposit (100€) through - meaning - placing a single bet or bets worth 100€ at odds of at least 1.50. You don't need to place 100€ at once, and we'd also recomment everybody not to start with such a large amounts.
True - you will transfer your bonus faster, but there is also a risk involved. What if a game is interrupted or cancelled and a bookmaker or a bet-exchange keeps one bet open, the other one cancels it? Start slowly, start with 10€ or something like that, to get the feel and get to know the bookmaker and his rules. In our example, we'll start with 100€.
Before you can withdraw the money - your deposit + bonus and winnings, you need a 3x rollover amount.
That means, you had 100€ + 100€ bonus = 200€ x 3 = 600€. You'll have to place 600€ on bets in order to receive the bonus amount and winnings.
Let's see how we'll proceed. We have 100€ + 100€ on our bookmaker account. Let's find a football game that fits the requirements - odds have to be at least 1,50.
In this example - we'll take Valencia vs. Sevilla, just to give you an example. Here it is - in our bookmaker's window:
You'll place a 100€ (your deposit) bet on Sevilla at 2,20. Make this bet.
Now search for this game on you sports betting exchange and compare the odds. You'll bet against Sevilla there!!! (Lay Sevilla)
Here you go - Lay Sevilla stands at 2,34.
Now, you'll enter the data in the calculator (which is included below)
As you can see - bet amount 100€, bookmaker's odds - 2,20, Lay odds on an exchange are 2,34 (a 5% default commission) and the calculator returns what we need to know.
Your lay stake should be 96,07€ and to do this, you'll need at least 128,73€ in your betting exchange account!
Aha, now you know how much you'll need to deposit. We will loose -8,73€ on this game, no matter who wins.
Deposit your money (more than 128,73€ - you'll soon see why) to your sports betting exchange account and lay Sevilla exactly with 96,07€.
What have we done now? We placed a bet ON Sevilla with our Bookmaker and AGAINST Sevilla on a betting exchange. We'll loose -8,73€. We know that.
The question is only - where will we win? Let's hope for a betting exchange - we're aiming to move the money there as soon as possible.
If Sevilla lost - you won on a betting exchange. Now, the bonus amount is released on your bookmakers account and you still have 100€ to play with.
Repeat the same procedure - find a game on your bookmaker, place a bet on it and lay it on a betting exchange. In our example, we'll imagine the same scenario, a football bet, where you'll loose -8,73€ again.
If your second game looses - congratulations - you've just transferred your entire bonus amount to the betting exchange.
Your bookmakers account is now empty, but you've won on your betting exchange. How much did you earn? 100€ - 8,73€ - 8,73€ = +82,5€. Congrats! Not bad for placing two simple blind bets.
If any of your games won on your bookmaker, you'll need more money in the betting exchange account. Why? Because, if you won your first bet with your bookmaker, you lost 128,73€ on the betting exchange.
If you don't have any more money in that account, you cannot place another lay bet anymore. You have to be prepared that things can go against you five or six times on your exchange, but don't be afraid - the money is not lost. It's available in your bookmakers account.
You have to repeat doing this as long as the rollover requirements are not done.
In our case, we needed a 600€ rollover amount. Since we already lost in two steps, this does not concern us. Our money is already safe. We only lost 18€ from our 100€ bonus.
Should you win all your games in your bookmaker - no worries - if you already made it through the rollover 600€ bonus requirements, make a withdrawal and you still made money!
Just aim from the beginning, to loose on your bookmaker and win on your betting exchange in order to preserve as much bonus as possible.
Take the lowest odds possible. This way you won't need so much money on your sports betting account. In our example, the minimum odds were 1,50. So take a game just above that, no need for a 2,20 game like we showed you. As long as it fits the bonus requirements, it's okay. Keep looking for a low odds looser!
Let's repeat one more time
- first check out the games if they are available on both - your bookmaker and betting exchange
- don't place large amounts until you know what you're doing. Start slow and with 10€ or so.
- place a bet on a bookmaker who offers any kind of bonus
- place a lay bet of the same selection on your sports betting exchange
- one bet will certainly win, one will loose and we'll loose a part of those bonus amount
- make sure you always check out the bet bonus rules. Amount, rollover requirements, if you don't understand a part of it - contact the bookmakers support team! Everything needs to be understood before you start.
- make sure the odds on your bookmaker and your betting exchange are as close as possible. The closer they are - the less of the bonus you'll loose.
- always ask your bookmaker support team, if you're not sure if your rollover requirements are settled and you can withdraw the money
Here is a selection of some betting bonuses, available at the time of writing this article.
Please, always check out the bonus conditions and rollover requirements!
These requirements are often changed by the bookmakers, so please check out the terms and conditions. At the moment, depending on where you live, our promotion offers are worth over 1.500€. Simply follow the numbers and note which one you already used.
Keep in mind - this is not the way sports betting works and you should use this method only to extract bonus from a bookmaker you don't like to play with.
It's not illegal to use it, after all you simply place one bet here and another bet on an exchange, still bookmakers don't like to see that, because they want to keep you as a regular player.
Here is the calculator you can use for calculating your stakes:
Calculator is owned by http://www.matchedodds.co.uk