One of the main things you notice when looking to sign up for a betting company is all the betting sites offers. It’s no exaggeration to say that almost every betting company will have its own promotional offers, meaning that we often have multiple accounts set up at various companies.
But, are the bonuses all that? Let’s take a look at some of the common terms we find.
New Customer Sign Up Bonus
The most common one we see is betting sites with welcome bonus, so we will focus on that. So, often it will be if you bet $/£/€ 10, you will receive $/£/€ 30 in free bets – or something along those lines.
These are great bonuses that should be used, because why not? Even though they usually have caveats, you’re still ending up in a better position than if you do not use them.
The common caveats are often that the €10 bet you place must be over 2.0 (evens) in odds. So, you cannot bet on an ultra-favourite who is 1/4, for example. An evens bet of 1/1 means there’s roughly half a chance of winning, half a chance of losing.
Another caveat that is often involved is that it must be a single bet, not 10x bets of €1 each. Besides some time restrictions, that’s roughly it for restrictions for the initial bet. However, there are some caveats for the free bet that you receive – which also often apply for the deposit -> free bet bonuses too.
Generally, the free bet is a single bet that must be placed and cannot be divided up. It’s rare that there are minimum odds applied to this one, but it is possible. You will likely not receive the stake back in this bet, meaning an evens (1/1) bet with a €30 stake would mean you get back €30 instead of the usual €60 – so you only get the winnings.
Finally, although it’s not always the case at sports betting companies, with casino companies its very common for signup bonus money (i.e. deposit €10 to receive €30) to be required to be bet a certain amount of times over before you can withdraw it. For example, if it requires you to bet 3 times the total amount, it would mean €90 worth of bets must be made within this account in order to access the money for withdrawal. Thankfully, these bets can usually be fragmented and divided up, with the betting platform keeping track.
Random free bets
When you are already signed up to a betting account and they offer a free bet, it’s often no-strings-attached. SkyBet was common for handing out small, free bets that didn’t require a deposit, nor did it require you to bet the winnings. However, you have to ultimately check the terms and conditions laid out for each and every bet.
Stick with companies with clear T&Cs
Many of us skip past T&Cs when signing up to services, apps, and websites – it’s normal. However, betting bonuses are the one platform where they know that the customer is more likely to read them, because it’s highly relevant to the reason why you’re signing up, and many companies go out their way to make them clear and larger font. So, there are no excuses for not reading them, and it would be considered a major red flag if the platform in question is using verbose, overly long, difficult to read T&Cs!
