Bookmaker bonuses

Free Bookies Sign Up Offers

The principle behind sign up offers is simple: each online sports betting site offers a certain advantage to new customers. This can be in many forms such as free bets or an increase on the initial deposit placed on the site. Each of these offers are designed in a manner aimed at promoting loyalty from players to the site in question.

If you look around, you’ll notice that today, there are many sportsbooks in the market, each competing with each other for customers. In fact, you may not be able to get an exact count of all of them. But why so many of them, you may ask. The online sports betting industry is one of the most profitable sectors.

Based on a report by Market Research Future, the online sports betting market is expected to hit $59,530 Million at a CAGR of 13.6 by 2026. In short, this industry is highly profitable, a reason as to why plenty of bookies are seeking licenses to conduct business with the hope of enjoying a slice of the cake.

With millions of new customers joining online sports betting sites with the hope of striking it lucky, bookies compete for them. While there are several ways to entice new customers to join a site, plenty of bookies perceive sign up offers as the most ideal way of attracting new customers to join their site and place bets.

Bookmakers all over the globe promise lovers of sports betting some incentives to register with them. In short, it’s the bookmakers’ way of saying “Get to register with us and bet to enjoy several advantages upon sign up.” Not unlike plenty of other aspects of our daily life, these actions remind us of establishments such as supermarkets and banks with their constant promos.

Sign up offers that players get from bookies are mostly free. They can use these sign up offers to wager on a sporting event of their choice. But there’s a catch here. Before players can withdraw winnings from these bonuses, they need to meet certain wagering requirements. Some wagering requirements tend to be high, while others are favorable.

In this article, we examine everything to do with bookies offers and bonuses. Here, you’ll get an idea about best bookmaker bonuses, free bets, types of free bets, and how free bets work. By the end of the article, you’ll be armed with enough information about betting bonuses, such as the deposit bonus and the no deposit bonuses.

As a new customer, you’d want to ensure that you get bonus offers and promos at a bookie of your choice. You need to understand what they are, and how they work, before using them. If you are here, count yourself lucky. We’ll tell you everything that you’ve ever wanted to know about free bets and betting bonuses. But to begin, let’s examine the best bookmaker bonuses of July 2021.

Best bookmaker bonuses [July 2021]

The last month of July saw hundreds of bookies competing for customers globally. To attract new customers and ultimately retain them, a majority of bookmakers offered several attractive bonuses worth noting. Below are what we established to be the best bookmaker bonuses for the month of July 2021.

Enhanced Odds

As you may be well aware, there’s a lot of stiff competition in the sports betting industry. This means that bookies need to spend lots of their marketing budget in a bid to attract new customers. To do so, most of them offer free bets but recently, they have started to offer bonuses that are even more generous. One such bonus offer is in the form of Enhanced Odds.

In the month of July, Enhanced Odds cam e up as one of the best bookmaker bonuses. The idea behind Enhanced Odds is to boost a price in a bid to encourage new customers to sign up. We established Enhanced Odds as one of those strategies that several bookmakers used in the month of July 2021. Enhanced odds mostly targeted new customers with the hope of making them loyal customers.

When it comes to Enhanced Odds, bookmakers select an upcoming sporting event and offer a price that’s significantly higher than the usual price. For instance, bookies will dramatically lift the football odds of a favorite to win. You could get Manchester United to beat Liverpool at home at 7/1 when the price is probably 1/8. Enhanced Odds actually worked in the month of July 2021.

The first-bet refund bonus

The first-bet refund bonus is another bookmaker bonus that plenty of bookies used to attract new customers in the month of July 2021. In the UK, for instance, plenty of sportsbooks used this type of bonus to attract new UK customers to sign up with them. And to say the least, it actually worked as many players joined sites that offered this type of bonus.

As with the first-bet refund bonus, if you place your first at a site, and the first bet to the site isn’t a winning one, you get a refund. Nobody likes to lose an initial bet, and a refund if that’s the case isn’t something that many bettors world ignore. During the month of July 2021, plenty of bookmakers used the first-bet refund bonus to attract new customers to their sites.

But how does this type of bonus work, you may ask? For example, let’s assume that you bet $100 on Chelsea to win against Liverpool in your initial bet, but the Blues take a draw at Anfield. In this case, you will be refunded the amount of your initial wager in full, and you can go ahead and remove $100 on your account (but if there’s no specific condition dictated by the bookie).

The first-bet refund bonus offers come and go. But in the month of July 2021 –probably due to Euro Competitions - top bookmakers globally used the first-bet refund bonus to attract new bettors to their site.

Open an account offer / Deposit bonus

The open an account offer or the deposit bonus is another offer that bookies heavily used in the month of July 2021 to attract new customers. With the Euros taking place in July 2021, followed by the Olympics in August 2021, the deposit bonus is an offer that plenty of bookies used in the month of July 2021.

Mostly, the initial amount that you get to deposit into your betting account will have an influence on the amount that a bookie will offer. Generally, the value of your deposit bonus will be 100% of the deposit that you get to pay. For example, if you make a deposit of £100 when you sign-up, you can expect to receive £100.

The deposit offer seems to be becoming less and less popular these days. However, it worked in the month of July 2021. Notable bookmakers in the industry used the open an account offer to attract new customers to bet with them. We include the open an account offer among the best bookmaker bonuses for the month of July 2021.

Qualifying Bet

The qualifying bet is another top offer that a majority of bookmakers heavily used in the month of July 2021. With a qualifying bet, you have to place a bet to get another bet. This type of offer saw many new customers signing up to sports betting sites. It’s an offer than many reputable bookies used in the month of July 2021.

New and potential customers who get to sign up and bet a certain stated amount qualify for some funds that they can use to place bets. 888sport is an apt example of a sportsbook that used this bonus offer to attract new customers. New players that Bet£20 qualified for £60 in Free Bets. Qualifying bets were some of the best bookmaker bonuses in July 2021.

As things look, it seems that this type of offer may well continue into the future, with plenty of operators likely to use them. Bookies that used this type of offer actually saw an increase in their customer base, a big reason as to why it may not stop anytime soon. We are bound to see more and more bookies using this strategy to pull new users to their site.

What is a free bet?

If you are new to the world of online sports betting, you may come plenty of terminologies. A free bet is something that you will definitely come across here. But what is a free bet anyway? A free bet or a free wager is abet of a specified value for which a bookie offers to pay the stake. Many online sportsbooks offer free bets to bettors who open new betting accounts with them.

To many, free bets may sound too good to be true. But do bookmakers really offer their customers free money to use in betting? Well potentially, yes – but if you happen to be smart about it. You can think free bets as an opportunity to wager without any risk, and receive your new winnings on the bet should it win.

There’s a huge difference between a free bet and a regular bet. With a free bet, you don’t have to contribute the stake yourself. It means that the stake won’t be refunded back to you along with your winnings should the bet win. Mostly, when it comes to free bets, you’ll notice many bookies stating that a stake not returned applies. It means that should your free net wins, your returns won’t include the free stake.

There are plenty of free bet offers available from reputable bookies online at any given time. Mostly, bettors qualify for a free bet the moment they open their betting account with a sportsbook of their choice. If you wager at top bookies, you’ll notice that a majority of them offer their new players some free bets.

But why do bookmakers offer free bets? A majority of bookmakers use free bets with the aim of attracting new players to sign up with them and make a deposit into their betting account. Now, in return for giving you something for signing up with them, bookies hope that you will continue betting with them in the future.

If you give it a little thought, what makes a sportsbook different? What makes one stand out from the rest? After all, 5/1 at Skybet pays the same as 5/1 at Bet365. Essentially, all bookies are just but the same. However, they can set themselves apart by offering their customers different types of promos, mostly in the form of free bets.

Now more than ever, the bookmaking game appears highly crowded. We now have smaller operators popping up all over the place. In a move aimed at attracting new bettors, most bookmakers see the need of offering both new and regular players free bets.

But is there a catch when it comes to free bets? In most cases, there’s something of a catch here, though you can still use these free bets credited to your account for your own benefit. Some bookies in business make it quite easy to claim free bets and may not even compel you to fund your account first. Others may require players to use their free bet funds to place additional wagers before paying out any winnings.

Qualifying or getting free bets is easy across many sportsbooks. You typically need to sign up for an account with a bookie, providing and in some cases, having to verify your personal details. Thereafter, you choose a valid payment method convenient for you and make a deposit to your account. Lastly, you use your funds to place a wager on a sporting event. Of importance to note is that the value of your bet mostly determines how much you’ll receive for a free bet.

There are some cases where you may not be allowed to wager your qualifying bet on odds under evens, mostly as a means of preventing punters from backing or betting for near-certain winners. You need to check the terms and conditions of the free bet at a bookie of your choice. In the following section, we examine the type of free bets that you can find at plenty of sportsbooks.

Types of free bets

Now that you have a clear understanding of what a free bet is, it’s time we examined the types of free bets. Some of the common types of free bets at the moment are the following:

• Stake Not Returned (SNR) – By far, this is the most common type of free bet in the market. You could think of SNR as a “bet credit” or a “bet token” by a bookie. It means that you’ll only get the winnings part of the wager and not the stake back. For example, a £10 SNR bet that wins at 4/1 (5.0) will return £40 as opposed to the expected £ Stake not returned is the most favored bookmaker option when they issue free bets.
• Bet Refunds – Bet Refunds are slowly becoming a popular type of free bet nowadays. For instance, you’ll see promotions like “Money Back if Bruno Fernandes Scores First” on Manchester United v Leicester or “Money Back if your greyhound finishes second.” The bet refunded may only apply to the First Goalscorer market for example. But to be on the safe side, you need to be very cautious with the terms and conditions Bet Refunds. Some sportsbooks go ahead and refund cash, while others refund free bets. Bet Refunds are ideal for bookmaker since they can market it and mostly based on something happening.
• Qualifying Free Bet – A qualifying bet is when a player needs to place bet in order to qualify for a free bet. For example, Bet £40 to get £ Here, it means that you will have to wager £40 in bets in certain specified sports and above some price to qualify for a free bet. If you happen to be keen enough, you’ll notice that this is one of the most popular format for plenty of bookmakers today. This is a good offer to take since you are certain of a free bet once you’ve placed your qualifying bet. At the moment, bet365 is one of those sportsbooks that currently has the best offer of them; Bet £50 to get £50.
• Matched Free Bet – Getting yourself a matched free bet happens when you open your account with a new bookie. You may see an offer like; Bet $25 and get a $25 free bet. Mostly, you don’t see this type of offer for existing accounts. Again, the qualifying stake is much higher than free bets for existing accounts. While this promotion isn’t popular as it once was, but you will most definitely see it from time to time across different bookmakers.
• Deposit Bonus – Almost all bookmakers will offer customers free bets upon signing up with them. However, some will offer customers a deposit bonus. Deposit bonuses are much better than simple free bets. Free bets come with many terms and conditions. But with deposit bonuses, you can use them on any market. Way before Matched Bonus became a massive thing, bookies would offer the deposit as cash with terms and conditions that bettors couldn’t withdraw. Today, they are usually in the form of SNR bet credits, but plenty of firms still offer customers a bonus upon signing up with them.
• Enhanced Odds Bonus – Enhanced Odds Bonus is another type of free bet that you can be sure to find at several online sports betting sites. You may see something like “Sign up today and get 33/1 on Arsenal to beat Manchester City” when the true odds stand at around 8/13. But what happens if Arsenal don’t win? In short, you just wasted a sign-up offer. Of importance to note is that some of these offers tend to be crazy, though you still require a sporting event to go your way to benefit, meaning that there’s more risk.
• Refund Bonus – A refund bonus sounds the same as bet refunds, but not that way in the eyes of the bookies. We’ve seen offers such as these ones creep into the mainstream lately. You can come across things such as “Get 10% of your tennis losses back each month.” Any bonus is highly welcome when you lose your money. Refund bonuses are ideal for existing customers as opposed to those ones that open new accounts.
• Risk Free Bet – When it comes to Risk Free Bet, you have to be very careful when it comes to the terms and conditions here. Every bookie is different and some of them class or consider “risk-free” differently to others. For example, a bookmaker such as Ladbrokes do a completely risk-free £1 bet to its customers. Here, you’ll see a promotion they call “risk-free bet” but the money is returned as a free bet, and the free bet will be SNR. If you examine that closely, that’s hardly risk-free. Assuming that you placed a £5 on a loser, you’d need to choose a winner at 1/1 (2.0) or higher with your free bet to get your £5 back.
• Stake Returned As Free Bet – Stake Returned As Free Bet is another type of free bet that’s popular with bookmakers. You’ll see sign up offers like “Back Tottenham Hotspurs and if they lose get your stake back as free bet.” Most of the time, there’s a cap regarding how much your stake will be returned. For bookmakers, this is a good offer since they are relying on a sporting event. For existing accounts, this is a very good offer for them.
• Event Bonuses – Mostly, Event Bonuses apply for existing customers. This is based on something taking place in a sporting event for such a promotion to kick in. You may want to think of Betfred’s Double Delight and Hat-trick Heaven offer to customers; if a player scores consecutively –first the second-, you get to double your odds. If s/he scores first and goes to get a hat-trick, you get treble odds. Event Bonuses are an excellent offer, especially for existing customers. The reason for this is that existing account holders stand chances of winning big and don’t need to jump to any sign-up offer qualifying loops.
• Early Payout – We’ve saved the best for last. Early Payout is arguably the best type of promotion. You’ll see top bookies paying out on some selected sporting competitions. For example, they may pay out on selected football games if a team goes 3 Up. This is an ideal offer for those who prefer doing Matched Betting. For example, if you backed Stoke City and they went three goals ahead and lost, the bookie would pay out as a winner on Stoke City. Most bettors prefer early payouts. In fact, it’s one of the factors that they consider before joining a sports betting site.

How do free bets work?

To be honest, there’s nothing like free money as such. When it comes to sports betting, the ability to wager with someone else’s funds is the stuff of dreams, so to say. Just imagine how liberating and exciting it would be to wager in the full awareness that if things don’t actually work out, you’ve actually lost nothing of yours. That’s what it feels to wager using free bet offers. Well…..something like that.

As mentioned earlier, free bets or bonus bets is a credit awarded to bettors to wager on a wide range of sports markets. Instead, a players risking their own funds, they get to use the free bet credit to place bets. So, now there are free bets that bookies award, how do free these bets actually work when it comes to sports betting?

In the world of sports betting, free bets are mostly connected to player deposits and often referred to as bonuses. A majority of free bets become readily available, but only upon the initial deposit at a specific bookmaker. For example, DraftKings has in place a $20 free play that comes with several stipulations. First, a player has to make a deposit of $5 into their account and immediately receive $20 in free play money that’s not redeemable for cash.

Almost every other sportsbook that you come across has in place some kind of deal whose primary aim is to attract new customers. Luckily enough, there are plenty of options to attract new customers, free bets being one of them.

Besides the fact that free bets are essentially sportsbooks funds, the only primary differentiating factor to real money bets is that with free bets, a player gets to receive the profit from the best and not the stake. Below is a perfect example of the difference between free bets and real money:

Bet Type	Stake	Odds	Return
Real Money	$20	+150	$50 (Stake + Profit)
Free Bet	$20	+150	$30 (Profit only)

As you can see from the above example, without the bettor having his/her stake returned, the overall payout gets affected. The reduced payout is an encouragement to continue chasing high odds with your free bet, all in an effort geared towards increasing the payout.

Free bets have their own advantages and disadvantages. For beginners, if you feel as if you are wagering with free money, you may fail to give too much thought into your wagers. If that is the case, you may make a deposit of $100 into your betting account and before you are aware of it, your original $100 is gone, but with the $100 in free money. 

That’s all on matters to do with free bets. On the surface, free bets may seem like fun. But should you play into the hands of the bookies, they may turn into a quick negative in your pocket. But it’s a good thing to try wagering with free bets. If you win, that’s good for you. If you lose, you learn.

What are betting bonuses?

Bonuses are common when it comes to online sports betting. Just like free bets, risk-free bets, bonuses are mostly for the purposes of attracting new customers to a site and encouraging old ones to continue wagering with a site. Almost every other bookie in business offers some sort of bonuses to its customers. Some bonuses are regular, while others take time before bookies roll them out.

Unlike free bet stakes that aren’t returned by bookies, bonus stakes are returned. As you are now aware, with a free bet, you receive the winnings, but not the free bet stake itself. But with a bonus, the case is slightly different. If you place it on something and it wins, you get the bonus stake returned along with your total winnings.

That may sound wonderful. However, there’s a catch with betting bonuses that you need to know. Usually, with betting bonuses, you’ll have to rollover a certain number of times before you can go ahead and withdraw your winnings from the bonus funds. This is what is often referred to as the wagering or rollover requirement.

The rollover or wagering requirement is complete they moment a player either meets it or s/he loses all the bookmaker funds. While it’s easy to moan the regarding the wagering requirements, on the other side, it’s still some free cash, and not that difficult for a bettor to do.

The almost boring stuff when it comes to betting bonuses is the rollover requirement. Some bookmakers have high rollover requirements, while others have high to reach rollover requirements. Of importance to note is that you need to meet the rollover requirement within a specified period. The rollover required is mostly valid for days. Most bookies require their customers to meet the wagering requirement within 30 days failure to which they stand to lose their bonus and any other winnings generated from them.

When it comes to sports betting bonuses, you’ll notice that there are two main types of these bonuses. They include Deposit Bonuses and the No Deposit Bonuses.

Deposit Bonus

The Deposit Bonus is one of the most common, if not the most popular sports betting bonus. It goes by many names. There are those who refer it as a sign up bonus, while others refer to it as a welcome bonus. The deposit bonus is type of a bonus that you’ll certainly find at almost all online sports betting sites.

Understanding bonus offerings at a bookmaker is crucial since you have to be aware exactly what you’re getting as a bettor. What’s more, the better you get an understanding of different bonus offerings and rollover requirements, the better you are equipped to qualify for them by meeting the rollover requirements.

As the name suggests, a deposit bonus is that type of bonus that a bettor receives the moment s/he makes a real money deposit to a betting account. In other words, you need to deposit funds into your account to be able to unlock the bonus. A primary advantage that comes with a deposit bonus is that a deposit aimed at unlocking a bonus gives more funds to play with, meaning more chances of winning.

In most cases, the deposit bonus often involves doubling a player’s initial deposit to match the funds that a player sends to a betting site. For instance, a bookmaker may have a first deposit bonus of up to 100%. It means that if you go ahead and deposit £50 after registering your account with them, you would be automatically offered an additional £50.

Of importance to note is that the match percentage tend to differ from one bookmaker to the next. Not all are the same. Most sports betting sites with such deposit bonuses offer 50% or 100% matches, but it’s not uncommon to find higher or lower matches.

Besides that, the maximum bonus tends to vary, also from one site to the next. Some sites offer a maximum bonus of $250 or currency equivalent, while others offer even as much as $1,000. All that we can say is that it just depends. When it comes to a deposit bonus, a perfect rule of the thumb is that the higher the match, the smaller the maximum bonus, and vice versa.

A majority of top betting sign-up offers are valid for days upon players’ initial deposit. However, though less common for sportsbooks bonuses, some of them tend to split up over your first two or three deposits.

Experienced players mostly appreciate the deposit bonus. However, it can be enticing to beginners too. Novice bettors can use this type of betting bonus to quickly build themselves a comfortable betting kitty from where they can play.

Claiming a deposit bonus isn’t a complicated process as such. In fact, they are generally the same regardless of the site that you choose to join. Simply choose a site, select your preferred payment method, make an initial deposit, and go ahead to claim the bonus.

There are many ways to choose which site to wager with as a player. But among other things that you need to consider, you have to join a site that offer a deposit bonus upon registration. It’s a nice way of testing bookies, and knowing those that are fair from those that are just in business to exploit you.

No Deposit Bonus

Besides the Deposit Bonus, there’s the No Deposit Bonus that plenty of sportsbooks offer their customers. The no deposit bonus is one of those rare types of bonuses that new customers to a betting site often get. It’s quite as simple as it sounds. The no deposit bonus is that bonus that you get without even making a deposit into your new sports betting account.

Of course, this type of free wagering ‘money’ is one of those popular bonuses, and one of the main reasons as to why players choose to open a new sports betting account with a betting site that the like. The sums that most betting sites give in terms of a no deposit bonus varies between £5 or currency equivalent to around £10 or currency equivalent.

A no deposit bonus could be handed out to you whether you’ve just opened a new betting account with a bookmaker, or if you’ve had an active account for quite some time. Some bookmakers offer a no deposit bonus for customers who stay loyal and bet with the consistently. Some bookmakers are known for issuing customers a no deposit bonus as a means of encouraging them to play, especially if they’ve had long periods of inactivity.

While these potentially enticing bonuses are free without any costs, just like other types of bonuses, they come with their individual terms and conditions. To ensure that you are on the safe side, you need to know something about it. While you have a free bet with you, there are certain terms and conditions that you need to meet.

We always recommend that you always go through the terms and conditions of the no deposit bonus, so that you decide whether it’s the best offer for you or not. Unfortunately, matters to do with terms and conditions is one area that many bettors ignore.

In some cases, a bookmaker will go ahead and fix a maximum cash out amount that bettors need to follow before using their no deposit bonus. This means that the site sets a limit on how much a player can win. For example, if a sportsbook sets a maximum cash out amount of £100, it means that you cannot win more than £100 with your no deposit bonus.

The good thing about the no deposit bonus is that you can keep what you win with it. But before accepting a no deposit bonus, make sure that you are aware of its terms and conditions properly. Some sites might have some limits that they attach to a no deposit bonus. It’s always good to be aware of everything about a no deposit bonus so that you avoid unpleasant surprises. But otherwise, it’s a good sports betting bonus that you shouldn’t let go. Above all, please gamble responsibly.