North Carolina sports bettors are about to be treated with thousands of dollars worth of bonus bets, just for signing up at NC’s new online sportsbook apps and making a few small deposits.
But what’s the best way to use them? There are mathematically optimal ways to use any bonus bets, no matter how much they are or what state you’re in. Then, there are the fun ways to use them. And there’s another option that allows you to lock in cash from your bonus bets, but it has some risks.
Here are a few things to keep in mind before starting to use your bonus bets:
- The optimal way to use bonus bets is to make plus-money wagers, typically in the +300 to +500 range in tight, two-way markets. We’ll dive more into the math below.
- If you want some bonuses to use for the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, don’t make your first deposit/wager at every book right away. Of the seven sportsbooks in North Carolina, six have bonus bets that expire in seven days. Caesars is the exception at 14 days. Underdog is the eighth sportsbook, but it’s a brand-new platform, and their house rules don’t say anything about when bonus cash expires, so I don’t really know yet. But if you sign up for every book Monday, you’ll have to place all your bonus bet wagers by Sunday.
- There’s another path to turning your bonus bets into cash — called “conversion” — but it’s more like hedging and less like actually betting for enjoyment.
The optimal way to use bonus bets in NC or anywhere else
Because you’re not keeping the bonus bet stake, it always makes more mathematical sense to use them on plus-money wagers.
The higher the line, the more expected value you’re getting. Expected value, or EV as it’s called in the sports betting world, is what you’d win on average if your bet was played out an infinite number of times.
The issue is that expected value is the average over a massive sample. If you got +110 odds on a coin flip landing heads you’d of course come out ahead over 1,000 flips. But over two flips, or even 10 flips, you could still lose money.
So you can’t use all your bonus bets on 100-1 long shots, even if the expected value is higher. You only get so many bonus bets, and you’ll likely lose them all before you hit that big payout.
That’s why we recommend making plus-money wagers with your bonus bets in the +300 to +500 range in tight, two-way markets. Even better if that sportsbook is offering the best price compared to other books.
- What’s a two-way market? A two-way market is one in which both sides are offered. An NBA moneyline is two-way, with both sides offered. A touchdown scorer market in which there’s only one option for each player to score, and not a choice for them to not score, is a one-way market. The two-way pricing helps keep the sportsbook accountable on its pricing.
- What’s a tight market? A tight market is one in which there’s a smaller house edge between the two sides. If the underdog is +350, you want the favorite to be something like -475, not -600. Generally, the more action there is on a market, the tighter the line will be. For bets where sportsbooks feel like they’re more vulnerable, they’ll bake in more edge.
Regular moneylines will often fit into this category — like Santa Clara +425 against Saint Mary’s in college basketball Monday night, or San Francisco +350 against Gonzaga. But other markets like props work too. Just try to make sure they follow those rules for optimal return.
Can’t I just make some long-shot parlays instead?
This is the most common response I get to these types of articles. The answer is of course, yes. You can do whatever you want. Most U.S. sports bettors don’t need to turn $20 in bonuses into $60 in cash; they have $60 already. They want to turn $20 into $1,500, or $20 into so much money they can quit their job.
And that’s totally fine! Do whatever is going to be enjoyable and provide entertainment value. You’ll likely win one or two smaller parlays along the way and have a blast when they hit.
The math says that parlays are not quite as optimal for bonus bets because the sportsbooks build in an edge against each parlay leg — so you’re never getting a truly fair price. If each leg is a bad bet on its own, you’re losing a little bit of value the more legs you add.
The specific-book breakdown
We have eight sportsbooks going live Monday, and most of the offers are what we call “bet/gets” — bet a little, get a few hundred in bonus bets.
1. FanDuel: FanDuel is giving new users $200 in bonus bets that you can split up however you want.
2. DraftKings: DraftKings is doing the same as FanDuel, but they’re split up into $25 increments.
3. bet365: bet365 gives you a choice between $200 in bonus bets or a $1,000 first bet safety net. If you do max out the safety net, or come close (anything over $600, it’s technically higher value). But if you don’t want to deposit and wager that much, take the $200.
4. BetMGM: BetMGM is giving you bonus bets in pre-set increments, so use them like you would at FanDuel or DraftKings.
5. Fanatics Sportsbook: Fanatics Sportsbook has two options — the $100/10-day bet match, or the bet $20, get $200.
If you are comfortable depositing at least a few hundred dollars, take the bet match. If you go 5-5 with those $100 wagers over 10 days, you’ll be down $50 in cash, but you’ll have $1,000 bonus bets. If you go 3-7, you’ll be down $430 in cash, but you’ll still have $1,000 in bonus bets.
6. Caesars Sportsbook: With Caesars, you’ll get five, $50 bonus bets after you first $10 bet. Caesars bonus bets expire in 14 days, longer than any other sportsbook right now,
7. ESPN BET: The new sportsbook is offering $225 in bonus bets, plus a 200% deposit match up to $500. With the deposit match, you’ll unlock the bonus 5% at a time, so a $100 wager results in $5 extra cash in your account.
8. Underdog Sports: Underdog is offering a $1,000 first bet mulligan, meaning if your first bet loses, you’ll be refunded in bonus bets equal to whatever you lost on that wager.
With the first bet offers (they all have a different name but work the same), you also want to bet at plus-money. I’d say the +200 to +400 range is a good target.
The expected value of the promotion is always going to be higher if you bet at plus-money, given that you only get refunded if your bet loses. If you do get bonus bets back, follow the same pattern to try to recoup your cash — plus-money wagers in the +300 to +500 range.
Conversion
There’s another way to approach your bonus bets, with something called “bonus bet conversion.” In other parts of the world, it’s a technique known as “matched betting.”
This practice is less betting and more hedging. You’re betting both sides of the same game at different sportsbooks — one side with your bonus bet and one with real cash — and locking in the same amount of cash no matter the result. Keep in mind this is a tactic that sportsbooks don’t like, and you should never bet two sides of the same game at the same sportsbook.
Here’s how it works. It’s easiest to use a conversion calculator to determine how much you need to bet on both sides.
Ideally, you’re trying to find:
- A plus-money wager to use your bonus bet
- A favorite on the other side to bet with cash
- You want the odds on both sides to be as close together as possible (which is possible given that you’re betting them at different sportsbooks).
- And you want the underdog line to be as high as possible.
Take this example from Sunday night — Sacramento State +810 at FanDuel, and Eastern Washington -1,000 at PointsBet/soon-to-be-Fanatics.
You place a $20 cash wager on Sacramento State, and a $147.27 cash bet on Eastern Washington at -1,000. No matter the result of the game, you’ll profit $14.73. This means your $20 bonus bet turned into about 74% of the cash value.
There are some risks here, given that as you start dealing in higher bonus-bet amounts, you have to make pretty big cash wagers on the other side — if you made a $100 bonus bet wager in this same scenario, your cash wager on EWU would have to be about $735.
Conversion tips and things to know
Don’t bet exact decimal amounts because it’s a giveaway you’re using some sort of calculator to determine the ideal bet size, and sportsbooks don’t like this practice. So in this case, you’d bet $145 or $147 instead).
Use your sportsbooks with deposit matches to bet with cash so that you’re hitting the wagering requirements to unlock the full value. ESPN BET NC for example has a has a 200% deposit match up to $500, but it only unlocks 5% at a time. So to hit the full $500, you’ll need to wager 20x that in your first 30 days, making it a logical book to bet with cash.
Only bet main markets in major sports or at least understand the risks of betting props and niche markets. If you’re betting $750 as a hedge on an obscure prop, it’s likely you’ll get either limited, or you won’t even be able to place the bet in the first place. Most sportsbooks will not accept more than a few hundred dollars on props from most users.