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Free Bet Explained

Publish Date:12/03/2020
Fact checked by: Jordan Noble

How do Free Bets work?

If you’ve ever wanted an easy way to boost your sports betting profits, you’ll need to have a free bet explained. We’re here to give you an answer to the question of ‘How do free bets work?’ so that you win more with your bets and not get caught out by any of the small print. After all, even the simplest free bet deal can be more complicated than it initially appears to be. So keep reading to have a free bet explained in simple and helpful terms.

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Get a free bet explained in simple points

  • Bonus bets used to boost your betting stakes
  • Will normally require a qualifying deposit or bet
  • Often restricted for use on certain odds and bet types
  • Sometimes contains important wagering requirements
  • Bonus bet tokens not always withdrawable

How do free bets work?

You’ll find bonus bet bonuses at nearly all bookmakers’ sites. There are many different types of free bet deals that all have their pros and cons. But all bonus bets work to give you extra betting funds that you can then go on to use for your bets on sport. This is the general outline of how do free bets work.

As a result we can see that bonus bets can be an excellent way to get more from your sports bets. You’ll often be able to use bonus bets to double or even triple your betting stakes at a bookmaker’s site. Because of this, you could make some decent profits through using bonus bet deals.

bonus bets also offer you a good introduction to discovering what a new sports betting site is all about. Rather than having to spend a lot of your own money in trying different sports bets, you’ll be able to use the bonus bets to put down some bets and see whether the bookmaker’s sports betting service is right for you.

In addition to this, the bookmaker gets to benefit from putting on bonus bet offers. This is because new customers will be tempted to come to their betting sites as bonus bets will be offered for people who haven’t signed up to the site before. Plus any existing customers will be less likely to go to other sports betting sites if a bookmaker keeps putting on good free bet deals.

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Are free bets really free?

One of the most important things to realise about bonus bets is the fact that they are often anything but free. This is because it’s common to have to put some of your own money in the bookmaker’s site before you get access to their free bets.

It’s fairly common to have to make a qualifying deposit or sports bet before you get access to the free bet tokens. You might find that some bookmakers will occasionally give you bonus bets for nothing, but this is very rare.

This is because all sports betting sites are businesses who are unwilling to give you the equivalent of something for nothing. The fact that these special offers are called ‘free bets’ is therefore a little misleading, as they are usually anything but free. As you can see, it is important to have free bets explained to you as a concept.

This isn’t a case of bookmakers trying to confuse people, it’s more the way in which the language around these special offers has evolved over the years.  As a result, you’ll almost always have to invest your own cash to get the bonus betting funds.

How do you get bonus bets?

All bonus bet deals will require customers to carry out some specific tasks to unlock the bonus funds. These terms and conditions should always be carefully explained by the bookmaker before you sign up to the special offers. If there’s anything that you don’t understand, then you should always be able to get in contact with the bookmaker’s customer service team who will normally be happy to help.

You will always be required to have an account with the bookmaker before you get access to any of their free bet offers. It should rarely take longer than a couple of minutes to set up an account at a sports betting site. You will normally have to just enter in some personal details like your name, address, email, date of birth and so on. You might also have to enter in a bonus code when you register your account which can activate whatever free bet bonuses might be on.

Some particularly generous bookmakers will give you your bonus bets after you have verified your account. But it’s far more common to have to do anything from making a certain kind of deposit to putting down some fairly specific sports bets before you unlock your bonus bet tokens. Keep reading to have your free bet explained.

Different types of free bet deals

Bookmakers clearly enjoy coming up with all manner of different free bet deals. By going to different sports betting sites, you’ll discover a wide range of free bet offers that all have their advantages and disadvantages. But here are three of the most common free bet offers that you are likely to come across.

Matched deposit bonuses

If you are signing up to a sports betting site for the first time, then you’ll commonly find that you get offered a free bet welcome bonus. This will usually come in the form of a matched deposit bonus. These special offers work by matching your first deposit by a certain amount, and the amount that you get matched will be granted in the form of bonus bet tokens.

For example, you might find a bookmaker who offers you a 100% matched bet deposit up to £100. For this, your first deposit of £10 would be matched to give you £10 in bonus bet tokens. But if you deposited £150, then the amount of bonus bets that you received would be capped at £100.

These matched deposit bonuses aren’t restricted to just new customers at a sports betting site. Existing customers will sometimes be able to get their deposits matched in bonus bets at certain times at some bookmakers’ sites.

Just remember that only certain kinds of deposits will qualify for these deals. The deposits will need to be of a minimum amount, and you might find that only certain payment methods such as debit cards can be used to make your qualifying deposit.

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Matched bet deals

Matched bet deals work in a similar way to matched deposit deals. Here you will be required to put down a certain kind of sports bet to unlock the bonus bet tokens. You will obviously have to make a qualifying deposit to make your first sports bet.

For example, you might be required to bet at least £10 on odds of 1.50 or more to get your bonus bets. By doing so, you could get anything from £10 in bonus bet tokens, or you might even get triple this amount at some bookmakers’ sites.

Losing bet refunds

Some bookmakers will even give you bonus betting funds when you lose a bet on their site. These are losing bet refund deals and they will aim to give you a certain amount of insurance over certain sports bets that you make.

For example, a bookmaker will offer you a losing bet refund where you could get your losing betting stake refunded up to £10. The refund would be awarded in the form of bonus bets that you could use again on the sports betting site.

Important terms and conditions in bonus bet deals

While wondering how do free bets work, also take into account that bookmakers are being generous when they put on these free bet offers, it’s important to note that they will always make you work hard for your extra betting funds. Not only will you commonly have to make certain kinds of deposits and sports bets to unlock the bonus bets, but even after you’ve claimed your bonus bet tokens, you’ll find limitations over what you can and cannot do with your bonus cash.

This is why you should always read through the bonus terms and conditions before signing up to any of these free bet offers. Here are some of the most important things to look out for in the small print of any free bet deal.

Can you withdraw bonus bets?

Although a bookmaker is giving you bonus bet tokens, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be able to withdraw the free bets as cash. In fact, it’s far more common to only be able to use the bonus bet tokens to boost your betting stakes. You will normally only be able to withdraw the extra betting profits generated by these bonus bet tokens.

What are wagering conditions?

Many free bet deals will contain something called wagering conditions in the small print. Wagering conditions determine what you can and cannot do with your bonus bets. It’s common to find that the wagering conditions demand that you have to bet the value of your bonus a certain amount of times before you are allowed to make a withdrawal of your boosted winnings.

Qualifying odds

It’s also common to find that you can only use your bonus bet tokens on some fairly specific sports betting odds. This is usually a minimum odds amount and you should beware of any free bet bonuses that only allow you to use the bonus bets on some fairly risky odds such as 2.00 or higher.

Bet types

You might find that your bonus bet tokens cannot be used on certain kinds of sports such as horse racing. In addition to this, some bookmakers will state that you can only use their bonus bets on some specific bet types like single bets. You should also watch out for those bonus bet deals that only allow you to use your extra betting funds by making tricky sports bets such as accumulator bets with at least three selections and so on.

Time limits

We should also note how nearly all bonus bet deals will have some strict time limits. For starters, you might only get a day or two to make your qualifying deposits or bets after signing up to a bookmaker’s site to get your free bets.

Plus you’ll often have a short space of time to use your bonus bet tokens. This can be anywhere between 24 hours and a month, so make sure that you don’t let your bonus bets go to waste.

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Picking your perfect bonus bet deal

There are so many free bet offers out there that it can sometimes be hard finding the right kind of deal for your needs. But we would always recommend the free bet deals that represent the best value for money and that are written in the clearest terms.

There’s little point in getting a massive deposit match bonus if you are stuck with some impossible wagering conditions. As a result, it can be better to go for the more modest free bet deals that don’t put too many restrictions over how you can use your bonus cash.

By doing so you could still get a nice boost on your betting stakes, and then you would hopefully be able to use your bonus bets to get to know what the betting site is all about and even make some decent profits along the way.

What other betting guides and strategies are available?

While bonus bets are a hugely important part of sports betting, there are plenty of other strategies that you can use to get more from your sports bets. We have devised a thorough guide that helps to explain many of the most popular ways that sports fans improve their overall betting experience.

If you’re sick of wanting to bet on the favourite, but can never get any decent odds, then you will need to have the classic handicap explained. This puts a team or player at a points disadvantage which levels the playing field. As a result, the team or player would have to win by a greater margin for you to win your bets, but you’d stand to get much better profits as a result.

By going to a betting exchange you’d get a chance to enjoy lay betting. By having lay betting explained you’ll see that you this allows you to bet on something not happening in a sporting encounter. This can be a riskier tactic than standard betting - so be aware!

Many sports fans enjoy combining several single bets into one multiple bet. We will have a multiple bet explained in simple terms for you. You’ll find that multiple bets can get increasingly harder to win as you add more selections to your bet. But if you get a multiple bet right, then you could make some significant profits.

Over/under betting is another popular way to bet on sports. For this, you’ll be betting on the amount of times a certain event such as goals or runs happens in the sporting encounter. Be sure to have an over under bet explained to see how this offers you plenty more flexibility for betting on anything from cricket and rugby to football and basketball.

We should also have backdoor cover explained as this can be important for when you’ve bet on a certain team or player to win by a specific margin. The backdoor cover comes into play when the underdog manages to score enough goals, points or runs in the final stages of the match that, in turn, allows you to win your bet.

Conclusion

We’ve hopefully shown you that bonus bets can be a great way for you to boost your betting stakes on a massive variety of sports bets. It doesn’t matter whether you are into football, cricket, rugby or horse racing, as bonus bets are essentially deals put on by bookmakers that give you extra betting funds to use on their sites.

We also showed you that there’s a huge variety in terms of the size and type of free bet deals. Some bonus bets will only be granted once the punter has put down a certain kind of deposit, while other bonus bets will be given away after you have made a fairly specific sporting bet.

Hopefully you will also understand the fact that bonus bets aren’t something that should be used carelessly. Everything from your qualifying deposits to the wagering conditions involved in bonus bet deals can add up to put some serious restrictions on what you can and cannot do when you get these special offers.

But on the whole, we think that free bet deals are an essential part of the modern sports betting experience. Just don’t forget to carefully read through all of the terms and conditions of these bonus bets before you put them into use. Hopefully your queries have been answered through our free bet explained overview.

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