Sports betting is a rapidly growing industry. Every day it seems, there’s another new online sportsbook opening up for business and many more people opting to give wagering on sporting events a go.
Once you’ve made the monumental decision to bet on sports, the next step will be to sign up with an online sportsbook. And certainly, one of the attractions that will help make the choice is the type of signup bonus offered by the betting site.
At a site like sportsbookbonus.com, you can check out all of the signup bonuses offered by the leading online betting sites. Here are some of the factors that will be considered when determining which sportsbook bonus is the best one for you.
1. They’re Everywhere
The first thing you’ll learn upon investigating the many online sportsbooks is that they all dangle some sort of incentive to get newcomers to join up at their site.
There are any number of ways that a bettor can access a signup bonus. Some sites provide more than one bonus choice to new players.
2. Money For Nothing
One form of signup bonus is the no-deposit bonus. This is just as it sounds. An online sports betting site will provide a newcomer with the sum of money simply for signing up at their site.
Generally, it’s a small stipend. Most commonly, the amount offered via a no-deposit bonus is $50. It might not seem like much but it’s free money and that’s never a bad thing.
3. Free Bet Bonanza
Another popular form of signup bonus is the free first bet offer. In this instance, a sportsbook will set an amount which a new player may wager without fear of losing the first time they make a bet with the site.
Suppose that amount was $500. That would mean a player could make a first bet of up to $500 without a risk of losing the money. Should the bet be a failure, the amount is returned to the player’s account, usually in the form of a free bet voucher.
4. Matching Outfits
The most common style of signup bonus is the matching first deposit offer. Sportsbooks will set an amount, or a percentage of a player’s first deposit and agree to match that total.
It could be a straight 100 percent match. For example a sportsbook might offer a 100 percent matching first deposit bonus worth up to a maximum of $250. In a percentage cash, the sports betting site will offer say a 50 percent match of the player’s first deposit worth up to a maximum of $500.
5. Read The Fine Print
Every bonus offer comes with terms and conditions and reading those over before joining any site is vital. What sounds on the surface like a great offer may in fact prove to be more trojan horse than gift horse.
Suppose a betting site offers a matching first deposit signup bonus of up to $1,000. That sounds wonderful. But when you examine the fine print, the sheen quickly disappears. It turns out that the $1,000 bonus is equal to 20 percent of the player’s first deposit. To access the full $1,000 bonus, a player would need to deposit $5,000.
6. Playing Through
A common attachment to all signup bonus offers is the play-through requirement. This is the number of times a player must wager the signup bonus funds before gaining permission to withdraw the funds.
Some sportsbooks attach a minimal one-time play through. Others will go as high as 25 times. Should a bettor garner a $500 signup bonus with a 25-time rollover requirement, that would mean the player would be required to wager $12,500 to free up the $500 in bonus funds.
7. Fill The Order Before Midnight Strikes
There are often time and wagering restrictions placed upon bonus funds. A limit may be placed on the amount of time in which the play-through requirements must be met, or the rights to the bonus funds are rescinded. Frequently, this time governor is set at 30 days following the acquisition of the bonus.
The type of wagers that are acceptable to clear a bonus amount can also be quite restrictive. Usually, bets on overwhelming favorites are prohibited, since those are unlikely to lose and would be an easy method to free up the bonus funds.
8. There’s No Limit
One thing to keep in mind when it comes to signup bonus offers is that the opportunity is limited only by how many sites you join.
Five sites? Ten sites? There’s nothing preventing a player from signing up at several sites in order to maximize their bonus bonanza.