The Most Important Things to Know When Getting a Betting Bonus

We are sure that if you are engaged in sports betting, even recreational, you know that respectable online bookmakers provide their users with a wide variety of bonuses and promotions to reward them and/or lead them to register specifically on their sites. These sportsbook bonuses are something that can help bettors increase their betting budget, of course, if they’re used correctly.

We think that there is no player who doesn’t like to receive a bonus in an online betting site in which he decides to register. By giving bonuses and promotions, the sportsbooks provide us with money that’s not ours to play with and try to win money that will be ours. The marketing strategy of online sportsbooks has been brought almost to perfection, and the promotions of sportsbooks are becoming increasingly attractive.

In one of our previous articles, we’ve already written about the most common types of bonuses that bettors can obtain from online sportsbooks and casinos. In this article, we’ll look at the most important things you should pay attention to when accepting a specific bonus or promotion.

It’s essential to understand that all online gambling operators have only one goal – TO MAKE A PROFIT! For this reason, it’s unrealistic to expect that the bonus money will be easily converted into real money since every sportsbook promotion always comes with a specific set of Wagering Requirements. You can find these Wagering Requirements at the bottom of the page of every promotion, and our suggestion is always to read them carefully to avoid possible disappointments later.

So, let’s start the countdown of the most important bonus rules that bettors will find in their favorite sportsbooks.

If It’s a Welcome Bonus, You Can Get It Only Once

Sportsbooks’ bonuses mostly have specific patterns by which they appear. The most common form is deposit after registration and first deposit; these actions activate most types of bonuses. In this article, we mainly focused on the welcome bonus, but we’ll look at other types of bonuses as well, that is, the requirements related to them.

The welcome bonus is given by the sportsbook mainly to the new users who register on the site for the first time. In addition to the first deposit bonus, there’s also a bonus option for the second, third, and sometimes even fourth deposit. This additional bonus is called a reload bonus.

If you want to get a welcome bonus, you need to know that you can get it only once when you make your first deposit in a certain sportsbook after registration. If you’ve ever deposited money in that sportsbook, then you won’t be able to take advantage of the welcome bonus since you either already used it before or didn’t even take it after the first deposit. This is a fundamental rule that many people forget. They often ask the bookmaker for a welcome bonus to which they aren’t entitled according to the general Terms & Conditions.

Sometimes There’s a Time Limit by When You Can Obtain the Bonus!

Bonuses and sportsbook promotions can sometimes have a limited period. A welcome bonus rarely has an expiration date (except for the deadline for meeting the wagering requirements) because it’s related to the player’s first deposit. The only bad thing that can happen to a welcome bonus is that, at some point, it becomes less profitable because the operator has decided to change his offer. It can also be more beneficial for the players, so the moment of receiving the bonus is somewhat a gamble.

However, other types of bonuses, especially reload bonuses, can often have a time limit, after which this type of bonus is no longer available in the sportsbook. For this reason, it’s crucial to read the Terms & Conditions of using these types of bonuses so that you don’t miss the offer that you want to use.

Is It Allowed For the Players From Your Country to Get a Bonus?

Before registering and making your first deposit, it’s essential to ensure that the specific sportsbook accepts the players from your country. Due to the different rules and laws in different territories, players from certain countries are sometimes prohibited from registering and/or depositing money in sportsbooks.

If your country is on the list of restricted countries, there’s no chance that you’ll be able to get any bonus. Because of that, it’s important always to read a few reviews about the sportsbook and make sure that players from your country are welcome to register before you decide to create an account.

Does the Sportsbook Accept Certain Deposit Methods?

Although when reading reviews about sportsbooks, you can see that some, such as 1XBet, accept more than 100 different deposit methods, not all deposit methods are available to players from certain countries, and not all deposit methods are eligible for getting a sportsbook bonus.

For example, in some sportsbooks, if you choose to deposit via Skrill or Neteller e-wallets, you won’t be able to get a welcome bonus from the bookmaker. So, the sportsbook enables deposit and withdrawal using that payment method but doesn’t provide a bonus if the player uses it.

To avoid this trap, you should read the Bonus Wagering Requirements. Information about prohibited deposit methods is usually written in bold and located at the beginning of the Bonus Wagering Requirements.

Is There a Bonus Code?

Although this seems completely irrelevant, if you don’t enter the bonus code in the right place, you won’t be able to get your welcome bonus at some betting sites. Because of this, we consistently note in our reviews in a prominent place that there’s a bonus code that must be entered as, for example, in our 22bet sportsbook review.

If you miss entering the bonus code, the only solution is to contact customer support. Still, there’s no guarantee that they’ll meet you halfway and manually provide you with a bonus. It can very easily happen that you lose the sportsbook promotion belonging to you, so be extremely careful about bonus codes.

The Minimum Deposit Amount to Get a Bonus

Almost every sportsbook has set a minimum deposit amount needed for getting the bonus in its Terms & Conditions. In most cases, the minimum amount is set to €10, but it may vary depending on the sportsbook. For example, in the excellent Campobet sportsbook, which has a very attractive welcome bonus, the minimum amount is set to €20.

Therefore, always check the minimum amount required for getting a bonus, so you don’t make a deposit below the minimum amount and thereby deprive yourself of the opportunity to receive the sportsbook’s bonus.

What is The Bonus Percentage of The Deposit?

How much bonus money you’ll receive depends primarily on how much the sportsbook offer. Many welcome bonuses in the sportsbooks are so-called matched bonuses, where the sportsbook matches your deposit amount in a certain percentage.

These amounts range from 50% up to, in some cases, 300%. However, the most common amount that you receive from a bookmaker is 100%. Thus, if the bonus is 100% of the first deposit amount, if you deposit €100, you’ll receive €100 bonus money. If the bonus amount is 50% of your first deposit, then you get €50 bonus money when depositing €100, and so on.

What Is The Maximum Amount That You Can Get With The Bonus?

Sportsbooks always, without any exceptions, set the maximum amount of money that can be obtained with a specific promotion when determining wagering requirements. So, no matter how much you decide to deposit for the first time, you won’t be able to get more than the maximum defined by the bookmaker.

For example, the popular Bet-at-Home sportsbook currently has an active promotion where every new user gets a welcome bonus of 50% of their first deposit, up to a maximum of €200. So, to get a maximum bonus amount, you need to deposit €400 for the first time, and the sportsbook will give you €200 bonus money.

Even if you deposit a higher amount, you’ll still receive a maximum of €200 bonus money. This is one of the more essential rules which is always expressed in the Wagering Requirements, and reading them is very important.

What are the Wagering Requirements?

This part, related to the wagering requirements, may be the most difficult for new users to understand. However, it’s necessary to read the bonus rules in detail. We’re pretty sure that you can understand them without significant problems.

The Wagering Requirements are a set of rules defined by a bookmaker that gives a bonus to players and by which bookmakers make it harder for players to transfer bonus money to the real-money account that enables withdrawals. When a player gets a bonus from the sportsbook, that bonus can’t be withdrawn and converted into real money until the bonus wagering requirements are met.

These rules most often relate to the number of times the bonus money must be rolled over (rollover requirements) before the player can withdraw the funds from his account. In the example of the respectable Unibet sportsbook, the bettors must rollover the bonus amount five times (5x) before they can request the payout of bonus funds.

Thus, if you receive €100 bonus money, you need to place bets worth €500 to meet the wagering requirements of this specific bonus.

Meeting the wagering requirements is one of the crucial things related to the sportsbooks’ promotions simply because the bettor won’t be able to profit from his efforts if he fails to fulfill the requirements.

What are the Minimum Odds Necessary to Count the Bet Towards the Wagering Requirements?

This rule only complements the previous one because it’s not enough to wager the bonus amount a certain number of times; it also needs to be done with minimum odds. No bookmaker will allow you to roll over your funds with odds of 1.01 or 1.10, simply because, in this way, every bonus user would be able to meet the wagering requirements and gets a total amount of bonus money from the sportsbook without significant problems. We’ve already said that the sportsbooks were designed to bring profit to themselves and not to players.

In our experience, the minimum odds range from 1.40 to 2.50. That way, the bookmakers protect themselves and their liquidity because the vast majority of bettors can’t profit with such high odds. There’s a greater chance that they won’t be able to meet the bonus wagering requirements.

What is the Maximum Bet Amount?

As part of the wagering requirements, bookmakers use a few more ‘hidden’ catches, and one of them is a maximum bet amount you can place when wagering bonus funds. This means that if you bet over the maximum amount, the bookmaker will count only the maximum amount towards the rollover requirements. Bookmakers set these requirements to avoid a ‘lucky series’ of players who are often ready to play all-in, to say it in poker terms, and try their luck with bonus money.

Also, there’s almost always a time frame for fulfilling the bonus wagering requirements. Operators introduced another stipulation when providing welcome and other bonuses to get an even greater advantage over bettors. Bookmakers set a time limit within which the bonus wagering requirements must be met to force players to make irrational decisions.

If a player fails to fulfill the requirements within a specific timeframe, he loses all bonus money, even the profit he has possibly made so far. This way, bookmakers ‘rush’ players to place bets in a short time, even when the offer of matches is poor, thus minimizing the chance of making a profit. This timeframe differs depending on the bookmaker and often ranges from ten (10) to ninety (90) days.

The Possibility of Getting a Casino Welcome Bonus

Recently, it has become a trend that sportsbooks are no longer exclusively sports betting sites but are becoming a type of all-in-one site where players can bet on sports events and play online casino games such as slots, roulette, and baccarat, video poker, and others.

It’s always necessary to carefully check every website’s general Terms & Conditions to determine whether you’re eligible for both welcome bonuses or you need to choose between the sportsbook and online casino bonus.

Inability to Activate Two Bonuses at the Same Time

When you use one sportsbook bonus, it’s impossible to get any other bonus from the same company at the same time. Even if you accept another bonus, it’ll remain on standby as long as the first bonus is active. This is to avoid duplicating the wagering requirements and avoid confusion about using bonus money in one account.

Only One Welcome Bonus Per Family or IP Address 

This rule was introduced to avoid the possibility of bonus abuse by opening multiple accounts by one person. This rule is a little unfair because if another member of your family likes sports betting and doesn’t want to share the account with you, he simply doesn’t have the opportunity to receive a welcome bonus in the same sportsbook if you have already taken it.

As we’ve already said, this rule was introduced recently because many people opened several dozen accounts in the same sportsbook and abused bonuses and promotions. Therefore, if you open more than one account in one sportsbook, you won’t be able to take two bonuses, and your accounts will probably be marked as accounts prone to fraud, so we don’t recommend you to do such a thing.

All Sports Betting Sites Have Special Departments Engaged in Fraud Prevention

This isn’t a bonus rule, but we must mention being careful and never trying to outwit the bookmaker with dishonest behavior. Bookmakers have specially trained teams to check the history of bets of all accounts and search for orders that show fraudulent behavior. Thus, our recommendation is to avoid any suspicious activities during sports betting because it’s simply not worth it. It’s better to educate yourself about honest ways to make money when gambling, choose a proven betting strategy and slowly start conquering the sportsbook mountain.

Conclusion

In the end, there’s a legitimate question is it possible to make money by betting using bonuses with such rules? Of course, it’s possible, but you need to put in the effort to get everything right in the end. You also need to have some luck. You may take a bonus in the middle of a lousy series happening to you, and that you can in no way get out of it before spending the bonus money. On the other hand, maybe you experience just the opposite, and you manage to win a good amount of money, just because you entered a good series. In general, you should be indifferent to that money because it’s a gift from the bookmaker.

It’s vital always to read Bonus Wagering Requirements, so you don’t get into a situation where you lose your hard-earned money due to an administrative error. This is the most important rule and the best advice that we can give you at the end.

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