Bookmaker Sign Up Bonuses – Advantage Plays
Although we list online bookmaker sign-up bonuses, we don’t gamble.
Instead, we do 3 Sports Advantage Plays based on mathematical edge to beat the bookies. To be specific, we use Matched Betting / Sports Arbitrage / Value Bets On Proven Software, Systems & Tipsters to lock-in profit or consistently earn extra income for the long-term.
We would like our global readers to make the best use of the above methods. These 5 common types of bookmaker sign-up bonuses in the UK & Europe (in fact it cover almost all over the world including top-rated Caribbean bookies) are a part of our efforts to achieve the above objective.
I believe this guide will give you a good insight on what type of online betting welcome bonuses are available & how you can extract cash from them risk-free via matched betting.
If you live outside the UK/Ireland, check;
- Australia – see Matched Betting in Australia – Why Bonusbank?
- DACH (Germany, Austria & Switzerland) Region – Matched Betting in Germany – Use DoppelWetten
- Rest of the world including the USA & Canada – Matched Betting Anyone in the World incl. USA
(1) Free Bet Offers No Deposit – Currently Not Available
Although I said the common sign-up bonus, the No Deposit Bonus (NDB) is actually not popular among bookmakers lately (it’s very popular in Casino bonuses & if you’re interested, suggest taking a look at the List of 52 Best Bitcoin Casino Bonuses). As you imagine, it is the safest & easiest Sign-Up Offer, because you don’t need to use your own money.
Therefore, you can lock in profit via simple matched betting. Sky Bet used to offer No Deposit Free Bet (the below image) but they changed it to “Bet £5 Get £20 Free Bet”, which is the 2nd offer type (current sky bet offers). Since Sky Bet was the only major bookmaker that provides no deposit-free bet offer, currently no such offer in the sports category. 
However, the matched betting instructions below are perfectly valid & very useful for matched betting newbies. Therefore I will not delete this section but keep them here in case any major sportsbook launches no deposit sign-up bonuses in the future.
How To Monetize Online Bookmakers’ Sign-Up Bonuses
Since this is the 1st one of the 5 most popular bookmakers’ signup bonuses, I’ll briefly explain the overall concept of matched betting by using the Sky Bet new customer offer. Please skip if you are already a matched bettor. Otherwise click + below to expand the information;
Very Basics
For those who are completely new to matched betting, suggest taking a look at Matched Betting For Dummies – 9 Essential Things You Should Know Before Staking Any Real Money where you will find every basic about matched betting.
Here, I’ll give you a snapshot of how it works with Sky Bet Offer.
Sky Bet Sign Up offer is absolutely 100% Risk-Free. Because you will get No Deposit £10 Free Bet. 
When you sign-up, you will instantly get a £10 Free Bet. You can’t withdraw it, but need to bet free, therefore it’s called a free bet. I will quickly explain how you can lock in Profit by constructing matched betting. This is a brief summary for you to understand the overall concept.
Matched Betting Snapshot
What we do are;
- Two transactions of Back (bet on win) £10 on Team or Player A at Sky Bet & Lay (bet on NOT win) appropriate £ (stake can be calculated by free software) on the same Team or Player A at Betting Exchange like Betfair (suggest the use of Betfair Alternatives) or Smarkets so that you cover all outcomes.
- Regardless of the outcome, your losing & winning will cancel out each other. In real practice, usually, two bets are not perfectly offset due to the odds difference & exchange commission. Therefore you make a small loss called Qualifying Loss.
- When you use your real money in Sky Bet, then yes the above qualifying loss is a real loss. However, you don’t use your own money but a free bet, therefore the free bet value of £10 – this small qualifying loss = your net profit.
- You may be able to extract around £8.5 – 9.5 pure profit from this offer Without Any Single Risk.
- The success factor is how to minimize the qualifying loss by selecting the player whose odds gap (between Sky Bet & Betting Exchange) is the narrowest. You can use Free Odds Matcher to locate such opportunities. For the step-by-step process, take a look at Risk-Free Betting Starting Guide (3) – How To Extract Profit from Free Bet. You will see the William Hill sign-up bonus case as an example in this instruction.
Then, I will show you the specific instruction for the sign-up process, which includes several important points commonly applied to any sportsbook welcome offer registration as below;
Before Sign-Up, T&C, T&C — and T&C.
- Firstly, read both the bet exchange (again to ensure you follow everything required) & bookmaker sign-up bonus T&C. Allow me to reiterate that it’s boring stuff but never try to save time by skipping it to avoid any unpleasant future surprises. They can change & update T&C anytime, therefore it’s essential to follow their latest guideline. Some of the key points are; Minimum Odds (1.5 Over etc.), Device (via PC, Mobile, etc), Deadline (by when such as within 7 days after deposit), and as said in the Sign-Up process, Deposit Method (often Skrill / Neteller deposit is not eligible for the sign-up offer), etc
- Re-read Smarkets Risk-Free Bet T&C, and now of course Sky Bet No Deposit £10 Free Bet T&C carefully;
Sky Bet Sign-Up
- After reading the T&C, start registration by clicking “Bet Now”;
- No-brainer, just fill in your personal information as usual sign-up form;
- Finally Deposit page, you don’t need to deposit anything at this stage because you will get a £10 No Deposit Bonus automatically. So Just fill in your card details;
- After you complete the successful registration, you will receive the confirmation e-mail as below;
Account Verification
- If you are required to verify your account, do it as quickly as possible. Sky Bet says “We need Proof of ID (Passport/driver’s license) and proof of address dated within the last 3 months (utility bill/bank statement). You can email these to “docs@skybet.com” and we will look to get your account verified in 24 hours.”
Finally, I will also show you comprehensive instructions on how to construct matched betting between SMarkets’ Risk-Free Bet & Sky Bet Non-Deposit Sign-Up Offer as below;
Now, Time To Start Matched Betting – Find Sports Events & Calculate
- Go Free Odds Matcher to look for the appropriate (means the tightest odds gap between Sky bet & SMarkets) sports event. You chose Sky Bet as a bookmaker;
Odds Selection Tactics
- Regarding the odds, remember the basic principle. For Free Bet, the Longer (means larger) the better because your free bet will not be returned when you win. This type of bonus is called SNR – Stake Not Returned (see further details), and the free bet is usually SNR.
- On the other hand, for the qualifying bet (which means not a free bet but your own money), the Shorter (means smaller) the better. Because the shorter odds usually allow you to find a narrower gap between bookmaker odds & bet exchange lay odds, thus better profit.
- Since Sky Bet gives us free bets, I just set the odds range between 6 – 20;
- You can always find a list of the candidates as shown below. Looks horse racing “Everdina” in Ffos Las at 15:30 is a good choice (2nd from the top, means 2nd rated tightest odds). Why Not the Football match of Metz as the top-rated? See the reason later.
- You click the “i” mark at the right end, which will navigate you to the screen highlighting the action. That is Backing “Everdina” at 11 in Sky Bet and Laying off “Everdina” at 12 in SMarkets;
Automated Calculation
- You click the “Calculator” mark at the right bottom, which will navigate you to the calculator below;
- Actually, it gives you everything you need to know. Although the necessary inputs are automatically done, you need to choose to Stake Not Returned mode at the right top since it is a Free Bet (the default mode is Qualifier, so you have to change manually).
- The key inputs you need to double-check are; Stake £10 in Sky Bet. Back Odds 11 & Lay Odds (in Smarkets) 12. Commission, Sky Bet 0 but Smarkets 2%. Then, the calculation says you need to lay £8.35 at Smarkets, and your final profit will be around £8.18 regardless of the outcome. This means no matter “Everdina” wins or loses, you will earn around £8.18.
The Reason Behind Not Choosing The Top-Rated “Metz”
- If we chose the “Merz” in Angers vs Metz match, the final profit is £7.76 that is lower than £8.18;
- This is because of the shorter odds (11 of “Everdina” vs 7 of “Metz”) as briefly explained in the Odds Selection Tactics. Since the Oddsmatcher table shows good rating order based on qualifying bet mode, you may need to try other longer odds opportunities for a free bet case.
Placing Bets
- Now, we will construct the matched betting by placing the stake both in Sky Bet & Smarkets. Firstly place a bet at Sky Bet. Remember, you should place the bookmaker’s bet first, this is an important theory (don’t think too much at this stage just follow this principle, you will know why in due course).
- So, go to Sky Bet, and confirm if the odds are still 11. If it changes, you need to recalculate the lay stake & profit by just updating the number in the calculator. You can change it manually very simply. If it’s 11, then place £10 on “Everdina”;
- Then go to Smarkets. The same practice. Confirm if the odds is still 12. In Smarkets (basically more or less the same among all bet exchanges), there are 2 parts of Blue Colour (right side) & Green Colour (left side).
- You need to choose Blue Colour for Lay.
- The green colour is the Backing. In bet exchange, you can also back, but at this stage, I don’t want to confuse you, so just remember you chose Blue to lay;
- That’s it. Just wait for the outcome. The below shows the profit for each outcome;
- “Everdina” wins; + £100 in Sky Bet & – £91.89 in Smarkets = £8.15 Profit (Besides, you will get a £10 refund in Smarkets as the sign-up offer)
- “Everdina” loses; £0 in Sky Bet + £8.18 in Smarkets = £8.18 Profit
If it’s your first betting experience, you may take 10 minutes each to sign-up for Smarkets & Sky Bet. And took 20 minutes to complete the whole matched betting process. You may feel a bit complicated.
However, it’s actually pretty easy based on the simple concept as I summarized at the beginning. After you construct a few matched betting, you should be able to finish the above same process within 20 minutes.
The important thing is to keep doing and your efficiency will be improved exponentially.
Actual Result
- Do you want to know the actual result of the race?
- So “Everdina” didn’t win but finished in 5th.
- Therefore, the profit you get in these transactions is £8.18. You will be able to receive a £10 refund of the Smarkets sign-up offer later – any time you lose in Smarkets.
- Hope this quick guide will help you open up a new extra income journey.
BTW, as seen from the process, betting exchange is essential in matched betting. If you have not had any betting exchange accounts, this guide shows all the top 4 betting exchanges latest sign-up offers & how to extract cash risk-free from each offer.
For those who can’t access the 4 key betting exchanges, don’t worry, you can use bet brokers, but you need to take a cautious approach given their small business operation. The following 2 documents will help you select the right one(s);
(2) Bet XX Get XX Free Bet
2nd type of bookmaker sign-up bonus is “Bet £20 and Get £40 in Free Bet & Bonus” provided by Unibet, which is one of the most popular offer types in the UK. Below is a Unibet example;
Unibet Sign Up Offer is Bet £20 Get £40 (£20 in Sports Free Bets + £20 Casino Bonus), Click This Entire Box To see the details. No promotion code is needed to claim this bonus.”
If the above box doesn’t navigate you to the Unibet page properly, then click HERE.
How To Monetize The Offer?
You can turn this offer into real cash by the standard matched betting process explained in the above Sky Bet case.
For the full process, you may go to Starting Guide (2) – How To Sign-Up & Place Qualifying Bet, where I use the William Hill offer. Anyhow, it is very easy, and you can extract well over 80% of the free bet value from this type of offer.
When it comes to casino bonuses, you need x35 rollover, to see how to extract high-risk casino bonuses.
A Few Other Bookmakers Offering Bet XX Get XX Free Bet Offer
Click each bookmaker’s logo to see the detailed offer (check the latest T&C because each offer can be changeable);
(3) Deposit Rollover Bonus
This type of bookmaker sign-up bonus is quite popular among Continental Europe & Caribbean Bookmakers. The below is Nordicbet offer;
Nordicbet (Scandinavian Market) Sign-Up Offer is 100% Deposit Bonus Up To €20, Need x3 rollover to clear the bonus Click This Entire Box To see the details!! No Code Is Required
How To Extract Cash From The Bonus?
You can use the standard matched betting process, which I just summarized as a quick recap using the STSBet UK offer. The “” icon underneath displays Full Contents of the process;
STSBet Welcome offer is “Get 50% Deposit Bonus up to £40”;
Make sure you check T&C (Terms & Conditions) which is boring but very important to avoid any unpleasant surprise down the road. This STSBet T&C shows;
First deposit min £10. Qualifying bet: min. £10 accumulator bet with at least two selections with min odds of 1/2 (1.50) per selection. Bonus: 50% of the amount of the first bet. Max. bonus £40. Min. 6x wagering with bonus on min odds of 1/2 (1.50) before withdrawal.
So, the process of matched betting is;
- Assuming you deposit £80 to STSBet to receive a max bonus of £40.
- There are 2 transactions involved. 1 transaction is Back (bet on win) £80 of double bets (minimum 1.5 odds per selection) of any sports event at STSBet & do Sequential Lay (bet on NOT win) appropriate stake € at Betting Exchange like Betfair (suggest the use of Betfair Alternatives) so that you cover all outcomes. For how to make sequential lay, see this guide, alternatively, you can use the Smarkets Custom Lay Multiples method.
- Regardless of the outcome, your losing & winning will cancel out each other. In real practice, usually, 2 bets are not perfectly offset due to the odds difference & exchange commission. Therefore you make a small loss called Qualifying Loss.
- Then £40 bonus will be credited to your STSBet account. In order to withdraw your bonus, you need to wager £240 (deposit x 6)
- Whatever the balance after the settlement of your first double bet you have, you bet all the balance by repeating exactly the same back & lay transaction between STSBet & betting exchange. But for the bonus, you don’t need to place a double bet but a standard single bet is ok, which is much easier.
- If your bet loses at STSBet, then your Wager Requirement is completed and at this stage, you successfully cashed out a £40 bonus (minus a small loss depending on the odds) to bet exchange.
- If you win at STSBet, then you need to repeat exactly the same process until you complete the £240 wager requirement or your balance becomes 0 at STSBet.
- For this specific type of offer, there is an advanced technique called “Under Lay” and if you’re interested, check the method to maximize your profits.
- Remember, the key success factor is how to minimize the qualifying loss by identifying the narrowest odds between STSBet and betting exchange, etc. during the entire process.
However, we suggest using Under Lay to maximize your profit. For step-by-step instructions, go to Sportsbook Rollover Bonus Strategy.
Other Bookmakers Offering Rollover Deposit Bonus
Click each bookmaker’s logo to see the detailed offer (check the latest T&C because each offer can be changeable);
As said, this is the standard type of welcome bonus for Caribbean Bookies and we compiled the world’s best offshore bookies & offers (mainly located in the Caribbean area), suggest you take a look, especially for American players who can use matched betting with this approach.
(4) Refund Your Lose Bet (Risk-Free Bet)
This is the sign-up bonus a.k.a. Risk-Free Bet by online bookmakers. Betsafe started using this type of welcome bonus for new customers;
Betsafe (Baltic Market) Sign Up Offer is 5 x € 10 bets without risk of loss Click This Entire Box to see the details No Code Is Required
How To Extract Cash From The Bonus?
Many matched betting newbies misunderstand that they will not make money when they win. This means people tend to believe losing is the only way to get profit from the free bet refund.
No, absolutely wrong. We can effectively lock-in profit from this risk-free bonus all the time, which I briefly summarize by using the Dafabet example as below;
dafabet’s offer is “Refund up to £30 if your first bet loses” – always check the latest offer;
What you do are;
- 2 transactions of Back (bet on win) £30 at Dafabet & Lay (bet on NOT win, means both lose & draw like football match case) appropriate stake at Exchange such as Smarkets so that you cover all outcomes (if a betting exchange is not available in your country, see Betfair (suggest use of Betfair Alternatives) Alternatives).
- For the above appropriate Lay Stake, decide £ by using Free Calculator – Don’t select “Qualifier” as we did in other offers, but you need to select “Stake Not Returned” mode which we use for Free Bet since this offer is a Risk-Free bet (you receive refund ONLY IF your bet loses, thus the calculation to be done similar to Free Bet – Stake Not Returned, which automatically make lay bet UNDER LAY setting).
- With the above SNR mode setting, you should have won more at Dafabet than you lost at the laying exchange like Smarkets, and if your back bet fails to win in Dafabet then you will have made a small loss, but have a £20 cash refund to make an overall profit.
- The success factor is how to minimize this qualifying loss.
- Please follow the Instruction on the Under Lay method for full details. Once you understand the logic, execution is extremely easy.
Other Bookmakers Offering Risk-Free Sign-Up Offers
Click the bookmaker’s logo to see the detailed offer (check the latest T&C because each offer can be changeable), William Hill is for the Finnish market & go to Offer;
5th: Enhanced Odds
This type of sign-up bonus is also called Profits Boost, Price Boost, or Enhanced Bet. The below is 32Red case;
32Red Sports Sign-Up Offer is 100% Profit Boost up to £100 on your 1st in-play bet. Click This Entire Box to see the details. No Need to input any promotion code
How To Extract Cash From The Bonus?
Again, many newbies tend to think you can’t get any benefit unless you win. Absolutely wrong, you can use Over Lay to lock in profit, which I summarize the process by using the 32Red example. The “” icon underneath displays Full Contents of the process;
As said, you don’t need to worry about “if your bet loses you will not enjoy the benefits of the enhanced bets”.We use the OverLay technique for the enhanced odds offer to lock in the profit no matter the outcome of the event will be. The point you have to be careful about is working out the correct enhanced odds to calculate the correct Lay Amount and Guaranteed Profit. What you do are;
- 2 transactions of Back (bet on win) at 32Red & Lay (bet on NOT win, means both lose & draw like football match case) Exchange such as Smarkets (if a betting exchange is not available in your country, see the solution), which are exactly the same as other cases.
- The tricky part is determining the correct enhanced odds and back & lay stakes.
- For a double boost like this case (100% profit boost), you need to use the formula of Doubled Odds = (Bookmaker odds x 2) – 1 because UK bookmakers use fractional odds, while we matched better use decimal odds. When you find bookie’s odds of 5.0 as the normal odds to be doubled, it is 4/1 in their term and they double it to 8/1 which is 9.0 in decimal. So, don’t make a simple x2 calculation in decimal but use the above formula.
- Then, we need to determine the back & lay stake. Let’s use the above 5.0 odds example. 32Red offer restrict the boost up to £100, which means £100 / 4 = £25 is the back bet stake that receives the maximum £100 boost.
- Now, decide the Lay Stake using Free Calculator – select normal “Qualifier” mode, and input £25 back stake, 9.0 back odds & Lay Odds (probably a bit over 5.0), which is automatically calculated under the conditions of OVERLAY.
- As you can imagine, this is a heavy arbitrage condition, therefore you will achieve pure profits no matter the outcome will be.
You need to be careful about setting the correct boosted price when you calculate lay stakes. For further details, see How To Lock-In Profit on Enhanced Bets / Odds Boost with Matched Betting.
Online Bookmaker Sign-Up Bonuses Appendix
There are a few bookies of which welcome bonus is very hard to conquer via matched betting especially with Rollover type offers.
However, some of them provide you with a lot of attractive re-load offers. For such cases, it’s wise to take a modest approach or even reject the sign-up offers.
Online Betting Sign-Up Bonuses You Need To Take a Cautious Approach
10Bet
10Bet Sign-Up Offer is 100% Deposit Bonus Up To £50, Click This Entire Box To see the details.
At a glance, looks ok. It requires x 8 Turnover, which means assuming you deposit £50 and get a £50 bonus, you need to stake £100 x 8 = £800.
The critical term is the stake limit. You can bet only the amount of your bonus as the maximum at a time. You can’t take the underlay method under this condition. So if you’re given a £50 bonus, your maximum stake/bet is £50. And you may possibly have to bet £50 x 16 to complete the rollover.
Assuming you can control Qualifying Loss at an average of 5%, you will be able to retain £10 profit (£50 x 5% x 16 times = £40 loss), which is still manageable but in comparison with other offers, it’s not easy.
Tonybet
Tonybet Sign-Up Offer is 100% Deposit Bonus Up To £50, Need to input bonus code of “TONY50” Click This Entire Box To see the details.
There used to be a lot of complaints that TonyBet frequently restricted accounts midway through wagering to avoid awarding the bonus in the Oddsmonkey forum although we have not seen those issues recently. Just a caution.
Hope this information will help you make kick-start of your extra income journey via matched betting.
If you have any inquiries or need any help from us, please contact us anytime
(don’t worry, we will not charge you any fee, everything is free here).
Good Luck (Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. – Seneca)!!
Joshua Walker (bio)
Editor – Global Extra Money (GEM)
Comment
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