Sportsbook Rollover Bonus Strategy – Underlay Betting

What’s Sportsbook Rollover Bonus?

 

How does the rollover bonus work?

 

Rollover Bonus Offer is a Stake Returned bonus provided by the sportsbook, in which you are required to wager a certain volume of bets before the bonus is turned into withdrawable cash.

The rollover requirement is also often called WR (Wager Requirement, this term is more popular in casino bonuses) and expressed as X3 (means you need to wager 3 times your bonus or bonus + your original deposit).

This type of bonus (available both welcome & reload bonuses) is popular in continental Europe & Caribbean bookies with the following examples;

Europe

bwin Welcome offer (this is for Germany, Austria Liechtenstein or Luxembourg market) of “Get 100% Deposit Bonus up to €100”;

T&C (Terms & Conditions) shows “The bonus and the first deposit amount must be wagered at least 3 times” as below;

We list a few more examples of offers in 5 Types Of Bookmakers’ Matched Betting Sign Up Offers.

Caribbean

Betonline welcome offer “Get 100% Cryptocurrency Deposit Bonus up to $1,000“;

T&C (Terms & Conditions) shows “The bonus amount must be wagered 14 times” as below;

You may want to see the world’s best rating bookies’ offers (many are located in the Caribbean region) in World Best Offshore Betting Sites Offers. This list includes several reputable sportsbooks that accept UK punters such as the above BetOnline, Sports Betting, Jazz Sports & BetNow, etc. 

UK & Ireland

Rollover bonus is not popular in UK & Ireland, Bet365 used to provide “Open an account, deposit £10 or more and you will qualify for a 100% matched amount as a bonus to bet with, up to a maximum of £200″ which requires x3 rollover of the deposit + bonus;

 

 

The Process of Extracting Cash from Rollover Bonus

 

Rollover Bonus Strategy

 

We use matched betting as the underlying concept to cash out the bookmaker’s bonus risk-free, just in case you’re not familiar with this method, suggest taking a look at Matched Betting For Dummies.

The problem with the rollover is that the rollover bet eats into your profit. So as the general strategy to minimize time while maximizing profits, we should try and lose our bookmaker cash & bonus balance as quickly as possible and therefore effectively transfer the balances into your betting exchange.

With hefty rollover requirements, bookmakers anticipate customers to lose all bonuses & possibly deposits as well before completing the rollover. Yes, most of the casual punters meet bookies’ expectations.

However, for The Sharp including matched bettors, it’s a very juicy opportunity to secure guaranteed profit. Importantly, we can make it easy.

On top of this overall strategy, we use the Underlay method which will see later. 

BTW, many people imagine matched betting is for only UK & Ireland, wrong, by using this approach everybody in the world including US citizens (yes, you can take the above Betonline bonus & use matched betting) can make decent profits from this risk-free betting technique, just FYI.

 

Rollover Bonus – Standard Matched Betting Process

 

We use the above Bet365 old offer because it was a typical rollover bonus and the process we explain here can apply to almost all rollover bonuses you will find in Europe & Caribbean regions. 

Some of the Terms you need to pay attention to are; 

• Your qualifying deposit is the largest deposit (capped at £200) you placed in the 7 days prior to you claiming your offer.
• Deposits made using NETeller, Skrill, or Skrill 1-Tap will not count as your qualifying deposit.
• You must claim your offer within 7 days of making your qualifying deposit.
• You must have settled bets to the value of three times your qualifying deposit (capped at £200) and bonus before making a withdrawal.
• Any single bet placed at odds of less than 1/2 (1.50) will not count towards any turnover requirement.
• You have to complete the turnover requirement within 90 days of claiming your offer.

So, the process of matched betting is;

• Assuming you deposit £200 to Bet365, then the £200 bonus will be credited to your Bet365 account. In order to withdraw your bonus, you need to wager £400 (deposit + bonus) x 3 = £1,200
• There are 2 transactions involved. Since you have only £400 in your account, 1 transaction is Back (bet on win) £400 on any sports event with over 1.5 odds at Bet365 & Lay (bet on NOT win) appropriate stake £ at Betting Exchange like Betfair (you may want to use Betfair Alternatives) so that you cover all outcomes (if no betting exchange is available in your country, you can back on the opposite outcome(s) in other bookmakers, which is called Dutching 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.
• If your bet loses at Bet365, then your Rollover Requirement is completed and at this stage, you successfully cashed out a £200 bonus (minus a small loss depending on the odds) to bet exchange or other bookmakers called “Covered Bookmaker(s)”.
• If you win at Bet365, then you need to repeat exactly the same process until you complete the £1,200 wager requirement or your balance becomes 0 at Bwin. 
• Remember, the key success factor is how to minimize the qualifying loss by identifying the narrowest odds between Bwin and betting exchange, etc. during the entire process.

As said, you can use the Dutching method if your country can’t access any major 4 betting exchanges, however, alternatively, use this method, which enables you to access to Betfair market, just FYI. 

Summary

The simplest & best way is to place all the £400 at once and hope you will lose the entire £400 in Bet 365 and win in Exchange.

Because once your balance becomes 0 in Bet 365, you’re finished. No more rollover (don’t worry you win the equivalent amount in your exchange since it’s matched betting).

However, things don’t always go like this. Often you win in Bet 365. Then you have to complete the full £1,200 rollover or until the time you lose the entire balance in Bet365. Theoretically, the more you progress WR, the more you lose your bonus.

Because unless you find an arbitrage opportunity (the back odds are higher than lay odds), you will make a marginal loss for every qualifying bet you place. Is there any way to make the situation better if your bet wins in Bet 365?

Here comes the Underlay.

 

Rollover Bonus – Underlay Matched Betting Process

 

Let’s continue to use the Bet365 example to explain the exact benefits of Underlay. Firstly, assuming we find the event of odds of 2.0 at Bet365 and 2.1 at Betfair.  

And bet the entire £400 for the first bet at 2.0 odds with £390 lay which is the amount we need to lay at the 2.1 odds of exchange. You can get it in Free Matched Betting Calculator below;

Then, we lose a bit less than £30, the below image shows the lower part of the above calculator;

So, if you’re lucky, you win at Betfair and lose at Bet365 so that your balance at Bet365 becomes 0 and WR is completed with a successful £170 pure profit (£200 bonus – £30 loss). However, if your bet wins you need to start wagering the balance of £800.

Assuming we bet £100 x 8 bets with the same odds combination of 2.0 at Bet365 & 2.1 at Betfair, we will lose nearly £60 (£7.32 loss per£100 stake as shown in the below calculator x 8 bets).

So combining the initial loss of £30, the total loss will be £90 which is nearly half of the bonus.

Underlay Scenario 1

So, how can we make this situation improve with the underlay? As you must already notice, the calculator shows both Underlay & Overlay.

Let’s start with the initial £400 bet. This time, we only lay £363.64 (underlay) rather than £390. Why £363.64? Because this is the point we don’t lose when the bookmaker wins as seen in the below calculator; If the bet wins at the bookie we still have an £800 balance and lose around £60 in the course of WR. But that’s it because we don’t lose in the first bet. If the bet wins at the exchange, no more WR, we lose £55 that’s bigger than £30.

Well, what do you say? Compared with the original approach of just expecting the Bet365 bet to lose (this is gambling) we can lock in the better equal profit of £140 – £145.

Underlay Scenario 2

Let’s examine what happens if we underlay even more. Taking the same £400 back bet at odds of 2.0 and again having lay odds of 2.1, this time we’ll only lay £350, 

Now, I don’t need to explain the details. You will finish WR with a loss of £67 or have an £800 balance with £15 profit, which means you will lose a total of £45 (£60 anticipated loss – £15 profit).

In this case, the profit would be between £133 – £155. In fact, there is not so much difference between the 2 scenarios.  I just want to demonstrate how the underly works.

You may adjust the level of underlay you feel comfortable with, depending on the odds. If the odds are quite short such as 1.2 – 1.6 (Bet365 sets minimum odds at 1.5 for WR) means the probability of winning at a bookmaker is high.

Then, you may maximize the underlay.

However, if the odds are relatively high like 3.0 over, then you may take a modest underlay.

Don’t forget, the basic rule is finding the odds as short as possible for qualifying bet mainly because you tend to find narrower odds & can minimize lay liability.

Anyhow, you can use underlay like the way you have seen.

 

Sportsbook Rollover Bonus Strategy Wrap Up

 

Advantage Play

 

Lastly, allow us to share a bit about our betting principle. We never gamble which we define as “Count On Chance”. Our aim in playing Sports Betting is to create solid Extra Money based on 6 Advantage Plays by making the best use of mathematical edge to beat the bookies, casinos & bingo. 

When it comes to Sports Betting, we use Matched Betting / Sports Arbitrage / Value Bets On Proven Tipsters to lock in a profit or consistently earn extra income for the long term.

With that said, one of our policies is “Betting On Luck Is For Losers, Stop Gamble Betting But Bet on Only +EV (Expected Value) To Win Reliably“. It is effectively our way to promote Responsible Gambling. And we strongly support GamCare being explained in about us.

We would like all our readers to get the maximum return from bookmakers’ every offer. Providing step-by-step instructions on how to extract the sportsbook rollover bonus in this guide is one of our efforts to achieve those objectives.

BTW, in case you’re a sharp casino & game bonus hunter, strongly suggest taking a look at the List of 52 Best Bitcoin Casino Bonuses and for those who appreciate the highest privacy, go to the List of Best Anonymous Bitcoin Casinos & Bonuses, just FYI.

 

International Players

 

BTW, rollover bonuses are popular worldwide, so the underlying concept & tactics we explained in this guide should apply to any similar offers in other countries.

In fact, as our name GEM – Global Extra Money implies, we would like all visitors from anywhere in the world to exploit advantage plays. With that vision, we have issued :

In Short, except for 8 Countries (Cyprus, Poland, North Korea, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Brunei, and Cambodia) where online gambling is legally prohibited, all of you can make a profit from matched betting, see the above report for full details.

 

 

If you need any assistance from me, don’t hesitate to contact us. 

 

Joshua Walker (bio) 

Editor – Global Extra Money (GEM)