How to Wisely Use a Bonus Bet at a Sportsbook

What are Bonus Bets?

Bonus bets are quite possibly the most popular promotional tool used by online sportsbooks today, particularly in the regulated US market states. 

Bonus bets work like this: you meet the terms of a promotion and the sportsbook gives you a "free" bet worth a certain amount. For example, a sportsbook might offer you:

• $100 Bonus Bet for making your first $100 wager...if your bet loses. This is called a "win or your money back" promo.
• $50 Bonus Bet for both you and your friend when you refer them through your link to sign up and they deposit funds.
• $25 Bonus Bet for winning a contest of some sort. For example, there is a daily promo at Hard Rock Bet that can score you a Bonus Bet usually worth $25-$100 with a $1 bet (if you win the $1 bet.)

How Do Bonus Bets Work?

The bonus bet is wagered by you on another event. If you win your bet, you get the winnings only from the wager; they do not return to you the stake (the bonus bet.)

For example, if you have a $100 bonus bet and you wager it on an even money proposition, you will receive $100 real money in your player account (the winnings of the wager.)

Did you see that? Normally, a winning $100 bet on an even money option would return $200 to you (the $100 bet and the $100 profit.) However, bonus bets only return the profit to the player if they win.

Sportsbooks in the USA like offering players bonus bets because they get to advertise giving players a certain amount (ex. "$100" bonus bet), but the actual cost to them is less than the amount advertised.

The Math of Bonus Bets Explained

In my previous example, I wrote about the $100 bonus bet promo. Let's look at a few scenarios and dive into the math. Let's start with some incorrect assumptions some of you might make:

• You might see a "win or your money back in a bonus bet" promo and think that it's a guaranteed to break even on that first bet.
• You might see a "refer-a-friend" bonus promo and think that you're actually getting that monetary value. That's not true either.

The problem lies in the fact that you only get the "winnings" or "profit" from the bonus bet. That greatly diminishes the value of the actual bet.

If you choose really poorly, you can easily lose 70%-90% of the value of the bet. We'll explain how you can screw it up in a minute.

If you really choose very wisely, you can conserve a lot of that value and only lose 5%-25%. We'll explain how you can be such a wise guy with your bonus bets in a minute too.

How to Use a Bonus Bet Very Poorly?

Every horrible use of a bonus bet has one common element; the player is using the bonus bet to make a straight wager on a single favorite with minus odds (ex. -200, -300, -400, -500.)

Instinctively, the bettor is thinking that they need to get something out of the bonus bet, and what better way to do that then to bet it on a big favorite? Well, it's an enormous mistake. Here's why;

Remember when I said that you only get the "winnings" or "profit" from the bonus bet? Well, let's look at some examples that turn out to be horrible uses of the bonus bet. To keep it simple, let's assume that the bonus bet is for $100.

• If you put your $100 bonus bet on a team -200, then normally a winning ticket will risk $100 and win $50. The bet will return $150. If you use a $100 bonus bet on this same scenario, your ticket will only be worth $50 if you win. You've lost 67% of the value of the bet.
• It gets worse if you take an even bigger favorite. Put that $100 bonus bet on a -400 team and your winning ticket will only add $25 to your account. Normally, this ticket would be worth $125 if you were placing it with real money. That means you've lost 80% of the value of the winning bet by doing this.
• Want to be a cliff jumper and put that $100 bonus bet on a -1000 lock? You'll only be locking in a huge waste of a bet. That bonus bet will return you just $10 in cash if it wins. Normally, a $100 ticket on a -1000 team will return $110 to you. That means you've lost 91% of the bonus bet's "value."

How to Use a Bonus Bet Like a Wise Guy?

If you've come this far and you're a clever guy or gal, then you might already realize what I am about to tell you.

To make the best use of a bonus bet, you need to bet a long shot proposition, bet it on a parlay of some sort, or bet on a futures market (like NBA title, Super Bowl, World Series champ.)

It's so weird that this is the case, because normally I wouldn't recommend that you bet parlays or futures; those bets carry a significant house edge.

However, the fact that the odds are big "plus" numbers means that most of the value of the bet isn't on the "wager" side of the equation; most of the value of the bet is on the potential "winnings" or "profit" side of it instead.

Let me give you a few examples using that $100 bonus bet scenario again:

• Use the bonus bet on a 20-1 (+2000) team to win the NCAA Football Championship. Normally, that ticket pays $2100 back if it wins. Your bonus bet ticket is worth $2000. You've only lost 5% of the bonus bet's value. Good job, smart guy!
• Use the bonus bet on a baseball team that is +200 to win the game. Normally, that ticket pays $300 back if it wins. Your bonus bet ticket is worth $200. You've lost 33% of the bonus bet's value. Not a particular good use of the bet, but not horrible compared to the bets in previous section.
• Use the bonus bet to parlay a few favorites together. For this example, let's say they are all teams -200 each. Normally, a $100 3-team parlay where all teams are -200 will pay back $337.50. Your ticket will pay back $237.50. You have flushed about 30% of your bet's value.

But now, let's talk about my favorite scenario: parlaying underdogs. By parlaying a few dogs, you can put the overwhelming portion of the ticket's winning value on the "winnings" side of the ledger. That supercharges your payout percentage without needing to make a long-term futures bet on a longshot.

Let's look at some math...

Remember that scenario where I said you could parlay three favorites at -200 each and lose about 30% of the value of the bonus bet? Wait until you see what happens when we flip the script and pick two big +200 dogs together.

Before I show you the math, keep in mind that this ticket is going to lose over 95% of the time, but when it wins you are keeping almost all the "value" of your bonus bet.

A regular $100 wager with real money on a three team parlay featuring three +200 underdogs will pay out $2700 ($100 original risk plus $2600 profit.)

A $100 bonus bet on a three team parlay like this will pay out $2600 (just the "profit", but not the $100 "bet.")

In this scenario, you're losing just $100 of the winning ticket's $2700 value. That's less than 4%!