Sportsbook promos are the closest thing to free money in this hobby, and the fastest way to waste them is treating them like normal cash bets. This guide covers the promo types you'll actually see, what each one is really worth, and the hedging mechanics that turn credits into cash.
The Promo Types Worth Knowing
- Bonus Bet / Free Bet: A credit where the stake is not returned on a win. Bet $100 in bonus funds at +200 and win: you collect $200 profit, not $300. That one detail changes all the math.
- Second-Chance / No-Sweat Bet: You bet cash; if it loses, the stake comes back, almost always as a bonus bet. Two-part value: the original wager plus the refund's conversion value.
- Deposit Match: The book tops up your deposit, usually locked behind a rollover (play-through) requirement.
- Odds Boost: A juiced price on a pre-picked market. Sometimes genuinely +EV, always capped small.
- Recurring seasonal promos: Weekly profit boosts, no-sweat SGPs, sport-specific offers. Small, but they repeat, so they're worth modeling into a weekly routine.
What a Promo Is Actually Worth
A $100 bonus bet is not worth $100. Fire it on a -110 coin flip and you win about $91 half the time: roughly $45 of expected value, plus a pile of variance. The metric that matters is conversion percentage: how much of the promo's face value you lock in as cash. Hedged properly, 70% or higher is the benchmark. Consistently below that, and your odds pairing or refund type is quietly costing you money.
Converting a Bonus Bet: The Mechanics
The matched-betting blueprint:
- Use the bonus stake on one side of a game, ideally at longer odds.
- Bet cash on the opposite side at a different book.
- Size the hedge so you profit no matter what happens.
Worked example: a $100 bonus bet at +500, hedged with $423 of cash at -550 on the other side. If the bonus side wins: $500 minus the $423 hedge = $77. If the hedge side wins: $423 × (100/550) = $77. Either way you bank $77 from a $100 credit. That's a 77% conversion.
Longer odds on the bonus side generally convert better, because the stake you never get back matters less. And don't do this arithmetic by hand: our bonus bet converter sizes the hedge, shows profit on both outcomes, and computes your conversion rate. It also has a Profit Distribution Bias slider most converters don't: if you'd rather weight profit toward the likelier outcome instead of splitting it evenly, you shape the split yourself.
Valuing No-Sweat and Second-Chance Offers
These need two calculations, because the refund is usually a bonus bet, not cash. Say you put $200 on a +300 underdog with a second-chance promo. As a straight cash bet it's roughly EV-neutral: a quarter of the time you win $600, three quarters of the time you lose $200. The promo is what tilts it: on every loss, the $200 comes back as a bonus bet, worth about $140 once you convert it at 70%. That refund adds roughly $105 of expected value to an otherwise break-even wager. Our risk-free bet calculator models both paths, including what the refund is really worth given how your book issues it.
Deposit Match Rollover Math
A "$500 match" with a 10x rollover means wagering $5,000 before the bonus becomes withdrawable. Grinding that volume at standard -110 prices costs about $227 in expected vig, so the offer nets out closer to $273 than $500. Still worth taking! Just know the real number before you judge an offer, and read whether the rollover counts the bonus, the deposit, or both.
Fine Print Checklist
- Expiration: many credits die in 7 days.
- Minimum odds: books often require +100 or longer for the promo to count.
- Maximum win caps: bonus winnings may cap at a set amount.
- Market restrictions: some promos exclude exactly the markets you'd want to use.
- Refund type: a cash refund versus a bonus-bet refund can swing an offer's value by 30% or more.
Don't Torch the Account
Books notice accounts that only ever show up for promos. Vary your markets, keep stakes natural-looking, and don't sprint every offer to its mathematical maximum in week one. A limited account converts zero future promos.
Promos are a bankroll's best friend when you price them honestly, and a slow leak when you don't. Track promo profit separately from betting profit (the Bankroll Management guide explains why), and keep it fun. 21+, and please gamble responsibly.