How to Use Bonus Bets

Bonus bets from your sportsbook are great. You might get some bonus bets for signing up to a new online sportsbook or as the result of some other promotion. However you obtain the bonus bets, the key is knowing how to best use them.

Too often, bettors just let their free bets rip with zero thought. There are, actually, a couple of different ways to utilize your bonus bets in an effort to get more bang for your buck. In the case of a bonus bet, it’s not really your buck since you receive the bet for free. However, you can optimize your free bets to produce higher profits.

Betting at Plus-Money

If you are at least an intermediate sports bettor, you probably know that big money can be made by betting on plus-money underdogs. The Colorado Rockies are +300 road underdogs at NL West Division rival Arizona. The Rockies have the worst record in baseball. German Marquez will take the mound for the Rockies against Zac Gallen of Arizona.

Gallen has been having issues all season. His ERA is well over 5.00. The Rockies got shut out the night before. You decide to pull the trigger on the Rockies bouncing back and at least having a shot to win against a pitcher like Gallen and a horrible Diamondbacks bullpen. 

Why not use a bonus bet? You place your bet – $25, $50, maybe even $100 depending upon the size of your bonus bet pool – on Colorado. That $100 bonus bet would pay out $400 ($300 in profits and your $100 stake) if it hits. It actually did pay off on May 17 when Colorado beat Arizona in a shootout 14-12. 

What if the bet didn’t win? You lose, but you only lose your $100 in bonus bets. It’s not like you lose $100 of your own. So, you should look for big opportunity bets like the one mentioned on Colorado.

Look for two things when seeking opportunities with your bonus bets:

• Bets in the +250 to +600 range
• Bet into tight markets

Don’t waste your time with even-money (+100) bets or even bets up to +200. Go big or go home. Look for bigger opportunities like Colorado facing a broken Zac Gallen in an early season MLB start. College basketball is a great sport to find some great +250 to +600 underdogs. Do your research and pull the trigger.

The other thing to look at is the tightness of the market. In college basketball, for example, the gap between the elite teams and the worst mid-majors is large. However, there are plenty of upsets year after year in the sport.

When looking for strong bonus bet opportunities, do your research on games you have identified. Look for smaller gaps between each side of a bet. For example, you may have a +300 underdog and a -360 favorite. The absolute value of the difference between the two numbers is 60.

You will also find bets where an underdog is listed at +400 and the favorite is given -950 odds. The gap in that case is much larger at 550. For your bonus bets, you want the smaller gap. That’s because it shows that the sportsbook is more confident in its pricing.

Use Bonus Bets as a Hedge

The other way to use bonus bets is to lock in a profit by hedging against another sportsbook. Again, you’ll search for two lines that are very close in absolute value. You should not place these bets at the same sportsbook. You can end up being banned or, at the very least, limited in some capacity. 

As mentioned, college basketball offers plenty of opportunity to find some great underdogs. Let’s use this America East Conference game between Bryant and NJIT as an example. Bryant was one of the top scoring teams in the country last year. NJIT was the worst team in the league.

In a conference game at Bryant, the Bulldogs were a huge favorite at -715. At another sportsbook, you find NJIT as a +710 underdog. Once again, you’ll want to find tight markets to make the hedge profitable. 

Use the bonus bet to wager on NJIT at +710. Let’s say you have $50 on bonus wagers. Bryant, of course, is a huge favorite. You place a $311.44 wager on the Bulldogs. Then, at another sportsbook, you’ll place your hedge bet on NJIT. With your $50 bonus bet, you wager on the Highlanders at +710.

Here’s how it would play out. If NJIT pulls the upset, you would end up with $355 in profit from your $50 bonus bet. However, you would lose your $311.44 bet on the favorite, Bryant. In the end, you end up with a profit of $43.56.

If Bryant wins, you lose your $50 bonus bet on NJIT, but you still profit $43.56 on the Bulldogs victory. Remember, the bonus bet comes out of your bonus funds in your sportsbook account. You lose the bonus bet, but you have guaranteed a profit of $43.56. 

These are two great ways to use your bonus bets. Don’t waste your bonus bets. Use them wisely. Find value and use bonus bets on plus-money underdogs and use them as a hedge technique to guarantee a profit.