No-deposit bonuses

A balance you didn't pay for

You sign up, and the account shows money you never put in. At a sportsbook it is usually a small free bet; at a casino it is bonus cash to play on chosen games, or free spins on a slot the casino picks. The offer is far more common at casinos than at sportsbooks, and where a sportsbook offers one, it is usually the free bet.

You can't withdraw it. You can only play it, and what you can take out afterwards is governed by the terms.

Why a book gives money away

It isn't giving much. A no-deposit bonus is the cheapest advertisement a book can buy: for a few dollars of credit it gets a registered player, an email address and a first look at its lobby. Some of those players deposit, and those are the ones the offer was for. The terms keep the cost down, and knowing that, you can still get fair use out of one.

The terms that take it back

• Rollover. The bonus, or what you win from it, must be bet many times over before it turns into cash. The multiples on no-deposit offers are usually high.
• Maximum cashout. A ceiling on what you can withdraw from the bonus, whatever you win. Hit a big one and you are paid the cap.
• A deposit before withdrawal. Many books want a first deposit before they will pay out winnings from a free credit.
• Verification. The book will want to know who you are before it pays. See KYC.
• One per person. Usually one per household, address and device as well.
• Expiry. Often a matter of days.
• Restricted games or bets. Chosen slots only, or minimum odds on a sports bet.

What it is worth

Take a $25 no-deposit bonus with a 30x rollover. You have to bet $750 before anything can be withdrawn. On sports at -110 the vig takes 4.55 percent on average, so betting $750 costs about $34; on a slot that holds, say, 5 percent, it costs about $37.50.

Both figures are more than the $25 you started with. On average the bonus is gone before the rollover is done, and to come out with anything you need to run good early, at which point the maximum cashout decides how good it was allowed to be.

A free bet is simpler. It pays the winnings and not the stake, so a $25 free bet at -110 is worth about $11, and on a longer price it is worth more, about $17 or $18 at +300. That is why I'd put a free bet on a plus-money price. The reasoning is on the page about cash and free play.

So the honest value of most no-deposit offers is a few dollars and some entertainment. That is fine, as long as you know it going in.

A cheap test of the book

I'd use one as a test of the book, not as money. It lets you see what a review can't fully show you: how the site runs, how its lines compare with the market, whether support answers a plain question with a plain answer, and, if you do get through the terms, whether a small withdrawal arrives without a fight. A book that makes a $40 payout difficult will not make a $4,000 one easy.

Where people go wrong

The commonest mistake is depositing to release the winnings. You have $60 in bonus winnings and the book wants a $50 deposit first. Before you make it, ask what new terms come with that deposit: sometimes it is a formality, and sometimes it starts a fresh rollover.

Opening more than one account is worse. The book will find it at verification and keep everything, and it will be within its rules. So is handing documents to a book you know nothing about, because a large no-deposit offer from a name nobody has heard of is a way to collect identities. I'd look the book up before sending it anything.

Then there is chasing. The free credit goes, and the player deposits to win it back, and he has just become the customer the offer was built to find.

Before you sign up

Read four lines of the terms first: rollover, maximum cashout, deposit requirement, expiry. Multiply the bonus by the rollover and take 4.55 percent of it; if that is more than the bonus, expect nothing and enjoy the play. And decide beforehand whether you will deposit when the free credit is gone, and how much. If the answer is nothing, keep it at nothing.

For the bigger offers, with your own money involved, the bonuses page has the sums. Free money from a bookmaker is small money, and I've never seen a reason to treat it as anything else.