What are Sportsbook Deposit Bonuses? How to Get First Time Sign Up Deposit Bonuses

What is a Sportsbook Deposit Bonus?

A deposit bonus is when the sportsbook loads your account with more money than the exact amount deposited, usually in the form of free bets or site credit. Like any other competitive market, sportsbooks are constantly fighting for users. This is great news for the intelligent bettors who know how to take advantage of offers and promotions that would not exist to this extent if one sportsbook had a monopoly on the American gambler. One of the common ways to draw in more customers is offering a sportsbook deposit bonus. 

Before we start, learn also what is a rollver.

Which Sportsbooks Offer Deposit Bonuses?

The easiest and most common sportsbook deposit bonus is through BetRivers, which is available in Arizona, Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Maryland, Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Washington, New Jersey (Sugarhouse), and Connecticut (Sugarhouse). 

For new users, a deposit up to $250 is 100% matched on BetRivers with just a one-time rollover. This means that if you are a new user and deposit just $250, you will have $500 in your account instantly. All you have to do to earn withdrawal of that extra $250 is place a cumulative amount of $250 in wagers.

The nice thing about this offer from BetRivers is that if you’re just getting into betting and don’t want to deposit $250, they’ll match any amount. If you just want to put in $20, you’ll get a $20 deposit match. Obviously depositing $250 to earn a free $250 match is the most profitable option, but it’s understandable if new users just dipping their toes in the water of sports betting aren’t ready to make a $250 commitment.

DraftKings also typically offers a 20% deposit bonus up to $1,000. While this is not nearly as profitable or enticing as the 100% bonus/match from BetRivers, it’s still a great opportunity to get a head start building your bankroll and getting off to a good start on a new sportsbook. DraftKings also has a more complicated playthrough (also known as rollover) requirement with their bonus. Instead of the one-time playthrough requirement that BetRivers has, DraftKings makes their requirement five times playthrough. In other words, in order to withdraw each dollar of bonus funds, the user must wager $5 per dollar on the sportsbook. 

While this isn’t as profitable and is slightly more complicated, with educated betting strategies it shouldn’t be too hard to meet that 5x rollover requirement while maintaining your bankroll to make the deal profitable.

Here is a list of some of the top sportsbook first-time deposit bonuses and signup offers:

How to use Sportsbook Deposit Bonus Offers:

For an example of how to use the BetRivers offer, if you have deposited $250 and therefore earned another $250, you will have $500 in your account. From there, you can place several bets at your preferred amount which adds up to $250. Once you’ve done that, you are eligible to withdraw whatever funds you have in your account. Even if you do not win a single bet, you’ll still have the $250 you deposited in the first place. Unless you risk all $250 on a single bet or take a risk on some hail-mary odds, probability says that you will likely win at least one of those bets and likely more. After this process, you’ll have over $250 in your account that is eligible to be withdrawn straight to your bank account. 

For Draftkings if you deposit $1,000, you are eligible to have $200 in bonus funds, but to turn that money into withdrawable cash you’ll have to bet 5x that bonus. This would be $1,000 wagered to cash out the full $200 in bonus money.

Some sportsbooks give deposit bonuses in the form of free bet tokens. Since the stake isn’t returned on a free bet it would make no sense to use it on a heavy favorite. If you have a $10 free bet used on a -1000 favorite, even if the bet wins, you only come away with $1. The best way to use a free bet is on a long shot with positive expected value. If you don’t want to risk coming away with nothing, use the OddsJam Free Bet Conversion tool to find hedge bets at other sportsbooks. Most of the time, it’s possible to convert a free bet at a rate of 70-80% by hedging on another sportsbook. 

If the bonus is in site credit, find an arbitrage or zero-hold opportunity. That way once the bets settle you’ll have that amount in withdrawable cash from the sportsbook where the side won. 

Best way to use Sportsbook Deposit Bonus Offers:

In order to best use sportsbook deposit bonus offers, you have to have a full understanding of the terms and requirements. See the section below for more on that, but that must be step one. 

If you can afford it, it is most profitable to deposit the maximum amount of money that the bonus allows. For the $250 BetRivers example, depositing $250 would increase your balance by 100% and earn you the maximum amount of bonus funds. If you only deposit $10, you’ll still have 100% more of your balance, but not to the maximum potential amount. If you deposit $1,000, you’ll have the maximum amount of bonus at $250, but your account balance will only be raised by 25% and you have to be careful not to lose that $1,000 investment.

Sportsbook Deposit Bonus Offers Terms and Requirements:

Reading the sportsbook deposit bonus terms and requirements is absolutely necessary to gain a full understanding of what you’re dealing with. Sure, it may be a pain, or a general habit to just hit “agree” or “next,” but it is crucial to being intelligent with your money on these sportsbooks. 

Common disclaimers found in the terms and requirements may include playthrough requirements (how much you have to bet through before you can withdraw), upper and lower deposit limits to become eligible, and odds limitations when using your bonus funds. Just as you always need to remember to “opt in” to many promos on sportsbooks like Draftkings, FanDuel, and Barstool, it is crucial to cross your t’s and dot your i’s to be sure you have full understanding of the terms and requirements. As always, don’t hesitate to reach out to [email protected]. We’d be happy to assist in your understanding of the offers or even give a rundown of potential best ways to take full advantage.

Check out also our guide on how to fix Sportsbook Geolocation.