How to Take Advantage of Sportsbook Sign-Up Bonuses: Weighing Your Options

One of the best ways to make money as a bettor is new user promotions. Books offer hundreds to thousands of dollars in bonuses that you can take advantage of. There are a number of different strategies you can use to profit from these bonuses. I am going to go through them in order of risk tolerance and profit potential.

To see current books to sign up for and their bonuses in your state, click here.

Safest: Use Both Together & Convert Bonus Bet

This is the most risk-free strategy. You will be knocking out two bonus opportunities at once, but you will also have a guaranteed $600-800 in profit.

Step 1: Find an arbitrage or low-hold opportunity between your two books. This is from the low-holds page, so let’s just imagine that Caesars and Golden Nugget are where you have these two bonuses.

Step 2: Place the two bets. In this case, if you place $1,100 on the over at Caesars at -110 odds and $1,000 on the under at +110 odds, you will come away with the same $2,100 you invested no matter which wins.

Let’s go over why that’s the case.

Scenario 1…Game goes over: You win $1,000 at Caesars on top of your $1,100 stake so that’s $2,100.

Scenario 2…Game goes under: You win $1100 at Golden Nugget (in this example) on top of your $1,000 stake so that’s also $2,100.

Step 3: Once your bets settle, you will have $2,100 in the winning account and a $1,000 bonus bet in the losing account.

Then, you can convert that bonus bet to between $600-800 cash depending on conversion opportunities on the bonus bet converter tool.

Let’s say the Caesars side loses and that’s where you have your bonus bet. Filter the tool to Caesars. Here’s a conversion opportunity with Caesars and Golden Nugget (or DraftKings).

Hit the calculator button and plug in the $1,000 that your bonus bet is worth.

The calculator spits out a hedge amount of $1290.49. That should be easy to do on Golden Nugget since your winnings are already there in this example.

No matter which side wins, you profit $629.51.

Either the bonus bet wins at +192 odds, or the $1290 stake on Golden Nugget wins at -205 odds. Regardless, your profit will be $629.51.

Slightly More Risk, Slightly More Potential: Place Initial Bet, Convert Bonus Bet if it Loses

For this next strategy and every one after, only one sportsbook bonus will be used at a time. In the above example, we get a guaranteed $600-800 in profit BUT we also used two separate sportsbook bonuses. So on average, that’s about $300-400 in profit per bonus.

Step 1: Place initial $1,000 bet from the OddsJam Positive Expected Value tool. I recommend a bet in the +100 range, but this is also personal risk tolerance.

Step 2: Let’s say the bet was +100, and since it was found on the positive expected value tool let’s say it has a 54% chance of hitting. If it hits, you are up $1,000 and you’re all set.

Step 3 (if it loses): If it loses, you will have a $1,000 bonus bet and can convert that to $600-800 cash. Let’s meet in the middle and say 70% conversion, so $700, which is $300 less than your $1,000 bet.

The math works out like this: There’s a 54% chance you will win $1,000 and a 46% chance you will lose $300.

That’s an expected profit margin of $422, so slightly above our earlier example.

A Pair of Straight Bets

Another strategy is to use that same +100ish initial strategy, but if it loses and you get your bonus bet back…do it again.

There’s a 54% chance you win and are done with $1000 profit. In the 46% chance that you lose, you repeat the process.

54% of 46% is roughly 25%, and 46% of 46% is roughly 21%.

So in summary, you have a 54% chance to win $1000, a 25% chance to break even by winning the bonus bet, and a 21% chance at losing it all.

The expected value is $540 (0.54 * $1000) + $0 (0.25 * $0) – $210 (0.21 * -$1,000) which equals $330 in profit.

Straight Bet + Shoot for the Moon

Here’s where we get to the riskier methods, but ways that could pay out in a big way.

Repeat the +100 process with your initial bet, but in the 46% chance that it loses then use your bonus bet on a longshot.

This actually has more expected value. Bonus bet stakes aren’t returned. For example, if you use a $10 bonus bet on a -200 line and it wins, you only get $5 (the profit) back not $15 (stake + profit).

Because of this, the higher the ratio of potential winnings to stake, the better in terms of bonus bet expected value.

If your initial bet loses, you can take a long shot Positive EV bet or build a positive EV parlay. The bigger the odds, the bigger the potential payout, but also the higher likelihood you walk away with nothing.

Most Risky: Shoot for the Moon…Twice

I only recommend this option only for those with massive bankrolls who can afford to lose $1,000.

In this strategy, you’re going to place an initial positive EV bet or parlay with long odds hoping for a huge payout. If it loses, you’re going to do the same thing with your bonus bet.

With two attempts at longshots, you can’t expect either one to hit but if one does, your bankroll will skyrocket.

If you have a +900 bet, the odds of winning that are roughly 10%. If it wins, you turn a $1,000 stake into $10,000 (stake + $9,000 profit). If your initial bet loses and you win on the bonus bet, that’s $9,000 return (stake is not returned on bonus bet).