Matched Betting Casino Bonuses
Everyone knows that the house always wins. This has been the story ever since the casinos were invented. As a result, most people believe there is no point in losing time and money playing there. They are almost right. Almost.
The internet revolution brought some changes in the way gambling works. Nowadays, it’s extremely easy to start playing online and there are hundreds of casinos available. The competition for customers between them is fierce. They are forced to give up some of the house edge to attract players. The direct consequences of this are games with much lower margin and plenty of promotions.
This creates opportunities to find spots where you have an edge against the casino and take full advantage. These are called matched betting casino bonuses. In this article, I will show you how to find them and make sure you get the best of them.
What is a bonus and how does it work?
The most popular promotions are the casino bonuses. Simply put, the operators will give you bonus cash under certain conditions like making a deposit, for example. While this isn’t real money you can instantly withdraw, you can turn it into that by fulfilling the terms and conditions of the bonus.
They always include the so-called “wagering requirement”. It means the casino will require you to place a certain volume of bets so you can unlock the bonus for a withdrawal. This usually varies somewhere between 10 times your bonus and 20 times your bonus and deposit.
As you could imagine, this is a large difference. Let’s imagine you take advantage of a 100% deposit bonus and add £100 to your account. You get £100 as a bonus. If the casino expects you to wager the bonus only 20 times, you have to place bets for £2,000. If you are required to wager the bonus and deposit 30 times, this would mean staking £6,000.
How to evaluate bonuses and find casino matched betting opportunities?
You should never forget that the purpose of each casino is to get your money. This is why everything the operators do is with this idea behind, bonuses included. However, sometimes the strategy of the casinos is to take a small loss that will be compensated in the long run.
For example, certain casinos bonuses provide an opportunity to get a positive expected value if played right. The operators allows that because most players won’t be careful enough. On top of that, some will continue playing even when the bonus is complete and more than make up for any losses the casinos might have experienced.
To understand if a casino bonus could indeed be profitable, you must have a couple of things in mind. The obvious first step would be to check the wagering requirements. See how much money would you have to stake to clear the bonus.
The next thing is to see what games count towards the wagering requirements. Usually, your bets on scratch cards and slots games will be fully accepted. Games with a low house edge such as roulette and blackjack are either excluded or only a fraction of your stake will count.
Selecting the best game
Once you what games are included, it’s time to see what’s the house edge and select the best possible option. This information is usually published by the casino or you can find it through a simple Google search.
For slots, in particular, the margin can be found if you look at the Return to Player or RTP percentage. For example, if it’s 92%, this means that 92% of the money staked are returned as winnings in the long run. Simply put, for every £100 you wager, you will be getting £92 back. Of course, this is the theoretical expectation, there’s a lot of variation in the short term, but more about that later.
Naturally, you would like to find the best possible game that is included in the promotion of the casino. In other words, the title that has the lowest house edge and the highest return. Once you’re done, it’s time to move on to the next step.
Calculating the expected value of a bonus
You now should have all the necessary information to check if the bonus provides good value. The calculation is simple. Based on the wagering requirements and the house edge, you can see how much money are you expected to lose after clearing the bonus. If the amount is lower than the bonus itself, it’s game on.
Let’s take an example to see what I mean. You decide to get a £50 casino bonus that has wagering requirements of 20 times the bonus. That’s a total of £1,000 in wagers. The best possible slot that counts towards the wagering requirements has an RTP of 97%. This means the expected value after placing £1,000 in bets on this particular game is £970 or you will be losing £30 on average.
Since the bonus you collected is £50, this leads to an estimated value £20. Obviously, you should take advantage of this offer. Apply the same logic to any casino bonus you can find and you will be able to recognize the profitable ones.
Other aspects of the strategy
I already explained how to find matched betting casino bonuses, but there’s more to it. Let’s take a closer look at some other aspects you should consider:
Bankroll management
You should understand that the outcomes of the matched betting casino bonuses are not fixed like the classic sports betting matched betting. The profit of each promotion is calculated in expected value. This is what should happen from a mathematical point of view, not what will happen regardless of the circumstances.
As a result, there’s a lot of variation involved. You might go bust before clearing some bonuses and win way more than expected with others. You don’t have any control over short-term luck, so you must make it irrelevant by applying a proper bankroll management.
This will protect your money and give you a runway that’s long enough for your positive expected value to work in your favor. At the end of the day, if you only complete bonuses with a +EV, sooner or later you will be cashing in the profits. The tool that will help you get there is bankroll management.
To be more specific, the rule I suggest is to never bet more than 1% of your bankroll on a single wager. Simply put, if you have £100 you shouldn’t place more than £1 at the same time. Stick to this approach and you shouldn’t have any issues.
Terms and conditions of the bonus
Another important step would be to carefully read the full terms and conditions of each bonus. Often, the casinos add certain rules that could negatively impact your strategy. Here are some of the aspects you should check:
- Max bet: sometimes there’s a maximum wager applied while you’re clearing the bonus. This should be taken into account when you evaluate the offer;
- Max winnings: some casinos will put a cap on the winnings you can get. If that’s the case, make sure to check if the bonus is still profitable;
- Sticky bonuses: it’s very important to understand if you are going to keep the winnings only or the winnings and your initial bonus money when you clear the wagering requirements. If the former applies, you should include this in your calculations.
While these are the most significant terms, there might be others that affect the final outcome. Make sure you carefully see if there are such rules.
Different Types Of Matched Betting Casino Bonuses
Not all casino bonuses are the same, even the profitable ones. There is a different expected value, a different approach, the investment varies, and so on. Based on a number of criteria, there are three types of bonuses:
Risk-free bonuses
As the name suggests, you can’t lose money from risk-free bonuses. In fairness, you can’t win much either, but it’s free cash at the end of the day. So how does it work?
Sometimes the casinos want to attract registrations or promote a certain fresh slot. For that purpose, they launch no deposit bonuses or free spins campaigns. This means you only have to register to get the offer.
Such promotions are limited and usually, you won’t get more than £5-10 or 10 free spins. Also, the winnings are capped most of the time. Your average expectations would be to get about £2-3 from risk-free bonuses. While this isn’t much, it only takes minutes and you can’t lose anything.
Low-risk bonuses
The next type of bonuses come with some risk, but the return is also significantly higher. Most of the time, these are bonuses that require you to make a certain deposit. They have a positive expected value in the long run, but it is possible to lose your money if you are unlucky.
Fortunately, if you following my bankroll management rules, this will rarely happen. Most of the time you will be able to cash in some nice profits instead.
High-risk bonuses
The natural final step are the high-risk bonuses. Usually, they require a higher investment of time and money. Also, the variation is high and you could end up losing your money. However, they are the ones that bring the biggest profits.]
Typically, the large first deposit bonuses are a good example of high-risk bonuses. The casinos are more than willing to provide an opportunity for new paying customers, but you will be required to deposit hundreds or even thousands of pounds. Also, you will have to spend loads of time clearing each offer.
This is why I recommend you to stay away from high-risk bonuses until you have the bankroll and experience need to take full advantage. Start with no deposit offers so you can gather some cash and move on the low-risk bonuses. When the time is right, you can go after the bigger ones.
Big Wins
Don’t forget to take a look at our Top 5 Profit Maximiser Casino wins. They total a massive £1,079,255.32 all between 5 users! Casino wins are the most profitable area of Matched Betting. Whilst the earnings aren’t as steady, over a large enough sample of offers you will make a lot more.
Profit Maximiser – The Easy Way
The matched betting casino bonuses can bring you some nice profits along the way. However, they do require a lot of effort and attention to detail. You have to take into account a bunch of factors and spend time calculating what to expect from each offer. On top of that, there’s always room for error that could prove to be very costly.
This is why I’ve developed the Profit Maximiser. The tool will do the work for you and display a bunch of profitable casino bonuses. It will also you give you full instructions how to approach them, on which games to bet, and how much you have to invest.
