It’s common practice for bookmakers to entice new customers with generous bonuses and incentives to open accounts with their platforms. One of the most popular incentives is offering free bets when you make a deposit.

Yes, you read that correctly. You can place bets with no financial risk to your account if you take advantage of some fantastic free bet offers bookmakers promote to gain new customers and encourage existing customers to play more often.

It’s no joke. Place bets on the house with nothing but upside for yourself. Of course, as seen on free bet comparison sites like Topbettingsites, there are always a few strings attached to such offers, like opening an account, making a deposit, and creating a payment method. Other caveats may also apply, so buyer beware.

But the bottom line is that if you follow the rules (and you can bet the rules are strictly enforced), you can secure a mini windfall of extra cash if you win. But if your bet doesn’t pay off, you still don’t lose because the house will refund your stake if it doesn’t pan out. So, it truly is “head you win, tails you can’t lose!”

Are Free Bets Really Free?

Sure, with a few conditions. For bookmakers, offering carefully calculated free bets is nothing more than a marketing expense. Instead of spending dollars on media advertising and hoping for a response, they spend that money in the form of incentives that they can manipulate to ensure their losses are small and simultaneously stimulate more betting by their customers.

It’s a highly efficient way of encouraging customer engagement that produces reoccurring profits from customers who don’t play regularly. The free bet bonus spurs them to action they might not otherwise take, like playing more games.

Bookmakers know precisely what they’re doing and wouldn’t offer these incentives if the odds weren’t stacked in their favour. But the secret is that you can dramatically change those odds to be more in your favour if you’re smart about how to claim these bonuses. 

The Perils of Claiming a Bonus

Bookies don’t give away free bets because they’re suddenly struck by a sudden urge to be generous. They draw in more business for themselves by getting you to gamble more. Their goal is to separate you from as much of your hard-earned money as possible!

That’s why it’s essential for you to carefully review the terms and conditions that accompany free betting offers. There can be traps like rollovers, playthrough conditions, and minimum odds designed to make you place losing bets to qualify for the incentive. Parimatch for example require you to wager at 20x. If you lose, the house got you to play at no additional cost to their marketing budget. If you win, they only have to pay your winnings, not the stake itself, thereby minimizing their out-of-pocket expenses.

Winning with free bets is tricky, to say the least, not impossible, but very difficult. The odds are always in favour of the house. The idea is to get you to spend your bonus at a loss, so the house comes away Scott-free. They’re hoping that in your frustration, you’ll continue betting to recoup your “loss,” even though you never had any money at stake in the transaction.

Summary

You can occasionally score with free bets if you pay close attention to the terms and conditions and place the appropriate qualifying bets. You may have to play through the incentive amount three or four times before you’re allowed to withdraw any winnings, but the house is betting that you’ll lose more than the stake before you meet the requirement. You may be better off employing other techniques to beat the house than straight betting.