Ask Madeleine - Tell it to me like I'm a 10 year old!
1) What is a free bet and why do Bookmakers offer them
A free bet is an amount of money that a bookmaker will give you simply for opening an account and placing a bet with them. The next section will decribe the types of free bet that are commonly available.
Bookmakers offer them to get you to open an account - its as simple as that. The customer (you!) has the option to open an account with close to 50 online firms so the bookmakers use the provision of a free bet as a way of differentiating themselves from the competition. Typically the major high street firms such as William Hill, Coral and Ladbrokes do not offer as lucrative free bets offers as other online firms as they utilise their high street presence to acquire customers. The exception to this is BetFred who offer a very attractive free bet inducement.
The major Irish firms such as Boylesports and Paddy Power also traditionally offer valuable free bets offers.
2) What types of free bets are there?
There are typically two types of free bets on offer: standard free bets and deposit matches
Standard free bets.
These are the most valuable of the two. Typically a customer will open an account and place a bet. The bookmaker will match the customers first bet up to a certain size as long as the original bet is at even money or greater - 2.0 in decimal terms. The matched part of the customers first bet will then be available as "free bet cash" to be staked on a new bet. The customer will then place a new bet using the "free bet cash" and any winnings will be available for withdrawal, however, the "free bet cash" used to place the bet will always be returned to the bookmaker.
An example: A customer opens an account with Boylesports and places a £50 bet on a horse to win at 6/4. The horse wins and the customer now has £125 in their account. Boylesports will now credit the "free bet balance" of the customer to the tune of £50. The customer uses the "free bet balance" to place another bet of £50 on a horse at 6/4. This horse also wins. The customer's winnings, £75, are placed in the customers real account balance and the free bet balance is set to zero. The customer is now able to withdraw all £200 from their account.
Deposit Matches
Typically the customer will deposit an amount of money with the bookmaker. The bookmaker will then match this amount to a certain percentage (often 50%) in the form of bonus money, however, before the customer can withdraw the bonus money they must typically bet the original amount AND the bonus amount between three times and as much as ten times. This is the reason that deposit matches are inherently less valuable to customers. As always, there are exceptions to the rule and a 50% match coupled with a large maximum and a three times bet through requirement is a reasonably valuable proposition. For instance Interwetten offer a 50% match up to 111 euros.
3) Why is initial free bet (original matched amount) the benchmark for free bets?
Many bookmakers make headline grabbing claims about their free bets offers but often hidden in the detail there are terms and conditions related to further bonuses beyond the initial matched amount that make achieveing them much more difficult than obtaining the original matched bet. Therefore, we concentrate mostly on the original bet matching to determine the quality of the offer, however, we will award additional stars to an offer if the further bets offer is both substantial and readily achievable.