The Best Bookmakers Free Bets for 2024

Looking For the Best Bookmaker Free Bets? Then Look No Further!

If you’re searching for the online bookies that provide the best sign up free bet offers, then you’re absolutely in the right place. That’s because our team of expert reviewers have analysed the entire market to find the best promotions and ranked all those sites for you. Whilst it might be impossible to review every single online casino out there, we are sure that we’ve assessed all the major online operators.

There’s an absolute ton of free bet offers out there, and with our list you don’t have to go scouring the internet to find them. Free bet incentives are the real bread and butter of most regular online gamblers, and by bookmarking our list you’ll always know where the best ones are.

How Do Free Bet Offers Work?

If you’re new to the world of online gambling, then you might be a little bamboozled by all the complicated terms and jargon that you come across. If that’s you, don’t worry: we’re going to quickly run through what free bet offers are, how they work and why they exist.

What are bookmaker free bets?

Welcome promotions are something that online bookmakers use to entice new customers to use their services. That really is the long and short of it. Just like any online business, casinos and bookmakers have to attract customers to be profitable and successful. The offers vary from site to site, and they often come with some strings attached in the terms and conditions (which we’ll cover later on).

How do bookmaker free bets work?

These offers are essentially free bets that can be used on Esport and Sportsbook services. What does this mean? Well, as the term suggests, it’s the traditional types of sports betting, which include things like horse racing, football, cricket and many different less prominent sports.

These free bets come in many forms that we’ll explain further on, with the best often being restricted to one sport or betting market, although this isn’t always the case.

The Types of Free Bet Offers

Now that we understand why they exist, let’s take a look at the types of free bet offers that bookies tend to run. Of course this isn’t an exhaustive list, as they can arrange their offers as they see fit, but it will give you an understanding of the type of things you can expect to find.

Stake Not Returned

Some of the betting sites’ free bets that you’ll find when looking for a new online bookmaker will be described as a “Stake Not Returned” offer. This applies to many welcome promotions you’ll find bookmakers offering. this basically means that if your free bet were to come up as a winner, you don’t get your stake returned, hence the name.

This is a particularly attractive offer because it often doesn’t come with any additional restrictions or conditions attached. If you find an offer that does return the free stake, you’re likely to find that the small print specifies that you need to meet some other conditions. The devil is most certainly in the details.

Matched or Bet Matched

The next type of bookmakers’ free bets that we’ll look at are those described as “matched” or “bet matched” as they’re sometimes called. Typically speaking, what they do is match your bet with a minimum of 100% of what you’ve wagered, with some offering as much as 200%.

These types of promotions, which sometimes require you to enter bonus codes, usually state that you need to make a deposit with your own money and then the bookmaker will add the same amount to your betting account. These matched bets are typically advertised as offering a certain percentage, and will generally stipulate an upper limit for what you can bet.

Sometimes gamblers are able to use these free bets however they want, including splitting up the offered funds into smaller bets. However, most of the time, you’ll be restricted on how you use them. These offers also fall into the same category as deposit match offers.

No Lose Bets

For obvious reasons, ‘No-lose bets’ are quite popular with the betting public. However, don’t get too carried away, and remember that online bookies are in business to make money! As the name of the offer suggests, these promotions are designed to make the gambler feel like it would be silly not to place the bet.

What these offers do offer protection against is losing your first bet with a bookmaker. In the event of you placing a bet on a football match, for example, and it doesn’t go as planned, you get your entire stake back. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, it can be, but what you have to consider is that if you win, you don’t really get anything extra!

Watching Out for the Small Print

When we talk about the small print in welcome bonus offers provided by online bookies, we’re really discussing wagering requirements. What this means is that some free bets come with strings attached. You will need to bet the bonus or deposit amount multiple times before you’re able to withdraw your winnings. This can be as much as 5 or 10 times the original amount.

Another key term to look out for is ‘minimum odds,’ which refers to the fact that you have to make a bet that’s at least at the odds set by the bookmaker. This could be 5-1, 10-1 or whatever they decide. They do this to stop people from continually making odds-on bets, which is a particular tactic used by people who try to abuse the free bet system.

Whatever type of bet you make with funds provided by welcome bonuses, you have to remember that the small print always matters. What you’ll ultimately get out of them is dictated by those terms, so you need to make sure that you understand them before you sign up. The good news is that our list clearly shows what each one offers, with a particular focus on the small print.

So How Should You Use Your Free Bets?

We’ve now covered what bookmaker free bet bonuses are, why they exist and even what types of offers you’re likely to encounter. Now you’re probably wondering whether there is a right and a wrong way to use them. Well, there isn’t really a wrong way, as you make a bet and hope for the best. That’s what most people do.

However, when you’re deciding what to bet on, should you choose a long-shot or something more likely to win? Ultimately that’s really up to you as the bettor, because as anyone with any gambling experience will tell you, most of it is down to chance, so there’s no surefire way of winning. The same applies when going to the casino, as things are always weighted in the house’s favour.

If you do a quick search online, you’ll find various people telling you that there’s a way to maximise your winnings on esport and sportsbook welcome offers, but the truth is that there isn’t. What we will say is that a long-odds bet is no more likely to win with free money than with your own, so don’t throw those funds away on a bet that has almost no chance of coming in.