[stevenash]

This is a copy and paste job of a piece just published an hour ago from "The Athletic"
Reason for the copy and paste job is "The Athletic" is a paid subscription read only so posting the link would be useless if you don't subscribe.

I don't work for "The Athletic" so this is hardly a shill effort, but IMO it is hands down, far and away, the best in the business, and worth the pennies for the writing and information. It's the only type of e-publication I pay for. It covers everything you can possibly want and so much more. Trust me on this.


The author is James Holzhauer



With the current wave of legalized sports gambling in the United States, sportsbooks are waging an intense competition to acquire customers. Like Amazon or Uber before them, each shop is willing to operate at a loss in the short term to establish a strong market share. Books are pouring money into advertising, but much of their customer acquisition budget is going into lucrative bonus offers for new players. This month, let’s learn about how we can best take advantage of these opportunities.

Longtime gamblers may remember the frenzy of deposit bonuses offered by internet poker rooms and casinos in the early 2000s. Desperate to build up their customer bases, these companies offered so much free money that it was possible to make a living simply by hopping from casino to casino and collecting bonuses — in fact, a large percentage of today’s professional gamblers built their early bankroll by doing just that. The hustle isn’t as profitable this time since each state is only granting a limited number of sportsbook licenses, but there is still plenty of gold to be mined.

At the moment, the most popular new customer offer is called a risk-free bet: if you lose your first wager of up to (say) $1000 at that shop, they’ll give you back a free play credit in the amount of your stake for that wager. (As we’ll explain later, these free play credits are not worth their entire face value, so it’s not exactly “risk-free.”) It’s important to understand that only your first wager triggers the bonus, so if you submit twenty $50 bets, even at the same time, you’ll qualify for just $50 of free play. To maximize the value of the bonus, you’ll have to make one substantial-size wager.

For the sportsbook, risk-free bets are an excellent promotional tool for many reasons:

• “Risk-free” has a nice ring to it, even if it isn’t strictly true.
• The average player won’t maximize the promotion anyway, since $1000 is too much to stake on one bet.
• Even if the new signee does max it out, acquiring a customer who’s willing to wager $1000 at a time is likely to benefit the sportsbook in the long run.
• Flashing a big colorful “$1000” may convince a smaller player that $1000 is a totally normal bet size, and this may increase that customer’s betting volume.
• Most bettors get far less value out of the promotion than they should, because they don’t understand proper free play strategy.

In this article we’ll focus on that last point, as the best way to take advantage of a risk-free bet may be counterintuitive. Think about it this way: the book is offering you a valuable bonus, but you only get that bonus if you lose your initial wager. Let’s consider some options for that first bet:

• If you bet a lead-pipe cinch, the promotion has no value at all — you’ll never earn it.
• If you pick a typical point spread or total you’ll receive the bonus 50% of the time when your bet loses, so on average you’ll extract about half of its potential value.
• If you wager on an 8-1 longshot that will actually win 10% of the time, you’ll earn the bonus nine times out of ten and will average 90% of its potential value.

If you do the math, it should be clear that to maximize the return on your risk-free bet, you’re actually better off picking an initial wager that will lose the vast majority of the time. Now, this doesn’t mean you should rush to bet an alternate line of Texans minus 21.5 this week; we must also consider the expected value of the wager itself. In our third example, we’re getting paid 8-1 on a 9-1 shot, so we’d expect to lose 10% of our initial stake on average — we get back nine units one time in ten. Not great, though with the added equity of the free play it is still considerably better than making a 50-50 bet. Even though you should be playing a longshot on your risk-free bet, make sure you choose one that has a realistic chance of winning.

(Note that most books’ terms require your bet to settle within a certain window of time to qualify for the promotion, so I don’t advise using your risk-free or free play bets on futures, even though this would otherwise be a fine strategy.)

Let’s talk about the free play you receive when your wager is “refunded”: it will look like (say) $1000 in your account, but it’s not really worth that much, because if you win your free play bet, you don’t get your initial stake amount back. In other words, if you wager $1000 of real money at +300 and win, your ticket would cash for $4000 total; but an equivalent $1000 free play wager (which you received off the risk-free loss) would only cash for $3000, and your free play is now gone forever.

This wrinkle makes free plays the converse of risk-free bets: a risk-free bet awards you (say) “$1000” when you lose; a free play bet deducts $1000 when you win. It works out to the same strategy, however: since there is essentially a fixed tax paid only on a winning wager, you want to pick a bet with longer odds and a lower chance of cashing; that way, you only pay that tax a small percentage of the time.

Let’s look at the math behind three strategies: betting on a heavy favorite, an even matchup, or a longshot.

• Adam is skittish about risking $1000 on anything, so he looks for a bet that’s very likely to win. He settles on a -400 moneyline favorite that will win 79% of the time. If he loses that first bet, he’ll look to do the same kind of wager with his free play. He will win $250 most of the time, lose a net $750 some of the time (when he loses the first bet but wins the second) and very infrequently lose the whole $1000. His expected value for this strategy is:

.79 * ($250) + .21*.79 * (-$750) + .21*.21 * (-$1000) = $29

(Ironically, even though Adam is getting very little value out of the promotion, his strategy is not allowed at many sportsbooks because they don’t let you bet big favorites with promotional money. This makes no sense in the context of risk-free bets.)

• Bob is only comfortable with straight wagers, so he puts his $1000 on a team getting 3.5 points at -110. (You don’t get a free play if your initial wager pushes, so you should avoid bets that have a significant chance of pushing, which basically includes all whole number spreads and totals.) Half the time, he will win $909. The other half, he will put the $1000 free play on another -110 straight bet and end up with either $909 (a net loss of $91 from his $1000 deposit) or zero (a net loss of $1000). Bob’s expected value is:

.5 * ($909) + .5*.5 * (-$91) + .5*.5 * (-$1000) = $182

• Charlotte has studied the math behind the promotion and looks for a +400 longshot that will win 19% of the time. She will do a similar bet with her free play if the initial wager loses. She will lose the whole $1000 almost two-thirds of the time but stands to win either $4000 or $3000 if one of her longshots hits. Her expected value is:

.19 * ($4000) + .81 * .19 * ($3000) + .81*.81 * (-$1000) = $571

It’s not even close: Charlotte is way ahead of her peers. Betting a longshot (and planning to do it again if the first one doesn’t hit) is the way to go to maximize the value of risk-free bets. Your EV can even get higher than this: it’s $620 if you can find two bets paying 8-1 on a 10% shot, as in our earlier example. If you find a +EV longshot wager, so much the better.


This is a high-variance approach, however: Charlotte will end up in the red most of the time, and 8-1 bets are even more boom-or-bust. Is there a way to mitigate the risk while retaining a solid return on investment?

Here’s one idea: if you can find eight sportsbooks that each offer $1000 risk-free initial bets and they all allow you to use the offer on a three-team parlay paying 6-1, you could pick any three games. There are eight different ways to choose the winners of three games, so you submit a different combination at each shop to guarantee one winning ticket. (Remember not to pick any whole number spreads to avoid pushes.) After the games settle, you will have one account with $7000 in cash and seven with $1000 free plays. Repeat the process with another eight parlay combinations (using the seven free plays and one cash bet) and you will end up with two $6000 balances (along with six busted accounts) for a guaranteed profit of $4000, or 50% of your initial stake, even though all your bets had a massive 12.5% house edge. Not bad at all! (Actually it may go even better than that: if both parlays win at the same shop you will also get your second $1000 stake back for a net $5000, since that was a non-free play bet.)

While many shops have rules against betting both sides of a game at that same book to guarantee a profit on your bonus money, I don’t believe this parlay gambit should violate any terms, at least assuming different sportsbooks aren’t sharing data with each other about your activity. But be sure to check each book’s terms and conditions to make sure parlay bets are eligible. If you can find lower vig options to parlay (like baseball dime lines) that only improves your return, but check the weather forecast to avoid a game that may be rained out and lower your ROI. Remember: no pushes!

If you can’t use your risk-free bet on a parlay, I think the sweet spot is betting an underdog at around +400 to +500 odds. To minimize the house edge, you want a game where the effective vig is low (e.g. the best available prices at different sportsbooks on the two sides are +400/-450 rather than +400/-550). This gives you a pretty decent chance of a solid return, especially if you are able to take advantage of many different risk-free offers. (Remember, you get two bites at the apple at each book.) Some shops also allow you to split your free play among several different wagers; picking five longshots instead of one would reduce your variance, though you must still make one big risk-free bet to earn the free play in the first place. As always, shop around to make sure you’re getting the best odds available so the vig doesn’t eat up your advantage.

Remember that these bonuses can disappear at any time, so take advantage of them while you can. In my next column, I’ll discuss how sports bettors can learn from a winning approach at TV quiz shows.

[d2bets]

Good stuff.

[Fishhead]

BETONLINE and SB worth hundreds of thousands risk free the past few years for anyone with a clue

(NOT NEAR AS GOOD AS IN PREVIOUS YEARS, BUT STILL VERY GOOD)