Sports betting just became legal in Colorado. Like the good old days of bonus whoring, I am excited. I just took advantage of FanDuel's free $500 bet (bet $500, if you lose they refund you, but I think you need to roll over the refund 1x).

I won this bet to the tune of $300 (-160) so I don't need to take advantage of the refund, but I am wondering how do I take advantage of these promotions going forward? Make a close to even money bet, if lose, do the same thing again, giving me an EV of $250? Is there a better way? Looks like I have Draft Kings, BetRivers, and BetMGM to work through still.

you actually used the fanduel one super poorly. you should be betting huge underdogs with that risk free 500 dollar bet they offer.the ev is way higher this way.i know fd gives you as a pure refund that needs to be rolled over 1x.

if you have a +500 and bet 500 dollars on them you'll win 2500 1/6th of the time (ignoring juice for simplifcation) for an ev of 416 dollars. if you use it on a -110 your ev is 227 dollars.your ev is even worse on a -160. even if you waited and hedged a big dog elsewhere where you could do it paying low juice you come out way ahead using fan duel on big dogs.

not sure about colorado but with dk in new jersey you had to clear the initial bonus ( i got 1,000 might be different now) at i believe 12x and odds can't be higher than -300. this is a lot different than fanduel's bonus and you should just use it organically (if you bet sports) or you can arb/risk free bet across a different site to clear it.


draftkings does a lot of free bet promos where you don't get the free bet amount back when you win (ie +200 on a 100 dollar free bet you win 200 dollars, you don't get the 100 you were staked with.) with free bets you're way better off using the free bets on huge underdogs. if you want to cut down on the variance you can wait until you find games with narrow spreads across 2 sites (ie +500 on the site with the free bet, -550 on the favorite on another site) and you come out way better than using the free bets on even money bets (or even worse big favorties)

betmgm gives a risk free bet- same thing big dogs.

rivers is just a 1x rollover and is not triggered by losing like mgm or fanduel so just use it organically if you bet anyway. if not bet the other side somewhere else when it won't cost you any juice to do so (pretty easy to find games/props for this)

you can also just roll it through their casino 1x on blackjack. playing basic strategy to clear the 250 you're giving up less than 2 dollars in ev.

Thank you borg23 and the person who PM'ed me. I will make sure to be smarter going forward. Looks like Colorado will have around 14 books by the end of summer.

If you take a $500 bet as your free bet on Draft Kings, and you lose, does your "free bet" have to be of the same size? Or do you just get $500 in free play dollars and can just make a bunch of smaller bets that total $500?

I'm wondering the same

You need to read the rules on the bookie in order to be 100% sure on that. From my experience you can bet the free bet whenever you like with whatever amounts you like.

the only legal book i've seen that let you do this is bet 365
pointsbet lets you split it into 2,3 or 4 if you choose (you can't then resplit them)
some sites break them down- 888 is a 500 dollar risk free bet that pays you in ten 50 dollar free bets if you lose but you have to use them that way
In the case of draftkings you can not split them lower so if you have a 500 dollar free bet you have to use it all in one shot

idk what the books do in Colorado (and I'm not gonna google it) but in NJ the "risk free" bets range from free bets in chunks (10% of wager) and 25x rollover with site credit, to withdrawable cash in your account within 72 hours. YMMV

25x rollover is a deal breaker unless I'm missing something

right- my point was you don't have any choice in the matter in most cases.

How much total EV can you rack up on sign up bonuses in the typical legal state these days?

I have a hookup for free flights. Almost tempted to make like a 2-week vacation out of it lol.

Very good deals still in NJ and PA, so fly to Philly and play in PA then hop over the bridge to play in NJ. You can deposit and withdraw from anywhere just need to geolocate within the state to place the bets. There are at least 10 books in PA and 15 in NJ with varying deals, the best of which will get you about $400 in EV if you play it right (or more if you can identify a good value long-shot).

Your Covid EV may vary tho

Your choice is which books to sign up at. The ones with the 25x rollover would be a hard pass.

Woah I did not know this. So could be done in 2 1-day trips for those without rollover requirements, right?

It'd be nice to know which ones fit that bill

It could literally be done in 1 day if there were no rollover at all because you can set up the accounts and deposit from home, and then withdraw later on from home.

The best deals are Unibet Pa and Unibet NJ (these are totally separate and don't even share a wallet so you can get risk free intro bets at both up to $600). Unibet PA gives you straight cash back but it takes up to 2-3 days. Fanduel and Unibet NJ only have 1x rollover which is a great deal, but also takes 2-3 days to be put into your account as site credit. Those subsequent bets have a time limit too (IIRC Fanduel is 7 days, Unibet is 30 days.

You'll have to google the others

Nice, thanks. Lol at the last part. Was hoping for maybe next spring/summer.

One last nugget (which I wish I had thought of/read about sooner): The free bet must be a single bet, so pick something you can live hedge on another site to lock up some of your EV if it's going well. Sure the hedge will cost you some EV but greatly decrease your variance. If your side is behind the whole way then you're SOL however.