I live in AZ and they just legalized sports betting and all the sports books are giving a ton of free play away for new customers. I'm not into sports betting so I'm planning on just betting with the free play and then withdrawing any winnings as soon as I meet their withdrawal requirements. I will have $200 from BetMGM, $100 on Caesars, $75 on FanDuel and $150 on DraftKings = $525

So what is the best way to maximize my EV on these free play bets? Betting half on one side of a -110 and half on the other would guarantee me 45% of my initial stake of $525 which would be $236.25, right? That would be the way to reduce variance.

You want to bet big dogs with your free play and hedge with the big favorites on another site. Aim for 70% at a minimum.

https://www.sportsbookreview.com/bet...ay-calculator/

I bumped another thread that was helpful for me - what I learned is there's a big difference between maximizing EV or EG (and I'm not quite sure the difference) and minimizing variance.

I'm actually flying to a state that has all these offers and after reading all the details, I estimated I would win about $500 by betting $3000 (using less variance bets that are close to even odds), and that's before having to buy a second round of flights to place the risk free bets. One big thing was the risk free bet if you win it the promo chips are not returned with the winnings.

If you haven’t signed up yet, you should consider a different route. If you have any savings available to you, there are much better bonus offers.

It depends on your bankroll. If you can't comfortably max-bet the freebet, you should do a sides bet, and another sides bet with the free bet.

The free bet terms are different from offshore sportsbooks. Most US books say the first bet is risk free: you lose it, you get a free play. Not as good as an outright free play. Doing straights, your optimal betsize is about 27% of your bank.

There are better strategies if you have a bigger bank.

I tried to place one bet on 2 sites by CC and it's not a regular transaction it's a cash advance soooo I ended up placing zero bets. If the Bucs beat up the Cowboys by more than 7.5 I'ma be pissed!

What's the correct strategy for max betting the risk free bet? Caesars gives up to $5k on a risk free bet. FanDuel is up to $1k. Wynnbet is up to $1k.

Is this calculator for freeplay or a risk free bet (i.e. you have to bet first with real money and you get the money back as freeplay if you lose the bet)? https://www.sportsbookreview.com/bet...ay-calculator/

How do you use that calculator? Do you bet on the same game with the free bet and the hedge bet? Or different games? Or does it matter?

Let's say I bet on Dallas tonight @ +350 with a $1k risk free bet. Then what do I do as a hedge bet?

I'm completely new to sports betting and I'm even having a hard time wrapping my head around all the different odds and numbers.

What they do in PA is a risk free bet, so you make your first bet just like normal, then only if it loses, they will add credits to your account that you use to bet, and if that bet wins you only get the winnings (those credits don't turn to cash).

So my understanding is the first bet do whatever you want, say a normal bet -110 (even odds), then if that loses the second bet with credits you do a longer shot bet like +300 or something. Someone that actually knows things will correct me I'm sure!

Longer odds are higher EV because you only get the bonus when you lose. Only up to a point though because the bigger the underdog the higher the vig will usually be.

I always hedge with another book. Technically this isn't the highest EV but I know nothing about sportsbetting which would allow me to select the best wagers for my freeplay. Hedging is essentially 0 variance if you do it right and it's easy to calculate the EV.

The strategy for a free play and a "risk free" bet are slightly different. If you're hedging you want your result to be equal regardless of the outcome. For a risk free bet that means you need to account for the value of the free play when your hedge bet wins. For a freeplay you just want the payouts to be equal.

Freebet example:

Place the $100 freebet on Team A at +350 on book 1, bet $280 on Team B at -400 on book 2. You will win $350 regardless of the outcome, but the bets only cost you $280, so your EV is $70.

Risk free bet example:

Bet $100 on Team A at +350 on book 1, bet $304 on Team B at -400 on book 2. You will get back $450 if team A wins, and $380 plus a $100 freebet (estimated to be worth $70) if team B wins. Your EV is $46. Don't make bets where a push is possible!

It's a waste to spend too much time hunting for the absolute highest EV opportunity you can. Don't spend an hour looking for a 75% conversion on your $50 freeplay when you can get 65% in two minutes. I only look for the best deals on larger wagers.

If you use this method then make sure you understand how the sport you're betting on works. Most of them are straightforward but I think a couple are tricky and could potentially result in a double loss if you make a mistake.

Thanks that makes a lot of sense.

I also got some free money from the sports books offering "gimme bets." Like there was a $50 max bet at +100 if TB scored at least one point in the game. Another one was $50 max bet at -110 (or maybe it was +100) where they gave TB +73 points.

Use baseball 10 cent lines and look for a game that isn't the same at both books.

I'm going through the daily promos thread on r/sportsbook and people post what I think are arbitrage opportunities. For example, someone posted:

Another one: Is that what they are? You bet both sides on the different sites and guarantee profit?

Or are those for converting free play?

Someone posted a 75% free play conversion:

Caesars: Over 61.5 Points @ +340
Betmgm: Under 61.5 Points @ -350

I figured out the math to confirm the free bet calculator. Let's say I have $110 in free play at Caesars. So I bet the $110 @ +$340 and I will win $374 when the underdog wins. Then I punch it into the calculator and it says to be $290 on the favorite and I will win $82.86 if that happens.

When the underdog wins, I get $374 - my losing bet of $290 = $84
When the favorite wins, I get the $82 in winnings - $0 from the free bet = $82.86

Then you can use the implied odds of each event happening (22.73% for the underdog, 77.78% for the favorite) to calculate a weighted average of the two outcomes: (82.86 * .7778) + (84 * .2273) you get $83.54 which is a bit off of the $83.11 in the calculator but it's probably because the two implied odds add up to over 100%. I was using an odds calculator to generate the implied odds.

So this risk-free bet Caesar's has of $5,000 is basically about a 45-50% EV? (The above was 46%.) Seems too good to pass up.

Why do you hedge with another book? The original book would catch it and ban the bet or something?

The Caesar's MI promo expires on the 30th, not sure about other jurisdictions.

The EV depends on the lines you find. I don't know how much selection Caesar's offers or how the juice is, but it's certainly possible, given enough time searching, to get up to 65% EV on risk free bets, maybe even more, if you find really good lines and have enough to hedge with (the higher EV lines require more). I don't have a lot of money to hedge with and definitely am not rolled to risk $5k outright so I'm going to have to take a suboptimal line. I'm hoping for 35-40% EV considering that and that there's very little time left.

It's against the promotion's T&C in some of them and I imagine none of the books would like it very much because you're just taking money from them with 0 risk.

Also, each book usually has different lines. It's pretty easy to find bets where another book has a better line, increasing your EV. Sometimes you can even find lines with an overlay.

As for the importance of understanding sports betting rules for the sport/site you're betting on, I made a minor screw up a couple days ago. I placed a $500 freebet on an MLB moneyline on BetMGM and hedged with another book. Most books by default will require listed pitchers for each team to start, or the bet gets voided/stake returned. BetMGM lets the bet have action regardless of starting pitchers. My hedge ended up getting voided because one of the starting pitchers had a finger injury and didn't play, and my MGM freebet lost. On MGM it's possible to make a moneyline wager which requires listed pitchers to start, and on other books it's possible to allow any pitchers to start, but I didn't know I had to do that. I don't do much sports betting.

Since I'm on the topic I want to point out that I have seen books where a freebet which gets voided or pushed is considered a loss. Can't remember if MGM is one of those.

Are there any sites that list all the bonus opportunities available across different states? Ie ceasers MI vs MGM vegas vs Barstool IL ect ect.

Back in day I remember a site called bonuswhores that did this for poker site sign ups- anything relatable for sports books?

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Why is the 2nd $100 free bet only estimated to be worth $70?

Can't I wait for an arbitrage opportunity on a different sports book to return close to 100 percent of the freebet we just won?

Yeah there is, try googling

Thanks for the helpful tip, friend!

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r/sportsbook has a daily thread where people post bonuses, odds boosts and arbitrage and churn opportunities

Back to the risk-free bet - is the wager amount - here $100 - not just returned to your account as cash if you lose the bet? Are you saying you must wager it?

Getting close to 100% would require a book to set the line really, really poorly. It requires a big overlay. I rarely see anything higher than 80% and those take a bit of work to find, but I only look manually.

A free bet does not return the stake. A risk free bet is a normal bet that returns your stake when you lose, usually in the form of a free bet. You then have to convert the free bet to real money.

Thanks. Finally wrapped my head around all this. Most books are giving a free bet when you lose the risk-free bet. The freebet doesn't return the original stake when you bet it, which skews the EV of low odds bets.

A few books do give bonus credit for your lost freebets which can be arbitraged for close to 100%.

After I finally figured all this out, I maxed out the deposit bonuses for every sportsbooks in my area. Thanks to everyone in this thread!