Have some free bets that you don’t know what to do with?
This guide covers everything you need to know about how to best use free bets and explains what a free bet conversion is.
What is a free bet?
A free bet is a bet where you can obtain the winnings from the bet, but you don’t have to put up a stake. In other words, you get all of the upside and none of the downside – what isn’t there to like about that?
It is important to note that since you aren’t putting up a stake, a free bet does not return the value of the free bet back with your winnings. This needs to be kept in mind for any calculations involving free bets.
How do you get free bets?
Free bets are earned through sportsbook promotions and are an important part to making income from sportsbook promotions.
Some examples of promotions where you can earn free bets include:
- Earn a free bet equal to the total number of free throws made
- Earn $5 for each home run hit in a game
- Bet a Same Game Parlay (SGP) and earn 100% of your bet back up to $25
- Bet $50 and get a $10 free bet
When should you use free bets?
A free bet is issued with an expiration data and time which they need to be used by. A promotion’s terms and conditions will commonly include details about when any awarded free will expire – usually 7 days after receiving the free bet. Additionally, most sportsbooks will show you when your free bets expire. You’ll want to be aware of when your free bets expire – the only thing more frustrating that losing your own money is losing free money.
How should you use a free bet?
So, you have a free bet and you’re trying to figure out how to use it? There are two options:
- Take a chance and gamble with your bet
- Convert the free bet to guarantee that you’ll recoup a portion of the bet’s value.
If you are trying to maximize the expected value (EV) of the free bet, there will be times where you can find a better expected return by playing the free bet straight up (option 1). The word “expected” is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in that sentence. EV theory talks about maxing the long-term expected value and is a process which includes a lot of variance. Converting a free bet eliminates any variance and gives you a guaranteed return every single time.
Regardless of which option you’re going to follow for using your bet, the best approach is to use free bets on underdogs (side with plus odds) since you don’t get your stake back and only get the winnings. Yes, this means your bet will be less likely to win but remember with a free bet you’re getting exposure to the upside without any of the downside. It might be tempting to use the free bet on something which is more likely to win, but this is minimizing the expected value of the free compared to using it on a longshot.
Note: Be aware that the T&Cs of some promotions do not allow you to use free bets on them. Also, you might find that some free bets are limited to certain kinds of bets (ie: live bets, SGP bets, or specific sports).
What is a Free Bet Conversion?
A free bet conversion is a technique used to recoup a guaranteed percentage of your free bet’s value. A free bet conversion is performed by using your free bet to bet both sides of an outcome, so you are guaranteed that one bet will win. You will only be able to ensure a percentage of the free bet value because the house is taking a cut (their vig). This approach does limit your upside since at least once of your bets will lose; however, it does give you an ability to lock in gains from your free bet rather just gambling it.
Below we walk through an example below that will show this more clearly.
How to calculate free bet conversion percentage?
A free bet conversion’s percentage is represented as the percent of the free bet’s value you retain. It is calculated as guaranteed profit / free bet value. For example, if you have a $100 free bet and can guarantee $75, that would be a 75% conversion.
Taking that to the next level, the specific odds pairing will dictate how much you are able to convert a bet for. Two lines of +650 / -750 would equate to a 76% conversion
Note that in the example above the free bet of $100 does not win the stake back like would normally happen in a regular bet. Also, note that when the free bet loses, nothing is lost.
Our free bet conversion calculator will tell you the exact amount to bet to complete the conversion and the conversion percentage
What is a “good” free bet conversion?
The way sportsbooks create their odds, it will be common to see a conversion in the 50-60% range on typically money line odds. By finding favorable odds across books, it is possible to regularly achieve conversions above 70%.
As a quick guide: 70-79% is a good free bet conversion and anything above an 80% conversion is great free bet conversion.
Note: Since 70% is an easy hurdle to clear, we use that as an assumption in our calculations for any promotions where free bets can be won. For these promotions, it is important to assume a free bet conversion since part of the bet’s value is lost when converting it. Therefore “risk-free” bets aren’t always risk-free – you still need to convert your bet back into money which you can withdraw.
Finding a good version can be very worthwhile for large free bets but for smaller bets it may not be worth the time hunting for a great conversion if you can find one that is good enough. For example, 1% improvement for a $1,000 free bet is $10 but a 1% improvement on a $25 free bet is 25 cents.
How do you find good free bet conversions?
Comparing lines across different sportsbooks would be too time consuming to do manually. Thankfully there are odds scrapping services which can be used to assist with this. These services automatically scour each sportsbook and perform the conversion percentage calculation for you.
Currently there are two options: DarkHorse Odds and OddsJam. These services offer a range of functionality at different price points. DarkHorse Odds is our pick for free bet conversions. OddsJam is the best choice if you are planning on following EV betting in addition to converting free bets.
There are a few tricks to finding favorable odds to use for conversions. Timing is critical since the odds will change all the way up to the start of the game. The best time to find favorable odds is when they are first posted (usually late at night or early in the morning). If a book posts an odd that is out of line with other books, it will eventually move in line with the other books as money comes in on the poorly set odd.
Is it always worth converting the bet?
This will be up to you. For us, we don’t bother trying to convert a free bet if it is $5 or less. For these bets we typically will just have some fun with it to scratch the “gambling itch” and make sure we stay focused on our process the rest of the time.
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