When the old VIP and loyalty schemes started to disappear, bookies began coming up with new ways to attract and retain customers. Getting new punters though the door is one thing but in a competitive marketplace, keeping those who already have an account are just as important as new sign-ups.
Along with a smoothly run site and competitive odds, many bookmakers make regular promotions available to their current customer base to incentivise them to stay put, rather than seeking digital pastures new.
There’s a whole raft of different promotions that are available to existing customers and no two bookies will offer the same range but in general these will fall into two groups. The first is those where you place a bet and receive a bonus, the second are schemes where you can receive a bonus simply for taking part in a free to play daily game.
I have listed some of the best available of these here, and I will explore them in a bit more detail below. Also, it’s worth pointing out that in general these are also available to newly signed customers also, as long as they have a verified account.
Current Offers
The LadBucks wheel is a free to play game which offers prizes daily including cash, casino bonuses, free bets, LadBucks and free bingo tickets. By spinning the LadBucks wheel you have the chance to unlock up to four wheels during the week.
Each day, you could have a spin on BetVictor’s Prize wheel with guaranteed prizes including cash drops of between £10 and £100, free bets ranging from £1 to £10 and free casino spins. Opt-in required.
Each day you can pick up a prize including free bets, odds boost tokens and other offers simply from playing Coral’s Rewards Shaker for free. This is available between 9am and 9pm each day.
Specific Offers
In addition to the general perks that you’ll find above, lots of bookies offer betting promotions for specific types of bet – this includes acca insurance, early payouts, odds boosts and a whole bunch more. We’ve categorised these offers below, so head on over to the relevant page to see what’s up for grabs.
Bet and Get Offers
There are lots of these offer types available online and although the specifics of the offer will vary when it comes to the qualifying criteria and what the bonus you receive will be, the basic premise is that you will get some sort of reward for placing a bet.
So, let’s start with the first part of this, the ‘bet’. This might be a simple of pacing a bet of a certain amount whilst the promo is running but these will normally be restricted to a certain sport or even a specific sporting event. For example, you might be required to place a bet on football or tennis, or it may be narrowed down to placing a bet on a Premier League match or a game at Wimbledon.
The second part of this offer involves what you ‘get’ in return. What this will be again will vary vastly from offer to offer but common bonuses are:
- Free bets
- Casino spins
- Event tickets
- Prize draw entries
- Cash
Free bets make up the majority of bonuses and tend to be a half to a quarter of the value of the qualifying bets, so they maybe be bet £10 and get a £5 free bet. These may be to place on the same sport or event, in-play or a open free bet to use on any sport.
Where placing a bet gains you free casino spins, you will tend to find these are restrict to a small number of select slot games rather than an open availability to play any slot game. In general casino spins are the bonus for these types of offer as slot games are seen as more accessible to those who mainly bet on sports. Occasionally, credit to use on table games or on a live casino games may be on offer but it will usually involve slot games.
During big tournaments such as the World Cup, you may find that that placing bets earns you the chance to gain tickets to matches or other prizes. Match tickets will be limited to a small number of winners, but often prize draws can have hundreds of winners with a top prize and a pyramid of small bonuses.
Some bet and get style promotions award small cash bonuses though these are relatively rare.
Daily Free Games
Once the reserve of a select few bookmakers, pretty much every big name bookie now offers some variation of a daily free game, and many smaller brands do too.
They all have their own way of doing it, whether it be a rewards grabbing machine, a pinball game, or a symbol matching scratch card. What they all have in common though is the chance to win small prizes such as:
- free bets
- odds boosts
- cash
- free spins
- scratch cards
- live casino tokens
…and more.
These are low value promotions, but since they don’t cost anything to take part in punters can’t really complain.
They are not the sort of promotion that would make you choose one bookie over another, but they are worth ten seconds of your time if you are on the site anyway.
There isn’t a great deal to say about them since they are so simple. All anyone has to do is open an account with the bookie offering the promotion, sign in and navigate to the promotion, then play.
Most games have an element of choice, such as which box to choose or exactly when to release the lever or spin the wheel, but in reality it’s 100% based on luck. It’s the same as hitting the ‘spin’ button on a slot machine.
The software in the background randomly selects what the outcome will be as soon as you set the game in motion. Everything you see is for entertainment purposes. It’s theatre. They are still worth playing though.
The prizes aren’t all sports related. Many bookies use daily free games as a way to introduce bettors to the casino. So you might win five free spins on some game or other.
There are one or two bookies who take a slightly different approach. Their games might last a week, which obviously means you need to log in every day to get the best out of them.
You might have three ‘goes’ per day to reveal a certain number of matching symbols, for example. You might need six of the same symbol from a grid of covered squares, and you can scratch three per day to try and find them.
The prizes are usually a bit better for these games, but not good enough to make you log on specially. These longer term free games are therefore better suited to punters who are likely to be on the site at some point every day.
Common Terms and Conditions
We’d always recommend checking out the T&Cs of any promotion before taking part, primarily because although patterns appear between bookmakers, each will have its own individual stipulations. That said, below we’ve outlined some of the key points to be aware of.
Bet and Get T&Cs
For bet and get promotions, the key terms to look out for is the qualification criteria of the bet you are placing first. Things to look out for are the sport or event that you will need to place the bet on, minimum stakes and minimum odds.
Also look out for when your bet needs to be settled by. Ante post bets are generally excluded so, for example, if a promotion requires you to bet on football it will probably be on matches in the next 48 hours or so as opposed to the winner of the World Cup in two years time.
Other general terms will also apply such as the exclusion of void or cashed out bets and the need to place bets in cash rather than previous free bets or bonuses.
Daily Free Games T&Cs
The terms associated with daily free games tend to be quite simple because it’s usually small fry stuff.
Nevertheless, it’s good to be aware of when each ‘day’ starts and ends. Some adhere to the actual definition of a day (00:01 to 23:59) whereas others run from 5pm one day to 5pm the next. It doesn’t really matter, but perhaps think about when you tend to log on.
Also, be aware that if you miss a day the free games do not stack. If you miss a day it’s a missed opportunity you don’t get back. They are always a case of use it or lose it.
Any prizes you win from the free games that are not cash will expire at some point, usually after seven days. Best to use them up soon after you win them, because once they expire they are lost forever.
In cases where free spins are given out, they are often restricted to specific games. The terms and conditions will always tell you which games these are. You won’t have the option to use them on any others.
If free bets are won, they can occasionally be sport specific. It just depends on the bookie. Free bets are never refundable as cash though, and the free bet stake is never returned with any winnings you might get from it. Again, cash out restrictions may also apply.
There is so much variety with daily free games that I can’t be more specific than this, so give the terms of the game you choose a quick look before you play to understand how you can and can’t use any prize.