BR - Bonus rugging, breakdown by state [AZ & NY]
Level 3 - WAGMI
Do you have a friend who likes betting and would like to sharpen his/her action? Help them on their path by sharing the BowTiedBettor Substack. Win and help win!
Welcome Avatar!
Today we’re back with more *actionable* bonus rugging content.
If you don’t remember what bonus rugging [BR] is, here’s a quick explainer:
Bonus rugging is a betting strategy that allows you to benefit from bookmakers’ free bet bonuses, offers and incentives to make risk-free profits. Unlike traditional betting, where you take on risk trying to predict an outcome, BR cleverly neutralizes all risk by taking advantage of multiple incentives across bookies and hedging your positions with counter bets, thereby guaranteeing profit.
For more details, head over to Bonus Rugging 101 or have a look at the video below (lol!).
The idea of this post is to provide you with complete BR-guides for two different US states, Arizona and New York. We’ve chosen to begin with AZ & NY for two reasons:
Primary reason: We have a decent amount of readers in both AZ & NY.
Secondary reason: Arizona is an excellent example of a *great* BR-state while on the other hand New York is one of the least interesting ones [quick trip to New Jersey can be highly profitable though!]. Understanding what makes a promotion good/bad is crucial for an aspiring bonus rugger.
Note: The majority of US sportsbooks seem to employ more or less identical welcome offers across the country. This post should therefore be of great value not only for our AZ & NY reader, but rather for all US subscribers.
In the guides we’ll describe:
Which sportsbooks to focus on.
In what order you should take advantage of the different offers [the books have been ranked 1 to N].
Exactly how to proceed with each promotion.
Note I: Our objective here has been to provide an order that makes sense from a bankroll-building standpoint, i.e. we begin with the smaller offers and [as we collect more & more money] work our way towards the larger ones. If you’ve got a significant bankroll already, feel free to execute in whatever order you prefer (if we’d do it ourselves we’d simply run through them all on day 1, not recommended for starters though).
Note II: The BR bot is up & running again, now at @bonusruggingbot. Currently setting up the cron jobs → starting tomorrow (hopefully) it’ll be posting five suitable [for BR] soccer games every day at 10.15 EST.
While reading a state guide, remember: It is a *simplified* guide.
Make sure to read the BR - Practical post *carefully* before applying any of the ideas in real life.
Always check the Terms and Conditions for any promotion you participate in [as mentioned many times before] to avoid costly mistakes.
To increase profitability, learn how to utilize the Master Calculator in order to take advantage of multiple bonus offers at once.
Let’s get to it!
Arizona
Arizona is a great state for bonus rugging [~ $4 000 value from sign-up offers alone].
DraftKings. Begin here. Sign up, make a deposit and place the $50 bonus bet you’ll be awarded on an arbitrary game of your choice [yes, you’re free to gamble this one]. As soon as the bet has been settled, you can now consider DraftKings your initial “hedge book” while en route to rug the rest of the AZ bookies.
Value: $ 30-35.
Unibet.
Offer: A risk-free bet [$100] which is paid back in bonus money [3X wagering requirement] if your first bet is lost.
Strategy: Sign up, deposit $100 & select the “NEW PLAYER OFFER | $100 Second Chance Bet”. Place your first bet at an odds > 4.00. Use the risk-free bet calculator to hedge the bet. If the bet wins, you’re done. Else, place qualifying bets (starting with the $100 bonus money) until either the account balance is zeroed out or the wagering requirements have been satisfied.
Value: $ 55-60.Expected time: 10 minutes day one, 10 minutes day two, possibly 10 minutes day three.
WynnBet.
Offer: A site credit of $100 is offered to anyone who places a wager of $100.
Strategy: Sign up, deposit $100. Place a qualifying bet of $100 at an odds of at least -120/1.84. Use the qualifying bet calculator to hedge the bet. No matter the outcome of your wager, you’ll be rewarded a $100 site credit/freebet. Place the freebet (odds > 4.00) on a suitable game & hedge it with the freebet calculator’s help.
Value: $ 60-65.Expected time: 10 minutes day one, 10 minutes day two.
Betway.
Offer: A risk-free bet [$250] which is paid back in freebet funds if your first bet loses.
Strategy: Sign up, deposit $250, place your first $250 bet at an odds > 4.00. Use the risk-free bet calculator to hedge the bet. If the bet wins, you’re done. Else, place a freebet [split it up into multiple freebets if you prefer] of $250 at, again, odds > 4. Use the freebet calculator for hedging.
Value: ~ $ 120.Expected time: 10 minutes day one, 10 minutes day two.
Desert Diamond Sports.
Offer: A $250 deposit bonus [deposit $250, receive $250 in bonus funds], 2X wagering requirements.
Strategy: Sign up, deposit $250, await the extra $250, place the full $500 bet [qualifying bet] on any suitable outcome [look for high RTP]. Use the qualifying bet calculator to hedge the bet. No matter the outcome of the game, you’re done as soon as the bet has been settled.
Value: ~ $ 220.
Expected time: 10 minutes day one.
Note: Never heard of this sportsbook before but they seem to use Kambi as their odds provider → odds should be similar/equal to Unibet [available on OddsChecker etc.] or any other Kambi sportsbook.
BetRivers.
Offer: A risk-free bet [$500] returned as a freebet if your first bet is lost.
Strategy: Sign up, deposit $500 (code SPORTS), place your first risk-free bet at an odds > 4.00. Use the risk-free bet calculator to hedge the bet. If the bet wins, you’re done. Else, place the $500 freebet on any outcome with odds > 4.00. Hedge it with the freebet calculator.
Value: ~ $250.Expected time: 10 minutes day one, 10 minutes day two.
FanDuel.
Offer: A risk-free bet [$1 000] which is paid back as a freebet if you lose your first wager.
Strategy: Sign up, deposit $1 000, place your first risk-free bet at an odds > 4.00 [slightly below 4.00 is fine as well since this is a large offer → requires some liquidity to hedge]. Use the risk-free bet calculator to hedge the bet. If the bet wins, you’re done. Else, place the $1 000 freebet on any outcome with odds > 4.00 [again, slightly below 4.00 is fine]. Hedge it with the freebet calculator.
Value: ~ $500.Expected time: 10 minutes day one, 10 minutes day two.
BetMGM.
Offer: A risk-free bet [$1 000] paid back in *five* $200 freebets if you lose your first wager.
Strategy: Sign up, deposit $1 000, place your first risk-free bet at an odds > 4.00 [slightly below 4.00 is fine as well since this is a large offer → requires some liquidity to hedge]. Use the risk-free bet calculator to hedge the bet. If the bet wins, you’re done. Else, wager the $1 000 freebet credits (5 freebets á $200) on outcomes with odds > 4.00. Hedge them using the freebet calculator.
Value: ~ $500.Expected time: 10 minutes day one, 30 minutes day two.
Hard Rock Sportsbook.
Offer: A risk-free bet [$1 000] returned as a freebet if lost.
Strategy: Sign up, deposit $1 000, place your first risk-free bet at an odds > 4.00 [slightly below 4.00 is fine as well since this is a large offer → requires some liquidity to hedge]. Use the risk-free bet calculator to hedge the bet. If the bet wins, you’re done. Else, wager the $1 000 freebet, again at odds > 4.00 . Hedge it using the freebet calculator.
Value: ~ $500.Expected time: 10 minutes day one, 10 minutes day two.
Barstool.
Offer: A risk-free bet [$1 000] which is paid back in bonus funds if you lose your first wager.
Strategy: Sign up, deposit $1 000, place your first risk-free bet at an odds > 4.00 [slightly below 4.00 is fine as well since this is a large offer → requires some liquidity to hedge]. Use the risk-free bet calculator to hedge the bet. If the bet wins, you’re done. Else, wager the $1 000 bonus funds on any outcome with odds > 1.50/-200. Hedge it with the qualifying bet calculator.
Value: ~ $600.Expected time: 10 minutes day one, 10 minutes day two.
Caesars Sportsbook.
Offer: A risk-free bet [$1 250] which is paid back as a freebet if your first bet loses.
Strategy: Sign up, deposit $1 250 with promo code CZRFULL, place your first bet at an odds > 4.00 [slightly below 4.00 is fine as well since this is a large offer → requires some liquidity to hedge]. Use the risk-free bet calculator to hedge the bet. If the bet wins, you’re done. Else, place the freebet (the $1 250 “bonus bet”) on any outcome with odds > 4.00. Hedge it with the freebet calculator.
Value: ~ $600.Expected time: 10 minutes day one, 10 minutes day two.
BetFred.
Offer: Somewhat complicated offer and we haven’t been able to find the exact details of it. If you’re in AZ, please screenshot the full T&C’s → drop it in the Discord server → we’ll quickly solve it all for you & update this post with the correct strategy.
Estimated Value: ~ $500.
Arizona total BR [sign-ups only] value is ~ $ 4 000.
After completion of the welcome offers, we’d expect an income stream along the lines of $ 2 000/mo from reload offers, freebets and so on.
New York
New York [~ $850 value from sign-up offers] is pretty bad compared to many other US states. Not too many offers available and the ones that exist are generally not of much value. However, they’re very, very easy to take advantage of so we’d still recommend going through the process. And, if you’re willing to spend a weekend (we’re not US based → haven’t tested this ourselves → make sure to check that it really works before going, lol) in New Jersey, you could make an extra ~ $4-5 000 from the NJ sign-up offers [probably #1 in the US] alone.
BetMGM, PointsBet.
No current offers, simply sign up here in order to have somewhere to hedge the bets placed at other sportsbooks.
BetRivers.
Offer: A risk-free bet [$100] which is paid back as a bonus bet if your first bet loses.
Strategy: Sign up, deposit $100 with code SPORTS, place your first bet at an odds > 4.00. Use the risk-free bet calculator to hedge the bet. If the bet wins, you’re done. Else, place the $100 freebet/bonus bet on any outcome with odds > 4.00. Hedge it with the freebet calculator.
Value: $ 60-65.Expected time: 10 minutes day one, 10 minutes day two.
DraftKings.
Offer: Deposit > $5, place a *moneyline* bet, if your bet wins you receive $150 in bonus bets + any cash winnings from your original wager once it settles.
Strategy: Sign up, deposit $10 [uncertain whether $5 is enough or if there’s a strict inequality in their promotion, heh]. Find a heavy moneyline favourite (< 1.50/-200 in odds) and bet the $10 on it. If you want to hedge it, use the qualifying calculator and input an adjusted odds of adj_odds = (15 + real decimal odds), e.g. 16.50 if 1.50 is the real odds in the “Odds” cell. If you’re confused by the previous calculation you could of course make life easy for you by instead claiming “+EV is +EV” [which is TRUE] and simply hope the bet wins.
If the first bet wins, apply a standard qualifying bet strategy to extract the value from your bonus bets. If it loses, you’re done with DK.Value: $ 80-85.
Expected time: 5 minutes day one, 20 minutes day two (apparently they enjoy wasting our time by splitting the $150 into 6 different bonus bets).
FanDuel.
More or less a copy pasta [apply identical strategy] of DraftKings above. Minimum deposit $10 to qualify for the “Bet $5 Get $150 in Bonus Bets”.
Caesars Sportsbook.
Offer: A risk-free bet [$1 250] which is paid back as a freebet if your first bet loses.
Strategy: Sign up, deposit $1 250 with code CZRFULL, place your first bet at an odds > 4.00 [slightly below 4.00 is fine as well since this is a large offer → requires some liquidity to hedge]. Use the risk-free bet calculator to hedge the bet. If the bet wins, you’re done. Else, place the freebet (the $1 250 “bonus bet”) on any outcome with odds > 4.00. Hedge it by utilizing the freebet calculator.
Value: ~ $600.Expected time: 10 minutes day one, 10 minutes day two.
New York total BR [sign-ups only] value is ~ $850.
Conclusion
That’s all for today. If you’ve got any questions and/or found any errors in today’s post [fair line at 3.5 errors? Spending the night going through sportsbook welcome offers isn’t *that* enjoyable, heh], please ask/state them in the comments section below, on Twitter, or in our Discord server.
And of course, good luck with your BR career!
We have a couple of interesting posts coming up, most likely in the following order: Q&A → Bayes → Web Scraping → Simpson’s Paradox [in betting] → Kelly. In between those we’ll probably throw in another “BR - Breakdown by state” post with information on two-three new states as well.
Until next time…
Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind. These are *opinions* written by an anonymous group of mathematicians who moved into betting.
What are your thoughts on offshore sports books? For people who live in US states where betting is not available
Hey BTB, do you know of anyone from Utah doing this, if so is there a worth while strategy in Utah?