The Best Football Betting Offers – Boosters, Insurances and Many More
With the world of sports betting being highly competitive, bookmakers are constantly offering free bets and other football betting promotions to win your business. This is great news for us as most of these football betting offers can be converted into cold, hard cash. But what’s the best way to make sure you don’t miss out on any offers?
The quickest and easiest way is to keep returning to our website. We’ll keep you updated with the latest football betting offers and let you know how to take advantage of them, as well as warn you of any sneaky terms and conditions.
Top Football Betting Promotions
| # | Bookie | Offers | Min. Odds | Bonus | Rating | Review | Bet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Unibet Review |
|
Money back up to £40 + £10 Casino | 9/10 |
Unibet Review | Claim Now | |
| 18+ begambleaware.org. New customers only. Min deposit £10. Money back as bonus if first bet loses. Wagering requirements: all sportsbook 3x at min. odds of 1.40 (2/5), casino 50x. Unless forfeited the sportsbook bonus must be wagered before using the casino bonus. Bonus expires 7 days after opt-in. Full T&C's apply.. #AD | |||||||
| 2 | Betfair Review |
|
1/2 (1.5) | £20 Free Bet on the Exchange | 9/10 |
Betfair Review | Claim Now |
| 3 | bet365 Review |
|
1/5 (1.20) | Up to £30* in Free bets | 8/10 |
bet365 Review | Claim Now |
| New Customers only. Bet £10* & Get £30* in Free Bets. Sign up, deposit between £5* and £10* to your account and bet365 will give you three times that value in Free Bets when you place qualifying bets to the same value and they are settled. Free Bets are paid as Bet Credits. Min odds/bet and payment method exclusions apply. Returns exclude Bet Credits stake. Registration required, T&Cs, time limits & exclusions apply. #AD | |||||||
| 4 | 10bet Review |
|
50% matched bonus up to £50 | 8/10 |
10bet Review | Claim Now | |
| 5 | William Hill Review |
|
1/2 (1.50) | Bet £10 and Get £30* in Free Bets | 8/10 |
William Hill Review | Claim Now |
| *New customers using Promo Code P30 only, min £10/€10 stake, min odds 1/2, free bets paid as 2 x £15/€15 (30 days expiry), free bet/payment method/player/country restrictions apply. | |||||||
| 6 | 888sport Review |
|
1/2 (1.5) | Bet £10 and Get £30 in Free Bets | 10/10 |
888sport Review | Claim Now |
It makes sense to opt-in to all marketing communications with each bookmaker too. That way, you should be notified by email whenever an offer becomes available.
Be careful, and always check the terms and conditions of any promotions. Some offers look great at first glance but have restrictive rules that actually make it very hard to win money. These are rare, but still worth being aware of.
For your convenience, we have selected the current top football offers:
£20 risk-free exchange bet
Betfair are offering a £20 risk-free bet for new customers on their betting exchange. Instead of getting a free bet, you get your £20 refunded if the bet loses. You could either place a bet at high odds and hope that it wins, safe in the knowledge your stake will be refunded if it doesn’t win or use matched betting principles to guarantee a profit. We advise the latter.
If you’re out for the biggest sign-up offer, then take the Betfair Sportsbook new customer promotion. This gives you up to £100 in free bets. Just register and verify your account then place 5x £10 bets at odds of 1.5 (1/2) or higher to receive a £20 free bet. You can do this up to 5 times to pocket £100 in free bets.
Once you have signed up, you can make up to £50 in free bets by referring friends. They will have to register, verify their account, deposit money and place a certain level of bets. Once they have met the criteria, you will get a £10 free bet. Again, you can do this 5 times.
Bet £10 Get £30 in free bets
Unibet’s welcome bonus is a risk-free bet of up to £40. Place your bet and, if it loses, Unibet will refund it as a £40 bonus. This bonus needs to be “rolled over” three times at minimum odds of 1.4 (2/5) before it can be withdrawn, i.e., you will have to make a total of £120 in bets. The usual way to achieve this is by betting £40 at 1.4, hope it wins, do the same again and then once more. Clearly, there is a good chance that the bonus will be lost before you can withdraw it – and you only get the bonus if your first bet loses. Thankfully you can get around this by using matched betting techniques.
Unibet also give you £10 to use in their casino, with 25x wagering requirements. Unibet also offer their In-Play Free Bet Club. This is a great in-play football betting offer that grants you a £10 free bet, providing you place 5x £10 in-play football bets between Monday and Sunday of the previous week.
Get £10 In a Risk-Free Bet
To qualify for Paddy Power’s welcome bonus, you just need to make a £10 bet at odds of 1.5 (1/2) Do this, and you’ll be credited with £10 in free bets/plays. Your deposit needs to be made by either card or Apple Pay.
Paddy Power have other special football offers too, including their Paddy’s Rewards Club. This gives you either a free £5 bet or free £10 bet each week for placing 5x £5 or 5x £10 bets at odds of 1.5 (1/2). In addition to the free bet, you get a Power Up, which can be used to increase the odds of certain bets. Paddy Power also offer football accumulator insurance for accas with 4 or more legs, giving you a free up to £10, if your acca fails by one leg.
Understanding the Different Types of Welcome Bonus
There are two types of football betting offers: the welcome bonus and loyalty rewards. As the names suggest, the welcome bonus is for new customers, and loyalty rewards are ongoing promotions for existing customers.
Welcome bonuses – also known as sign-up offers – can take different forms, however.
Deposit match The bookmaker matches your deposit up to a certain percentage. For instance, bet365 match 100% of your deposit, up to £100. 10bet match 50% of your first deposit, up to £50. There are usually wagering and deposit method requirements for these, so check the terms and conditions.
Free bets The most common form of football betting sign-up offer is the free bet. Bet £5-10 and be rewarded with anything up to £40 in free bets. The terms and conditions vary widely by bookmaker and offer. Betfair, Paddy Power and William Hill all offer free bets as a welcome bonus.
There Is Even a ‘No-Deposit Bonus’
Some sportsbooks will even go as far as to offer a welcome bonus without requiring a deposit. These are rare and usually, involve tough wagering requirements such as a 10x rollover at odds at minimum odds of 1.7 (7/10) before any winning can be withdrawn.
What Are Wagering Requirements?
Read the terms and conditions of football betting bonuses, and you’re likely to encounter wagering requirements. You need to satisfy all of them before withdrawing your bonus and any winnings. Learn what terms such as rollover, minimum odds, and qualifying bets mean, and there will be no nasty surprises.
Rollover If you could just withdraw the deposit bonus from your betting account straight away, you would double your money with zero risk… and bookies are not charities. You will need to risk your capital and bonus by meeting the rollover requirements. If the rollover is five times (5x), you need to place bets totalling five times the deposit + bonus.
Validity Bookmakers may exclude some bets from the football betting promo, limiting the eligible markets to football or Match Odds markets.
Minimum odds You might decide to play it safe and bet on “bankers” like Man City vs Norwich. However, these won’t meet the minimum odds criteria, which are usually set around 1.5 but can be as high as 2.0. Notice also that odds of 1.5 suggest a 67% chance of winning and a 33% (or 1/3) chance of losing. If you have to rollover the bonus three times, one bet is likely to lose.
Time frame Bookmakers usually demand that punters meet the rollover requirements within 30 days. If you need to make £500 of bets at that time, you may have to place larger bets than you’re usually comfortable with.
What Are Free Bets?
The free bet is the most common football betting offer used by bookmakers. There are in-play football betting offers that give free bets for placing a certain level of bets in games after kick-off and weekly rewards for betting on five or more football matches.
You might get free bets as part of a bookie’s football accumulator insurance too. If your acca bet fails by one leg, the sportsbook will often give you a free bet to compensate. Terms and conditions vary between bookmakers.
Football Betting Offers at Betfair
- Betfair
-
Free bets and price boosts
Various promotional offers
Top rated by bettors and exprerts -
Sign-up Offer
100% match on first deposit
up to £20.00 -
Welcome Bonus
£20 Free Bet
on the Exchange -
Betfair Boost
Daily Price Boosts to increase
your winnings
How Do You Use Free Bets?
Once you have met the criteria for the free bet promotion, it will usually be credited to your account automatically, often within minutes. Check the terms and conditions associated with the free bet in case there are minimum odds, specific markets or other restrictions.
Bear in mind that free bets do not include the stake in your winnings. If you wager a £10 free bet on a 1.5 outcome and win, you get the £5 winnings but not the £10 stake returned. Of course, there was no stake, it was a free bet.
Other Football Special Promotions
Bookies are always coming up with new promotions designed to make placing a bet with them more attractive. From football enhanced odds to live football betting offers, here are some of the more common promotions you may encounter:
Acca Insurance Most of the time, acca football offers give you your stake back if one leg fails to win (exactly one leg – no free bet if two or more fail to win). Football accumulators are notoriously poor value as they compound any lack of value in the individual bets. They remain popular among punters looking for a big win from small stakes, however, and acca insurance reduces the risk of losing. William Hill and Paddy Power offer football acca insurance currently.
Acca Boost Add five or more legs and get enhanced odds on the acca price. Football acca boosters offer more value to customers and can be found at bet365 and 10bet.
Event-specific Bonus These bonuses are awarded for betting on specific matches or competitions and can reward punters with free or risk-free bets. These special football offers might run all season or just pop-up for specific matches.
Best Odds Guaranteed More usually seen in horse-racing than football, best odds guaranteed pays out at the starting price (SP) if it’s higher than the odds taken by the punter.
Odds Boost/Price Boost Some bookies will offer enhanced odds on specific football markets on the day of the event. William Hill and Sky Sports are two sportsbooks known for offering football enhanced odds regularly. Usually seen on set trebles or events like “Raheem Sterling to score twice”.
Referral Bonus Refer friends to a sportsbook, and they will reward you with cash or free bets. Many bookies have something like this football betting offer, Unibet and Betfair among them.
Cross-platform Bonus Many bookies also run online casinos and will give you free spins or plays on their casino games in a bid to get you interested.
Cashback This type of incentive is usually seen as part of a bookmaker’s loyalty programme, offering a percentage of your monthly net losses back as cash.
Betting Competitions Sportsbooks also run competitions such as Betway’s 4-to-Score promotion, offering you a chance to win thousands of pounds by guessing the first goalscorer in four selected matches. Betfair’s Beat the Drop is another betting game, starting players out with £1 million, a sum that needs to be split between outcomes such as over/under 2.5 goals, twenty times. Whatever remains at the end, you keep!
Payment-specific Bonus Some bookmakers used to offer incentives for using a particular payment type. You’re more likely to see the opposite nowadays – a bonus being denied for using some payment methods.
Live-betting Bonus Get rewarded for making a number of in-play football bets. Unibet’s In-Play Free Bet Club is this type of live football betting offer.
It Is Always Nice to Be Appreciated and Rewarded
While the exact nature of the loyalty schemes varies between bookmakers, they usually involve the following:
- Loyalty points - Each pound staked accumulates a certain amount of points. These points then trigger rewards like free bets, casino spins and cashback.
- Loyalty tiers - You’re assigned a tier based on your betting activity. Each tier offers rewards, prizes, preferential treatment and things like lower commission rates.
- Prizes - Again, usually associated with your betting activity, bookmakers will offer free bets, football enhanced odds, match tickets and even VIP trips abroad.
League-Specific Bonuses
While most punters bet at the individual match level, the League/Cup Winner markets are hugely popular too. The downside of these is that you usually must wait until the end of the season to find out if your bet is a winner. There are upsides, however.
One is that you can enter and exit the market many times over the course of a season, guaranteeing profit if you predict the ebb and flow accurately. For instance, if you judge Liverpool to have the easiest early fixtures, you could bet on them to win the league before the season starts and cash out after 10 games if they take an early lead. Then reinvest on the team you expect to gather steam in the next 10 games.
.The other advantage is the competition-specific bonuses offered by some football bookmakers. Bet on a team to win the competition, and you can be rewarded with free bets. There are other types of reward, too, including:
Early Payout if Your Team Goes 2 Goals Up
The most popular league attracts great competition among bookmakers. Paddy Power payout early if your team goes 2 goals up – regardless of what happens in the rest of the match.
Get £10 In a Risk-Free Bet
With many big teams taking Europe’s secondary competition seriously, interest in the Europa League has exploded in recent years. Betfred usually include at least one Europa League match in their Double Delight/Hat-trick Heaven offer. This gives you either 2x or 3x your first goalscorer price if they go on to get a second or complete their hat-trick.
Early Payout if Your Team Goes 2 Goals Up
Many football betting offers apply to the German Bundesliga too, including bet365’s “2 goals ahead early payout” promotion.
Choosing the Right Football Promotion
There are so many different football betting offers that you’re going to need to focus exclusively on the best. The following principles will help you maximise value from the various special football offers.
- Return on Investment - How big is the reward compared to your stake? A 100% matched deposit gives you an extra £1 per every £1 you deposit, a return on investment (ROI) of 100%. However, a sign-up offer of £30 in free bets for placing a £10 wager gives you a 300% return. Of course, you might want to take advantage of both, but it makes sense to do the high RoI bets first, rapidly increasing your bankroll with minimum risk.
- Relative Risk - Balancing risk and reward is at the heart of successful football betting. Consider the wagering requirements of each promotion. If two bookmakers are offering 100% matched deposits, but the first asks you to rollover the bonus once at odds of 1.5 and the second specifies a 5x rollover at odds of 2.0, it’s going to be much easier to make money with the first.
- Personal Situation - How much do you bet? If you’re placing around £50 of bets in an average month, maybe you shouldn’t go after that £200 welcome bonus that will need you to place £1200 of bets in 30 days. Similarly, if you have a limited bankroll, it makes sense to build up your bankroll with smaller football betting offers before going after the high-value promotions.
Football Betting Promotions Boost Your Profit
Used correctly, the best football betting offers will boost your profitability. Even if you don’t use matched betting techniques every time, they will reduce your risk or increase your reward. Just remember to be selective and get bonuses for betting, instead of betting for bonuses.
Frequently Asked Questions
🎁Q: Can I Take Advantage of Both Welcome Bonuses and Betting Promotions?
💬A: Yes, you can – although most likely not at the same time. Sportsbooks will nearly always demand that your first bet is made with money that you have deposited. Place your qualifying bet, take advantage of your welcome bonus or free bet and then turn your attention to the various other football betting offers.
If you have been awarded a matched deposit bonus, you should be able to use that in conjunction with something like acca insurance. Still, check the terms and conditions for each offer to make sure you’re staying compliant.
💸Q: Can You Make Money from Free Bets?
💬A:Yes. Once you know how this can be done fairly easily using the matched betting method. This is a way of guaranteeing profit from your free bet by placing an opposing bet (a lay bet) at the betting exchange. For example, you get a free £10 bet and decide to bet it on over 4.5 goals in the Chelsea-Leicester match at odds of 6.4. You can lay this outcome (bet against it) at odds of 6.6 at the exchange.
Using a free matched betting calculator, you work out your lay stake depending on the odds being offered, selecting SNR (stake not returned) as this is a free bet. That will tell you to lay £8.18 to guarantee an overall profit of £8.18. You will be guaranteeing over 80% of the free bet value as cash.
Note: when choosing markets for matched betting, you will be able to extract more money from the free bet by choosing higher odds (over 5) and back/lay prices that are closer together. Higher prices will involve you putting up more money to cover the lay bet, however. In the above example, you would have to put up £45.81 in the exchange. You will, of course, get this back with a profit.
💰Q: Why Are Best-Odds-Guaranteed Bets Rare for Football?
💬A: Best odds guaranteed are usually seen in pari-mutuel betting systems such as horse racing. The starting price for these events depends upon the number of people who backed each horse and can change all the way up to the start of the race. This system is more suited to events with definite winners. As football has the possibility of a draw, fixed odds are the standard.
The big horse-racing events will combine free bet offers with Best Odds Guaranteed promotions, Cheltenham free bets and Grand National free bets being especially popular.