Best betting promotions

Online bookmakers offer not only free bets or a deposit bonus upon registration, but also a selection of betting promotions that customers can claim on a regular basis after they have signed up.

Log on to any of the top betting sites in the UK and you will find a variety of promotions that can be claimed by all customers - not just those that are new to that bookie.

Many promotions are ongoing, while others are connected to a particular game or event.

New online betting promotions usually appear around the beginning of football competitions, golf majors, big horse racing meetings, and other events that get a lot of attention from sports fans and punters.

Bookiesbonuses.com is all about betting promotions and offers. We have seen many different types of promos come and go over the years, and we list all of the best ones on pages such as this.

All betting promotions can look good on the face of it, but some might not be as generous as they first appear.

Size of stake & bonus

Most betting promotions require you to actually place an initial bet in order to qualify for the offer. 

For sign up offers, if it is a free bet offer your initial bet is usually matched at least 100%, or sometimes even more, as is the case with Bet £10 Get £30 offers.

For similar 'Bet & Get' existing customer promotions, the bonus amount might not be as big.

A 50% free bet bonus is still fair for existing players, but anything less than that and you might begin to question whether it is worth it, unless you were planning on placing the bets anyway.

Money back terms

A lot of existing customer betting promotions are based around getting your money back as a free bet if certain events occur, such as your horse finishing second to the favourite, or a football team conceding a late goal.

We rank these betting promotions based on the actual likelihood of the bettor getting his or her money back. 

In racing, money back if 2nd, 3rd, or 4th is obviously a lot better than money back if 2nd to SP favourite.

Minimum odds

The minimum odds for qualifying bets on betting promotions play a big part in determining how good the offer is. 

Whether it is a free bet promotion, acca bonus, acca insurance, or money back special, the chances are that your selections will need to meet a certain odds threshold.

With lower minimum odds, you are not forced to take long shots, meaning your actual bets may have a greater chance of winning.

Value

No matter which aspect of betting sites you look into, the most important thing that it always comes down to is value. This is particularly relevant with enhanced odds offers.

The odds boost or other betting promotion may look great and be presented well - but does it actually represent value?

The vast majority of betting sites offer a welcome bonus of some description. These deals usually remain the same for a long period of time, but various bookmakers may alter their sign up offers around big events, or have different new customer betting promotions for punters to choose from.

While welcome offers are generally the most lucrative in the short term, the long-term benefits of regular existing customer promotions can be greater.

You can expect bigger and better new account betting promotions around events such as the Cheltenham Festival, where there is a full programme of racing throughout the week and betting sites want users to stick with them during it.

Enhanced odds new customer offers are common around big football matches, boxing fights, horse races, and other big events.

During your time with a bookmaker, you will be able to claim a variety of betting promotions. The most reputable and popular betting sites tend to have the most promos so that they can retain their players.

Weekly, ongoing offers such as the Paddy's Rewards Club and the Betway Free Bet Club are some of the best online betting promotions for registered players, and those sites also have plenty of other deals on tap.

Many of the other top bookies also have regular deals, as well as seasonal promotions such as bet boosts and money back specials.

Best Existing Customer Betting Promotions

1. Paddy Power - Paddy's Rewards Club
2. Bet365 - Early Payout
3. Ladbrokes - Acca Boost
4. William Hill - Racing Bet Boosts
5. Betfair - Free Bet Streak
6. Betway - Free Bet Club
7. BetVictor - Free Bet Offers
8. 888sport - Best Odds Guaranteed
9. Grosvenor - VAR Offer
10. Betfred - Extra Place Races

Enhanced odds are often taken advantage of by punters, and the likes of William Hill and Ladbrokes are great for this.

In the UK, free bets are the most popular type of betting offers that users can receive. They can pop up on sites like Bet365, who occasionally offer in-play free bets when you place a pre-match wager on a certain game.

Many betting sites offer free bet promotions in which if you wager a certain amount then you will be given a free bet after the placement or settlement of your bet. In some instances, the free bet is only given if the bet loses. In others, it is given regardless if the bet wins or loses.

Free bets can also be handed out to players personally, via email, phone, and text, as a reward to loyal customers.

Ladbrokes and Coral are two of the best betting sites for free bet promotions. As you may have seen advertised on TV from time to time, they sometimes give existing customers free bets without even having to place a qualifying bet.

Paddy Power also reward customers with no deposit free bet promotions occasionally - usually around big horse races or football matches.

While spontaneous free bet promotions are always well received by punters, there are also a number of ongoing deals that allow users of certain betting sites to claim free bets on a regular basis.

Enhanced odds have become so common among UK betting sites now, with many of the top UK bookmakers offering north of half a dozen odds boosts on every major football match.

Each of the betting sites that offer enhanced odds may call them different things depending on how they want to market them. Betway are known for their 'Betway Boost' section, while VBet simply go for 'Boosted Odds' and on ZetBet you can 'Boost your Zet Bets'.

Most enhanced odds betting promotions have the markets set by the bookmaker, but some bookies allow users to choose which odds they want to boost.

Best Bookies for Enhanced Odds

1. William Hill - Boosts every day
2. Ladbrokes - Choose what you want boosted
3. Unibet - 'Uniboost' for racing
4. Paddy Power - Earn 'Power Up' odds boosts
5. Betway - Betway Boosts section

The world's most popular sport, football, is of course surrounded by a lot of betting promotions. Many of the promos listed on this page are applicable to football betting, while some are in fact only relevant to this particular sport.

Most enhanced odds offers that you see on betting sites will be for football, and the same can be said for accumulator promos.

Top betting sites such as Betway, Paddy Power, and Bet365 have outstanding football betting offers.

Best Football Betting Promotions

1. Free bets
2. Enhanced odds
3. Money back
4. Acca insurance
5. Early payout
6. Acca boost

You won't have to look very hard in order to find the football betting promotions with each online bookmaker, as they will usually be displayed quite a lot across the site.

Enhanced odds can often be found when you click into a game, while more longstanding offers such as Acca insurance may be promoted within the football betting section itself.

This type of betting promotion is often specific to football but some betting sites open it up to all sports. With Acca insurance, you get your money back, usually as a free bet, if one leg of your accumulator lets you down.

An exception to the usual Acca insurance format is Betfair's Acca Edge, which allows users to get a cash refund if one pick lets them down but the odds are reduced in this instance.

Ladbrokes is considered one of the best betting sites for accumulators because as well as the Acca insurance, you can also get an Acca boost and edit your accas if you wish.

In the case of Ladbrokes, the Acca insurance promotion is eligible on the following football markets - Match Result, Both Teams to Score, Match Result and Both Teams to Score, Correct Score, and Total Goals Over/Under.

Each Acca insurance promotion will have different minimum odds requirements, and while most require 5+ selections, this is not the case with every promo.

Landing an accumulator is hard enough, so you want to be paid properly when you do manage to pull one off. That is why Acca bonus or Acca boost betting promotions are loved so much by punters.

Acca bonus and Acca boost mean pretty much the same thing, but there are some small differences. Usually with an acca bonus, you get your extra winnings as a percentage of your usual profit, and they can sometimes be paid as free bets.

An acca boost, as offered by Ladbrokes, usually involves the odds being boosted before you place your wager, and it is always paid fully in cash.

Mr Play call their version of this offer 'PlayBoost', and with this you can boost your winnings up to 77%.

'Money back' covers a rather wide scope of online betting promotions, and various betting sites implement them in a number of ways.

Within football betting, certain promotions allow you to get your money back if the game finishes 0-0 or if your team concedes late. Paddy Power often offer money back if a certain team wins or a particular player scores in a selected match.

Horse racing is the other sport in which you will see a lot of money back betting promotions. Many of the top betting sites have offered money back if a horse falls, finishes 2nd, or is beaten by a length.

Early payout is not necessarily one of the most common betting promotions, but it is certainly among the very best. 

Paddy Power and Bet365 have offered this promo to football bettors and the premise of it is that your pre-match football selection is marked as a winner if your team goes two goals up at any point.

The match winner market is the only one that is eligible, and it may only be available on certain leagues, so be sure to check the terms.

Football is not the only sport in which you can get an Early Payout betting promotion. Betway have had a You Lead, You Win offer for the NBA and for the PGA Tour, while Bet365 have Early Payout for MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA, and Euro Basketball.

Alongside football, horse racing betting promotions are among the most common and popular deals on UK betting sites.

Free bets, enhanced odds, and money back specials are as prevalent within horse racing betting as they are for football betting, but there are some other promos that are exclusive to racing.

Extra Places betting promotions

When you bet on horse racing, you can place each-way bets, meaning that half of your stake goes on the horse to win, and the other half on the horse to place, i.e. finish in the top two, three, or four places depending on the size of the race.

While the standard place payouts are the top two places in races with 5-7 runners, three places for more than 8 runners, and four places for 16+ runners, extra place betting promotions allow punters to take advantage of more favourable each-way terms, and increase their chances of securing a return on the place part of their each-way wager.

Best Odds Guaranteed betting promotions

Racing betting odds fluctuate a lot on the day of a race, and the Best Odds Guaranteed promotion eliminates some of the risk of taking a price that is a lot shorter than the starting price of a particular horse.

If you back a horse on the morning of a race at 3/1, but by the time the race starts in the afternoon it has drifted to 5/1, you will be paid at 5/1 if it wins.

Most betting sites implement this promotion for UK & Irish horse racing, while some also include international meetings and greyhound racing.

On each betting site, there is a set time from which racing bets are eligible for Best Odds Guaranteed. With some it can be as late as 10am, others are 8am, but with Bet365 you can place your bets the night before and still qualify, as long as a fixed price is offered.