It doesn’t matter what field of betting that you may be interested in, Free Bets are available now and are here to stay. Why? Online Sports Betting Bookmakers in particular need a way of encouraging new customers to register with them. Like many other businesses, a free gift, voucher or welcome bonus that carries a money value is a perfectly legitimate and fair way of getting new customers on board and in their database!
In the betting world it’s the same. A bookmaker will offer their free bet to newly registered punters when they create their online account. It’s very similar to the way a bank gives you a 20 pounds shopping voucher when you open a savings account with them. The voucher has a real value and is something you can use.
Free Bets carry a real cash value. If you register with a bookmaker and they offer you 25 pound in free bets then you can deposit as much as you wish between 10 and 25 and receive a match of your deposit from them to a maximum of the free bet value offer.
Therefore, if you’ve deposited 10, you’ll receive the same to bring your available betting fund to 20 GBP. This ten pounds from the bookmaker is your Free Bet and you can deposit up to the free bets offer value (in this case 25 quid) but if you deposit over this amount, you won’t receive any further match.
There are a few types of free bets, with some bookmakers giving a smaller free bet but over a few weeks, each week you receive a certain free bet value after you’ve placed bets from using the previous weeks free bet. This is useful to punters who may be weekly paid and can’t stump up the full amount they want at the beginning of a month.
Some bookmakers have other provisos that you can receive a certain free bet and use that within a certain time period, then claim another and so on or if you use the free bet and then place a certain number of consecutive bets to qualify for another.
A mistake a lot of people make is to think that free bets are just for sports betting. This is absolutely not true and indeed couldn’t be further from the truth. Outside Sports Betting is what is termed “Events Betting” which embraces almost anything you could think of that isn’t sports!
Examples of these areas are Financials, Weather, Music Betting, Next Prime Minister, next England Football Manager and so on. The list really is endless. Bookmakers offer odds on all these types of events but more importantly offer free bets to new customers who want to bet on them. Remember that a free bet is something that is used to add funds to your account, not to encourage you to bet on anything in particular.
If you want to bet on the Eurovision Song Contest, then create your account in the usual way, qualify and receive the welcoming free bet and you are free to bet on anything the bookie offers odds on, in this example - Eurovision.
So get looking around for free bets offers from most of the bookmakers to add to your betting budget. It really is an easy way to double your fund before you’ve done anything. There have been free bets offered as high as 250 pounds.
Shaun Parker has been involved with free bets for several years now. For more information visit Free Betting Online
I’ve never been in a bookies office, but the idea of spread betting in the comfort of my own home offers significantly greater appeal, and there are a number of websites I can look to find ideas. Spread betting offers a more interesting bet on the difference between two teams’ scores, or the likely total outcome of goals, points or scores in a sporting event, than traditional sports betting.
With the proliferation of online bookmakers, and peer-to-peer or exchange betting sites, you can also make a bet online, potentially against real bettors, rather than bookmakers. But to begin with, it might be more straightforward to get to grips with the basics of spread betting, and find out what you can potentially win (or lose)!
The bookmaker’s interest in spread betting is to encourage people to make a wider range of bets. In the US, this is usually applied to the difference in scores between two football or baseball teams. In the UK, it tends to be applied to the total amount of goals or corners during a football match.
In spread betting, a bettor bets on a difference score (an index), rather than a win outcome. For example in a game between Aston Villa and Chelsea, a bookmaker might offer a spread of between two and three as the total number of goals scored (this could be a decimal figure). As a bettor, you could choose to ‘buy’ when you believe the total number of goals will be greater than three, or ’sell’ where you believe the outcome will be less than two (the lower end of the bookie’s range).
The amount you stake will normally have a maximum limit. If you believe, contrary to the bookmaker, that this will be a high-scoring game, then you will ‘buy’ for a score above an upper limit.
Say your stake was 10 quid, then for a 3-2 outcome (a total of 5 goals) then you would receive 10 GBP (your original stake) for every point or goal above the upper limit of three, which would mean 2 X 10 = 20 pounds. If the outcome was 1-0 to Chelsea, you’d lose by threepoints (3 x 10=30 pounds). Obviously, you’d need to have enough in your account to cover the worst-case scenario.
The same could be applied to horse racing, where the spread would be the total number of points awarded to the bookie’s favourite, second favourite and third favourite horses. You could bet on a US football game, following the American style of betting on the difference between the two teams’ scores. Or if cricket is your preferred sport, you could choose to bet on the total number of runs made by an individual player either side of a certain range.
The history of spread betting
Before the invention of spread betting, people were likely to bet on a standard win or lose situation such as that favourite Chelsea would beat Aston Villa by an odds of three to one, or that underdog Colchester United would beat Arsenal depite the odds being 6 to 1.
Spread betting was invented by American Charles McNeil in the 1950s, a one-time maths teacher, and gambling afficionado who had opened his own bookmaking operation. He believed that he could determine not just who would win, but by how much, and being something of a whizz, he generally got it right.
Online spread betting
These days, you have a number of places to find out about or make your first spread bet. You can go directly to a high street bookmaker to open an account in the light of a future match. Or you could visit an online gaming site, where you may be able to benefit from introductory offers and read articles about how to find out more about spread betting.
Introductory offers could include cashback for a certain number of bets - have a look around to find the deals that suit you best and at odds that make sense to you. Peer-to-peer or exchange betting sites match potential betters with opposing views on the likely outcome of a sporting event, so that they bet directly against each other.
Perhaps the best thing about spread betting is that it offers a way for people to combine the old-fashioned skill of the football pools with the ease of modern technology.
Shaun Parker has been spread betting for several years now. To learn more about this for of gambling visit
Spread Betting is a relatively new innovation and differs from conventional fixed-odds betting. Punters can spread bet on sports events and financial markets. Bets are normally made on a final result or final score. In sports like cricket, football and rugby, spread betting falls into two main categories - namely, Total Number Bets, Supremacy and Match Bets. Winners are those who correctly predict the number of goals or points scored in a football or rugby match.
Total Number Bets
The key factor is the spread - that is, the difference between the prices at which a punter can back his selected team to do well and/or badly. Take the example of a cricket test match - India versus England. England to bat first.
The spread bet will be based on how many runs England score in their first innings. The spread, might be set at 320 - 380. This means England are expected to score between 320 and 380 runs. If a punter thinks that England could score a total of 430, he will Buy at the higher score quoted of 380.
If, on the other hand, a punter thinks England will score nearer 300 runs, he would Sell at the lower quote of 320 (Punters always Buy at the higher quote and Sell at the lower). Punters specify the amount per run they wish to bet. For example, if a punter thinks England will do well, he may Buy for 2 pound per run at 380. This means for every run over 380 that England score, the punter wins 2 pounds. So, if England make 450 runs, the punter’s total winnings will be 140 - (450-380) x 2 = 140 GBP.
But for every run below 320 that England total, the punter loses two pounds. If England are all out for 300, then his loss is 40 - (320-300) x 2 = 40 quid. If a punter decides England will do badly, he could Sell for 2 pound per run at 320. So for every run below 320 that England score, he would win 2 pounds.
A final England score of 250 would mean a profit to the punter of 140 - (320-250) x 2 = 140 quid. But for every run scored above 320, the punter loses 2, and if England’s total was 400 runs, the punter would lose 160 - (400-320) x 2 = 160 GBP.
In spread betting, winnings and losses are made in proportion to whatever unit stake is chosen. However, the unit stake is not the limit of a punter’s risk. A 10 pound bet with a bookmaker means that all a punter can lose is his tenner, whereas, a ten pound per run bet on a cricket match can mean a win, or loss, of many times the 10 pound unit stake.
Supremacy and Match Bets
In the case of supremacy and match bets, the focus is on how much a team will win by. A punter’s bet is based on the margin of victory of one team over another. A good supremacy example would be a rugby match between say, South Africa and France - the spread 18 - 24. This means that South Africa are fancied to beat France by between 18 and 24 points (the team on the left being the favourite).
If a punter believes South Africa will win by more than 24 points, he would Buy at 24 (the high end of the spread) for, say, 10 quid per point. And if South Africa win 50-20, a margin of 30 points, then the punter would win 60 pounds - (Margin of 30-24) x 10 = 60 GBP.
Shaun Parker is well known for information on Spread Betting gambling, and much more. For more information, gambling tips and tricks visit Free Betting Online
It doesn’t matter what field of betting that you may be interested in, Free Bets are available now and are here to stay. Why? Online Sports Betting Bookmakers in particular need a way of encouraging new customers to register with them. Like many other businesses, a free gift, voucher or welcome bonus that carries a money value is a perfectly legitimate and fair way of getting new customers on board and in their database!
In the betting world it’s the same. A bookmaker will offer their free bet to newly registered punters when they create their online account. It’s very similar to the way a bank gives you a 20 pound shopping voucher when you open a savings account with them. The voucher has a real value and is something you can use.
Free Bets carry a real cash value. If you register with a bookmaker and they offer you 25 quid in free bets then you can deposit as much as you wish between 10-25 pounds and receive a match of your deposit from them to a maximum of the free bet value offer.
Therefore, if you’ve deposited 10 pounds, you’ll receive the same to bring your available betting fund to 20. This 10 GBP from the bookmaker is your Free Bet and you can deposit up to the free bets offer value (in this case 25) but if you deposit over this amount, you won’t receive any further match.
There are a few types of free bets, with some bookmakers giving a smaller free bet but over a few weeks, each week you receive a certain free bet value after you’ve placed bets from using the previous weeks free bet. This is useful to punters who may be weekly paid and can’t stump up the full amount they want at the beginning of a month.
Some bookmakers have other provisos that you can receive a certain free bet and use that within a certain time period, then claim another and so on or if you use the free bet and then place a certain number of consecutive bets to qualify for another.
A mistake a lot of people make is to think that free bets are just for sports betting. This is absolutely not true and indeed couldn’t be further from the truth. Outside Sports Betting is what is termed “Events Betting” which embraces almost anything you could think of that isn’t sports!
Examples of these areas are Financials, Weather, Music, Next Prime Minister Betting, next England Football Manager and so on. The list really is endless. Bookmakers offer odds on all these types of events but more importantly offer free bets to new customers who want to bet on them.
Remember this is something that is used to add funds to your account, not to encourage you to bet on anything in particular. If you want to bet on the Eurovision Song Contest, then create your account in the usual way, qualify and receive the welcoming free bet and you are free to bet on anything the bookie offers odds on, in this example - Eurovision.
So get looking around for free bets offers from most of the bookmakers to add to your betting budget. It really is an easy way to double your fund before you’ve done anything. There have been free bets offered as high as 250 pounds.
Did you know you can place Free Bets on practically any event or sporting outcome?
In the world of online sports betting, one of the regularly used features of a bookmaker is the “Free Bet” offer which is used as a sign-up bonus when new customers register with them.
If you’re new to the betting world, you may not know of this type of reward for joining a bookmaker online but as you become more familiar and comfortable with this pastime, you’ll come across more and more free bets in different forms from the major, established names in sports betting.
An example of this is when you fancy a flutter on an upcoming sporting event, say the Grand National Horse Race. So, you go online and find a bookmaker that gives you good odds on the horse of your choice. You register with the bookmaker, you create your account with them, and you then need to fund that account.
Let’s say you make a first deposit of 25 pounds. This bookmaker had advertised on their home page that they offer a 25 pounds free bet to new customers, which means that they will now match the deposit you have made, giving you a total of 50 pounds in your sports betting account.
Offers like this can come in different forms to help you with your budget. There is a free bet that is given over consecutive weeks, i.e. if you deposit 25 pounds the first week, you get that matched, and then the second week the same, and so on, maybe for four weeks, totalling 100 pounds.
One good feature of the internet nowadays is that of free bets directories. These bring all the major sports betting bookmakers’ free bet deals together in one place.
This allows customers to choose a wager that suits their budget from as low as 10 pounds to 200 pounds and above. A good site will also give more background on the bookmakers themselves and break down the finer detail of the free bets offer by any particular bookie.
Don’t be put off by the fact that a bookmaker offers a 200 pounds free bet and you only want to stake a tenner! The free bets are usually a matched free bet to a maximum amount.
This again means that although this bookmaker may offer this high free bet value, you can still register and deposit your 10 pounds and get that matched. You are still doubling your sports betting budget to 20 pounds just for registering and creating your account!
Most good betting directory web sites list the Free Bets in an easy to follow fashion, by their value in one area of the home page or by the individual bookmakers in another area.
Shaun Parker has been at the forefront of Free Bets for several years. For more information, please visit his site at http://www.freebettingonline.co.uk