EA Fundraising Through Advantage Sports Betting: A Guide ($500/Hour in Select States)
Edit [1/19/24]: for those interested in using OddsJam or other software to find arbitrage opportunities (as opposed to maximizing signup bonus EV) on US sportsbooks, it looks like there is considerably more exchange risk now than there was two years ago.
I don’t know how likely a sportsbook is to refuse to pay out a winning bet where the odds were an “obvious error”, but I would advise against placing big bets on long odds arbitrage opportunities right now (or at least until you have successfully gotten paid out on similar smaller bets from the same sportsbook).
This post was written in January 2022, and any claims about $EV/hour reflected the state of online US sportsbooks at the time of writing. Opportunities in 2024 are likely considerably less lucrative.
Anyone physically located in one of twelve US states currently has a unique opportunity to earn roughly $500/hour for up to 17 hours by taking advantage of new user promotions at online sports betting sites. In this post I’ll list the qualifiers to participate, then explain the process and math that allows for this opportunity, and finish with my personal experience with this process.
I am sharing this in good faith that EAs who participate will donate whatever they earn beyond a reasonable value of their time to effective causes. This opportunity is unlikely to exist in two years as I suspect a critical mass of people will utilize this process and sports betting sites will modify their new user bonuses. For this reason, I ask that readers please not publicize this opportunity to the general public before the EAs who want to participate have gotten a chance to.
If this option of earning to give can have more impact than your alternatives, I encourage you to give this post a read despite its length. I am not affiliated with the software recommended in this post. And as a hook and anecdotal success story: I traveled to Colorado with two friends earlier this month and the three of us collectively made over $50,000 across 106 bets in five days through this process (though our expected returns were roughly half that.)
If you have questions or ideas about how to use this concept to do good, I’d love to chat! My Calendly - calendly.com/sam-anschell.
A Summary of the Opportunity
In 2018 the US supreme court ruled that states could permit legal online sports betting at their own discretion. Since then, sports betting operators (such as DraftKings and Fanduel) have been racing one another for share of the US sports betting market.
In an effort to build brand loyalty and recognition, operators (also called sports books) are offering generous new user bonuses. When a user opts in to one of these bonuses, the operator loses money on a bettor’s first wager (using the bonus) but recoups its loss from bettors who choose to continue betting after the bonus has been used. If a bettor places exactly one bet with every operator that offers a profitable new user bonus, the bettor can make roughly $500/hour. The more operators you have to bet with, the more hours you can spend churning through bonuses at that high hourly rate.
The risk of loss from bad luck can be combatted in two ways. First, by placing enough unique and uncorrelated bets, the law of averages will allow your actual results to revert toward your expected results. Second, you can bet on both sides of the same game using two different sports books so that the result of the game is meaningless to your bottom line.
Since 2018, 20 states have approved gaming licenses for sports betting operators and twelve states have approved licenses for more than five operators (with fewer than five operators, your opportunity is limited.) In descending order of the number of licensed operators, the list of states with at least five legal online sports betting sites is as follows: New Jersey, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Virginia, Iowa, Tennessee, Arizona, Illinois, West Virginia, New York.
You must be physically located in one of these states to participate—using a VPN to bypass the operators’ geolocation barrier is illegal. However, you do not need to live in these states (I am a Washington state resident who visited Colorado just to participate). If you do travel to a state to participate, make sure you’ll be there for at least six days (bonus funds can take up to 72 hours to post, and your withdrawals may be delayed if the operator requests additional verification.)
Finally, operators set their betting “lines” (the odds assigned to a bet-able event) independently. Because of this, bettors can seek out the best bet a sports book has to offer relative to other sports books’ odds using OddsJam, a tool that compares odds between sports books in real time. OddsJam allows a bettor to get the best of both worlds—unlocking a profitable new user bonus while making a bet that is neutral or positive expected value (EV) in its own right.
Qualifiers to Participate
Itemizing Your Taxes
This process involves winning and losing many bets, and unless you itemize your taxes you will not be able to write off losses against wins. Without the ability to offset losses against wins, your tax burden may offset all winnings and then some. Luckily, charitable donors also benefits from itemizing so there are natural synergies for effective altruists!
Being Located in (Though Not Necessarily a Resident of) New Jersey, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Virginia, Iowa, Tennessee, Arizona, Illinois, West Virginia, or New York
Always use your real address, phone number, and email address. Using fake information will look like fraud and you will have a hard time cashing out. If you bet with a group of people in the same location, be sure to use cell phone data rather than shared wifi since many sports books will only pay one promotional bonus per internet IP.
Having at Least $10,000 Liquid or Liquefiable for a Low Tax Penalty
This process involves placing numerous bets, usually for either $500 or $1,000. The total amount of money needed to make the most of this opportunity depends on what state you’re in (i.e how many operators you can bet through) and whether you want to hedge bets fully, partially, or not at all. States like NJ and CO require as much as $13,900 to make all bets unhedged, whereas NY only requires about $6,000.
In my experience, the best way to fund accounts is by using PayPal. Most banks/debit cards have low monthly limits for point of sale transactions (how online transfers to sports books are coded). Certain banks won’t allow transactions to sports books altogether for fear of underaged gambling or fraud. Many sports books do not accept credit cards, and those that do code the purchase as a cash advance. If a sports book doesn’t accept PayPal, the next best method is an ACH bank transfer.
Having ID (Drivers License or Passport) and Proof of Residence (Bank Statement or Utility Bill)
To verify your identity when depositing and withdrawing money, sports books will ask you to upload these documents. They may also ask for a picture of you holding your photo ID so it is important that you have it with you.
Having No History with Problem Gambling, Lack of Impulse Control, or Moral Reservations about Placing Sports Bets
*Edit* Financial and Emotional Stability in the Event of a Net Loss
Like with any gambling, +EV or -EV, you should only play with money you can afford to lose. Especially for EAs betting from states with few licensed sports books for whom the law of averages least applies, making unhedged bets carries a real risk of loss.
As a frame of reference: If you were to make all bets on +400 (4-1) odds and you only had the ability to bet on one site that offered a risk-free first bet (meaning you earned site credit that you had to wager if your first bet lost), your odds of losing money overall would be 64%. If you were able to bet on three sites with this promo, all for equal amounts of money, your chance of loss would be 26.2%.
If you have $5,000 to your name that you need for essentials/an emergency fund, it would be crazy to risk $3,000 on something that returns $0 over a quarter of the time. You can use a binomial distribution calculator to estimate your risk of ruin and either hedge your bets or choose bets with shorter odds to help control your risk to a level you’re comfortable with
Big thank you to Vivian.LwD for emphasizing this so that readers recognize the financial risk involved. This is not free money unless you hedge, and you’re only >95% likely to net gain betting on long odds when you can use ~15 or more sports books .
The Process and the Math
There are two main promotional categories that sports books offer: A Risk-Free First Bet, and a Deposit Match. To find a list of all operators offering worthwhile new user bonuses in your state, check out American Gaming’s interactive map and click on the online/mobile tab after selecting your state.
Risk-Free First Bet
For this offer type, if a bettor loses the first bet they make on the sports book, they will be given site credit equal to their bet amount. The site credit cannot be withdrawn, it must be used to place a bet. Typically the site credit does not return the stake, only the winnings of a bet it is used to place. If the bettor wins their first bet on a site, they are not given site credit.
With this offer type, it is in the bettor’s interest to make bets with long odds (bets with a low likelihood to win, but a high payoff if they do win.) The reason for this is that a bettor wants to lose her first bet as often as possible without sacrificing EV in order to have a high chance of unlocking the free bet. She should also make her free bets with long odds because her EV is actually higher the longer of odds she bets (because free bets do not return the stake).
Here is a mathematical comparison of the EV of a free bet that does not return its stake made with even odds vs long odds:
A $100 free bet at +100 (1-1 odds) has a 50% chance of returning $100 and a 50% of returning $0, or an EV of $50. A $100 free bet at +400 (4-1 odds) has a 20% chance of returning $400 and an 80% chance of returning $0, or an EV of $80.
A $100 first real-money bet at +100 has a 50% chance of returning $200, and a 50% chance of returning $0 but giving a $100 free bet which, as shown above, has an EV of $80 if used on an event with +400 odds. This results in an overall EV of $200(.5) + $80EV(.5) = $140.
Similarly however, a $100 first real-money bet at +400 has a 20% chance of returning $500, and an 80% chance of returning $0 but giving a $100 free bet which has an EV of $80 if used on an event with +400 odds. So the overall EV of placing your first $100 real-money bet at +400 odds is $500(.2) + $80EV(.8) = $164.
This assumes that all bets are being placed at “fair odds” (that is to say, a bet at +100 actually is going to happen 50% of the time.) Usually the odds that sports books give you are 10% below fair, however OddsJam provides betting opportunities that are very close to fair, and placing a bet through this promotion would be profitable even if sports books made 10% on each of the two bets.
With risk-free first bets, you want to avoid bets that push. Say for example you can bet on a hockey team to win by more than two goals (puck line −2 ), or you can bet on the same hockey team to win by more than 1.5 goals (puck line −1.5). If you bet on the team to win by more than two goals, your bet will push when the team wins by exactly two goals (meaning that you’ll get your money back, but you don’t win anything and you relinquish the opportunity to earn a free bet). If you bet on the team to win by more than 1.5 goals, your bet never pushes and you maximize EV by allowing all outcomes to either win money or unlock a free bet. It’s ok to allow pushes on bets made with site credit, you’ll just get your site credit back if the bet pushes.
There are two favorable variations of the risk-free first bet: The risk-free first bet, win or lose, (as offered on Caesars and BetFred) in which case your first bet should actually be made on short odds to reduce variance and tax liability. Or a risk-free first bet where the site credit returns the stake (as offered on Barstool and Fanduel) in which case your free bet should be made on short odds for the same reasons.
Deposit Match
A deposit match is a promotion where a sports book gives you site credit just for depositing money. These sports books require that you bet both the money you deposited and the bonus funds before you are allowed to withdraw the bonus funds, but this is a very easy type of bonus to profit from. You simply bet the real money and bonus funds once, then withdraw after.
The crucial detail to look out for in deposit match promotions is the rollover requirement. A rollover requirement is the multiples of your deposit you must bet before you can withdraw the bonus funds. Certain sports books like Draftkings and TheScore have 20x rollover requirements, rendering the promotion to be a fairly useless “get 5% cash back on bets” rather than “here’s a bunch of free money.” Any sports books with 1x rollover requirements are very profitable, and even sports books with 2x rollover requirements like PlayUp are well worth doing.
Certain sites give you bonus funds in free bets that don’t return the stake (like MaximBet and PlayMaverick). Like with site credit earned through risk-free first bet promotions, that credit should be used on events with long odds. Other sites give you credit that does return the stake (like BetRivers, and TVG). Credits of this type should be used on events with shorter odds to reduce variance and lower tax liability.
No matter what the promotion on offer is, be sure to read the terms and conditions and always deposit the maximum that the bonus allows. Certain sports books won’t let you bet bonus funds at odds shorter than −200 (PlayUp) or longer than +300 (Bally Bet). Other sports books require that you opt in through the promotions page rather than when you’re creating your account (Foxbet). And while they may not say so in their terms, some sports books don’t let you bet your entire deposit at once unless you make very popular bets, such as a team winning rather than a certain player scoring (Barstool, Twinspires, Bally Bet, Elite Sportsbook).
If you attempt to place a bet and you get a message that only a fraction of your wager is approved, cancel your bet and look for a new one. For a risk-free first bet promo, only the first bet is “insured,” so if you are limited to a $200 bet from your $1,000 attempt, the remaining $800 of your deposit bonus goes to waste. The customer support chat at any given sports book is a great way to resolve uncertainties.
Sports books reserve the right to suspend your account if you’re “abusing bonuses,” which is usually defined as betting both sides of the same game on the same sports book to unlock bonus funds, or betting both sides of the same game from two accounts in the same household. Your bonus funds may expire if you don’t use them within a certain number of days, and you may not earn bonus funds if you don’t place your first bet within a given time period after creating your account. It’s usually a good idea to wait to open an account until you’re confident you’ll be able to place a bet within a week.
Hedging Your Bets
Hedging your bets using different sports books is always acceptable, since sports books do not see your activity on rival sites. To hedge bets made with long odds, you’ll have to place a 3-5x larger bet on the other side of the game using a different sports book. Best practices for hedging your bets are to open up sports book accounts one at a time so that you don’t need $50,000+ liquid to be placing hedged bets at every operator. Simply go through the process with one sports book, withdraw your funds, then use those funds to repeat the process at the next sports book.
OddJam’s Arbitrage Calculator and Freeplay Calculator are great tools to learn how much to bet on the other side of bets made with long odds. Here is a mathematical example of how to hedge bets to convert these bonuses into cash risk-free:
Team A is playing team B in playoff football, there are no ties allowed so one team has to win. A $1,000 risk-free first bet placed on with real money at +400 odds on team A, and a $4,000 real money bet is placed on a different sports book at −400 odds on team B. $5,000 real money has been bet in total.
If team A wins, the first bet returns $5,000 and the second bet is lost. If team B wins, the first bet is lost, but the bettor earns $1,000 in site credit and the second bet returns $5,000. In either outcome the bettor breaks even, but the bettor has a high chance of unlocking the $1,000 free bet.
Now the bettor has a $1,000 free bet that does not return the stake. The bettor finds a different football game to bet on, say between team C and team D. A $1,000 free bet is placed on team C at +400 odds, and a $3,200 real money bet is placed on team D at −400 odds. $3,200 real money has been bet in total.
If team C wins, the first bet returns $4,000 and the second bet is lost. If team D wins, the first bet is lost and the second bet returns $4,000. In either outcome, the bettor profits $800, essentially “converting” the $1,000 free bet into $800 real money.
How to Use OddsJam
I recommend signing up for the free trial of OddsJam’s monthly Industry plan. Once you’re signed up, you can find the best bets on each site through the +EV page, the Arbitrage page, and the Low Holds page. The more data you have on an event, the better. For example, if only BetMGM and FoxBet are providing odds for a game, it’s difficult to tell what the fair odds should be. However, if 15 different sports books are all providing data for a game, you can more reliably assume that an outlier among the 15 is giving better or worse odds than they should.
For sports books that OddsJam doesn’t list, you can manually compare odds by looking through upcoming games on OddsJam and comparing the market’s odds to what you see on that sports book’s betting app. Never bet on a hunch—the sports market is debiased and everything is priced in—bet exclusively using data.
OddsJam’s YouTube channel is a great resource for learning the nuances of advantage sports betting (e.g., how to take advantage of other sports book promos beyond sign up bonuses, why market width is important, how to properly track your performance).
My Experience
I have taken advantage of these promotions on two occasions. Two months ago I coached a friend in Michigan who chose to partially hedge his bets. With considerable luck he profited around $10,100 in about 13 hours of work. Earlier this month I took a trip to Colorado with two friends. The three of us collectively profited a bit over $50,300 in our 5 days in CO. We were completely unhedged (because our sample size was large) and we were also quite lucky. Still though, I’m confident enough in the proof of concept and math behind this venture to recommend EAs replicate this process.
My biggest takeaway from this process was to avoid sports books with bad software and small bonuses. For example, Betway offered a $250 risk free first bet. Getting money on and off their app was a nightmare, the EV of the promo is only $150ish, and their lines were very unfriendly so it took too long to find bets I was satisfied with. This should be a novel and enjoyable endeavor; I’d recommend skipping any sports books that frustrate you and deferring to customer support rather than guessing and stressing about unclear site rules.
I think that this could be a really fun way to get people into EA. The idea of betting on sports in a clever way is glamorous to the everyday person. You might frame this process as bringing down the house to battle the world’s most pressing problems. If you give this a try, please let me know how it goes at sanschell@wesleyan.edu. It would be really valuable to learn more about people’s experiences and how I can better optimize this guide.
If you’d like to continue advantage sports betting after grabbing the lowest hanging fruit of signup bonuses, you can continue to place +EV and arbitrage bets through OddsJam. The amount you can make depends on the size of your bankroll (i.e a $2,000 bet generates twice as much EV as a $1,000 bet.) You’ll likely be limited by sports books within a couple of months (they’ll restrict you to $5 per bet once they know you’re a winning bettor,) but making smart bets is perfectly legal and you will always be able to withdraw your money, limited or otherwise.
Thank you for reading. This is my first post so I’m keen to read feedback and get more involved in the forum. With my share of the Colorado trip winnings I plan to donate to GiveWell’s Maximum Impact Fund, unless a donation matching program offers a high-leverage opportunity and doesn’t list GiveWell as an option.
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Thanks for sharing this!
I don’t think that I would have included this statement though:
For many EAs for whom this might be a good use of their time, especially those trying to position themselves for direct work, I would think donating this money will be a worse decision than using it to help themselves in their own efforts to do so.
Thank you for that Charles, I completely agree. By definition, EAs are aligned with the mission of doing good with the resources they have available. Investing in oneself can be one of the most high-leverage channels for increasing productivity and impact—I’ll be more mindful about statements like this going forward :)
ETA: the T&C of the sportsbook promos I use as examples below have changed since I posted, so don’t rely on this comment to figure out what the promos are/what the optimal strategy is
Just wanted to pipe up because I think this may not be clear to people reading this post — unless you fully hedge, this is not a risk-free opportunity, and if you are pursuing the recommended strategy in this post there’s a very good chance you will lose money. I wanted to comment since I know at least three EA’s who have lost a couple thousand dollars taking advantage of these promos. One very smart person who skimmed this post thought it was describing “free money,” and unless I’ve misunderstood something (very possible!) it’s not — the better way to view this opportunity is, “the E(V) of legal sports betting is always negative, but with these promotions, it’s positive.” If you have a lot of money such that you can afford to be risk-neutral, then hell yeah and go forth, but if you don’t, it’s rational for you to be risk-averse and this might not be a good idea.
If it’s unclear how this is risky, consider that the most common type of free bet promo is one where (1) you unlock the free bet only if you lose your first real-money bet and (2) your free bet doesn’t return the stake. In this case, as the post points out, the optimal strategy is to choose long odds on both bets. This is probably obvious, but that means you are more likely than not to lose your money.
To take full advantage of the offer you’d be making uncorrelated bets on multiple sportsbooks, but that will lessen the risk, not eliminate it. I live in DC — the four “free bet” options in Virginia are Barstool ($1000), BetMGM ($1000), Caesars ($1500), and Unibet ($500). (As of this comment Fanduel no longer has the free bet promo at least in VA.) Barstool, BetMGM, and Unibet unlock the free bet only if you lose the first (real-money) bet. Caesars unlocks the free bet upon deposit. Of the four, only Barstool returns the stake on the free bet. So the optimal strategies for the four in order of first (real-money) bet and second (free) bet are:
Barstool: Long, short
BetMGM: Long, long
Caesars: Short, long
Unibet: Long, long
I’m too lazy to plug in sample numbers but you can hopefully deduce from this that (1) you have a good chance of ending up positive, since it’s optimal to go short on Barstool and Caesars, but (2) it’s still pretty easy to end up in the red. And that’s with 2⁄4 offers that come as close as you can get to free money (Barstool and Caesars, though note Barstool has a −200 line limit, limiting how short you can go).
Of course if you’re risk-averse you can choose a different, non-E(V)-maximizing strategy, but I think some people might understandably just follow what’s recommended here.
Sorry if this was obvious to everyone, I just know some people at least were surprised that you could lose money on this. I don’t think the post is misleading, though I probably would have made clearer at the top that this is not even close to a risk-free endeavor, especially considering the marketing language around these promos already can make them seem otherwise.
Thank you Vivian, you’re absolutely right. I’ll update the “qualifiers to participate” section to make this much clearer, especially for participants living in states with a small number of legalized online sports books.
Another post on this topic: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aeobxpZXQb7X9MPbM/free-money-from-new-york-gambling-websites
This shows how new I am to the forum! Had I found the other post I probably would have just answered some of the questions in the comments rather than posting myself. Thank you for sharing.
I’m glad you didn’t see my post until now! I am a bit lazy and your writeup is a little more detailed than mine :) plus, I didn’t emphasize enough that this is available to people outside of New York, although I think the recent NY legalization is why it is so especially lucrative right now.
As a former professional I can confirm that these opportunities are mostly real and worth taking advantage of if you are confident you will never want to engage in serious sports betting (if you are going to be serious you want to ensure you are using a friendly person’s referral code if possible, so you collect their affiliate payments at least in part, which could be worth more than the bonuses).
Also, you can simply use pinnaclesports.com as a reference ‘fair price’ for all wagers, and assume the middle of their market is the true odds of everything, and you won’t be that wrong.
What do you have to do to have a friendly person’s referral code work? Is it as simple as coordinating with a friend in the moment, or does the person need to have been a member for X time or something? Should groups of people making a trip to do this make sure they’re all using each other’s referral codes (except for one, since someone has to be the first person to join) to get an extra 1% in EV?
Very cool to have a former professional in the thread! I didn’t know that affiliates got uncapped rakeback; it totally stands to reason that with so much opportunity in the US market, one could reach a scale of bets where even 1% of their volume per site would represent more money than the promos offer.
I believe OddsJam weights sharp sites like pinnacle, bookmaker, circa, and betonline to create their “perfect line.” I still think OddsJam is worth getting since they will provide data on all events, even if they have low or no confidence on what the fair price should be. The offshore books like pinnacle don’t always offer the range of bets on US sports that sites like Fanduel and BetMGM do. Sometimes the best odds on offer are obscure alternate lines from a few inefficient books. With OddsJam you’re able to see all the sites’ odds side by side and updated in real time.
I just want to warn people about some bad UX with Caesar’s so that they don’t make the same mistake I did, preventing me from getting the risk-free first bet on that site. I created a new account, but I didn’t see the risk-free first bet promotion being offered. I googled and found a promo code for it. You needed to use the promo code at signup in order to get a risk-free first bet. I messaged their support to be like “hi, I just made an account 15 minutes ago but sounds like I needed to use this promo code to get the risk-free first bet?” Support told me that if I didn’t use the promo code at sign-up, I could not use that promotion. I asked them, what about if I my account is deleted and I just redo the sign-up properly? It’s a brand-new account, I’ve placed no bets. Or, what if I sign up again with another email? They were like, “you wouldn’t count as a new user in either scenario and would be ineligible for this promo.” So just because I made this mistake when signing up, I just cannot do a risk-free first bet on their site. It’s such bad UI and the support rep was super rude to boot.
Some friends and I are going to Colorado in early March to try this out. “Pre-registering” now that I’ll report how it goes.
Sorry for the late followup!
We did about as well as expected (pre-tax profit of ~$7k each). Plus we got to hike in the snow. So overall a pretty good trip!
Though if one or another long odds bet had gone different it could easily have swung our profits by 50% in either direction. We intentionally took on extra risk to maximize expected value
The opportunities are getting worse and worse over time so your EV will be lower
One thing I’d like to highlight: our per-hour pre-tax profits were closer to $150–200/hour than the $500/hour claimed in the post’s title. I think the main source of the discrepancy was that the author was significantly faster than us at finding and placing bets.
For my calculation, I factored in things such as trip planning and travel time (scaled by 50% because the trip included leisure activities), financial preparation, getting money out of accounts, taking screenshots of losses, filling out 2022 tax returns, filling out the spreadsheets where we tracked our bets, etc. I don’t know how many of these the author took into account in the $500/hour calculation.
Another factor in the lower per-hour figure was, as mentioned by Dmitriy, that the offers were worse.
Here’s an excerpt that from an email I sent the post’s author:
In ~3 instances I had trouble with the websites, and switching to the mobile apps resolved all 3 of those issues.
What do you think of funding EAs interested in doing this who are strapped for cash? In other words, betting through (and taking the risk for) willing EA friends?
I’ve discussed this idea with a few people. It’s unclear whether it is legal to send someone money for making online sports bets per the Wire Act. To my knowledge, if this is illegal no one has been convicted (similar to how playing online poker in certain states is grey-area illegal but the law has never been enforced).
I “may have” loaned two friends $15,000 to participate, but I’m not sure whether I’d be comfortable setting up an EA fund for this:
Even if there is a way to learn that this is completely legal, the risk to Effective Atruism’s image if just one participant became addicted to gambling through this funding may eliminate all expected gains.
There is a ton of trust required, and involving a loaner/contract lawyer’s time decreases $/hour of this project.
Someone strapped for cash seems less likely to itemize on their taxes (though I could certainly be wrong) and thus would make less from this.
I like your thought to scale this; EAs can raise more money by funding people they know and trust, so long as they do it discreetly and understand that there is some chance they are breaking the law.
I also think that by the standards of the best opportunities for direct work, $500/hour worth of impact is somewhat low. Per a call with Alex Holness-Tofts, community building at college campuses is conservatively estimated to create $80,000,000/year in impact, and phone banking during the 2020 election may have been worth as much as $9,000/hour. Right now, campaigning for Carrick Flynn likely does more good per hour than these sports bets. So I’m not sure how valuable it would be to have an EA institution push cash-strapped EAs to do this rather than something else.
I submitted the whole amount for approval on ~4 books, and each time it was fully approved, so that seems like a good way to go.
Interesting and great to hear! The bets I submitted on Twinspires and Bally Bet weren’t approved for the whole amount, though customer support did let me make new risk-free bets with the remainder of my deposit. This may be because I looked suspicious betting from the same AirBNB as my friends, or I may have picked more obscure bets than you, or the sites may just be inconsistent.
Do you need to be a US citizen/resident?
I can see why you’d ask, there is no info anywhere online about this. I chatted with customer support on a couple sports books and it looks like you do not have to be a US citizen/resident, but you do need to go through a separate identity confirmation process that can take a bit longer if you do not have a US Social Security number.
Update: It turns out these sports books aren’t as friendly to non-US citizens as expected. I don’t know what every site’s policy is, but the following sites’ policies suggest that non-US citizens living outside the US shouldn’t bother looking into traveling to the US to do this:
Barstool – need valid SSN and US Passport / ID
Fanduel – need SSN and proof of US address
Tipico – must be US resident
BetMGM – need US ID and proof of US address
Pointsbet – non-US passport acceptable, need proof of US address
Play Sugarhouse – need US ID and possibly SSN
Twinspires – must be US resident
Superbook – seems possible, non-US passport sufficient
It looks like this is coming to Massachusetts now. My impression is that the Caesars offer is the most lucrative.
Caesars: See thread below.
If anyone wants to do this for effective charity, or for funds to cover their own time doing direct work… and happens to need a place to stay or to stop by for the day in Western Massachusetts (I’m between Springfield and Worcester) let me know.
Or reach out anyways if you are interested.
I looked into the Caesars offer a bit.
With the promo code--> your first bet up to $1500 is ‘insured’ and refunded in case of loss. IIRC you need to bet the refunded $1500 in another single eligible gamble. I think the net expected value of this offer (after taxes and spreads) is somewhere between about $500 and $700 if your first bet is a 50⁄50 bet, but closer to $1200-$1400 if you take a highly risky first-bet.
Some followup...
If you are ‘playing it reasonably safe’ and make 50-50 bets each time the expected value gain is probably around $700 or so, maybe $600 after taxes. (I think this is a conservative calculation).
2 people could also hedge their bets as noted in posts , reducing the max loss to just a few hundred $ (taxes, house spread).
But “Accountholders who have an existing Caesars Sportsbook and Casino or William Hill account in any other location as of the start of the Promotion Period are not eligible” … so you may not qualify if you did this in a different state.
I’m not sure if I understand this:
“There are two favorable variations of the risk-free first bet: The risk-free first bet, win or lose, (as offered on Caesars and BetFred) in which case your first bet should actually be made on short odds to reduce variance and tax liability. Or a risk-free first bet where the site credit returns the stake (as offered on Barstool and Fanduel) in which case your free bet should be made on short odds for the same reasons.”
Following the paragraphs above, shouldn’t one of these be long odds?
Great clarification. What I meant to say was:
If the first bet unlocks the free bet whether it wins or loses, you should make the first bet on short odds (because you unlock the free bet regardless of outcome, and bets with shorter odds have lower variance and lower expected tax liability) but make the free bet on long odds (because the EV is higher the longer the odds for free bets that do not return their stake).
In the case that you have to lose your first bet to unlock the free bet, but the free bet returns the stake, the first bet should be made using long odds (to allow you to unlock the free bet as often as possible) but the free bet should be made using short odds (because bets that return the stake have the same EV regardless of odds, and shorter odds helps lower variance and expected tax liability.)
I should also add: for risk-free first bet promos where the free bet returns the stake like Fanduel and Barstool, your first real-money bet should be at very long odds because a free bet that returns the stake is as good as cash (providing even more incentive to unlock the free bet as often as possible.)
How long is this opportunity likely to last? I have a trip to NYC planned in June, and it would make sense to accept the inconvenience of staying at a hotel in NJ if that would let me do this. But if the opportunity’s likely to be gone by then, I’d need to make a separate trip to take advantage of it.
To me it seems likely that the majority of good opportunities will still be around in June. If there is something like $7,500 promo EV up for grabs in NJ now, I would estimate with 70% certainty there will be more than $4,000 promo EV by June.
One wrinkle I want to make sure you’re aware of is that creating, funding, betting with, and withdrawing from ~ 17 accounts will take a significant amount of time and needs to happen over the span of at least 4 days (for your promo credit to post, and for any withdrawal follow-ups to register. I recommend staying for 5+ days and starting this process the day you arrive.)
My best guess is that having never done this, you’ll need to spend 15 hours to complete every worthwhile promo. If you’ve got a full schedule on your NYC trip (especially including time commuting to/from NJ), it may be best to schedule a separate trip. If you have some time but not the full 15 hours, maybe the best course of action is to do only the best offers and accept higher variance with a smaller sample size.
oh yeah lots of opportunities in nj right now. Won my first two bets but I’m limited by the fact that I didn’t plan in advance, and didn’t have paypal connected to my bank. My bank’s not allowing me to put enough money in and paypal will take several days to get connected. So fyi for anyone trying this, make sure your paypal account is funded in advance.
I don’t think I understand what it means to “return the stake” nor how to determine if that is happening.
If a free bet returns the stake, it will pay you the principle of the bet plus your profit when you win. If a free bet does not return the stake, it will only pay you your profit.
Example:
A $1,000 free bet that returns the stake won at +100 or 1-1 odds pays back $2,000 (the $1,000 you bet, plus the $1,000 you won).
A $1,000 free bet that does not return the stake won at +100 or 1-1 odds pays back only $1,000 (just the $1,000 that you won).
Certain sites will list whether a free bet returns the stake in their promo terms. For other sites, you can read reviews or talk to customer support. Since it sounds like you’re close to CO, you can also check out my spreadsheet where I summarize the promo terms of each book I used on the trip.
Great post!
I’m unlikely going to itemize my taxes so is there a simpler way my GF and I can take advantage of the best bonuses? We can countertrade each other on the same book if that helps. Are there low-hanging fruit bonuses in NJ? https://www.americangaming.org/state/new-jersey/?type=activity
Hey Matt, it’s awesome that you two are interested in participating! Here are the promos I’d recommend doing in NJ grouped by EV/hour for those taking the standard deduction:
$400-600/hour and lower variance:
Barstool (first bet on long odds, free bet on short odds), Fanduel (first bet on long odds, free bet on short odds), Caesars (first bet on short odds, free bet on long odds), Tipico (both bets on short odds),
$150-300/hour and higher variance:
BetMGM (both bets on long odds), Pointsbet (both bets on long odds, pointsbet following other comment in this post), Wynnbet (both bets on long odds), PlaySugarshouse (bet on short odds), Playup (bet on short odds), Twinspires (both bets on long odds), Superbook (bet on long odds).
$50-150/hour and high variance
Foxbet (both bets on long odds),
$50-150/hour and low variance
Bet365, Draftkings (the bet $5 win 280 free option), Golden Nugget (first bet short odds, free bet long odds)
Not worth doing:
Betway, Borgata, Hard Rock, TheScore, Unibet, Resorts Sportsbook
Incredible. Thanks so much, I’ll reply here to let you know how we made out!
Would love your list for Colorado, taking the standard deduction.
Sure thing, it’ll look similar to the NJ list.
$400-600/hour and lower variance:
Barstool (first bet on long odds, free bet on short odds), Fanduel (first bet on long odds, free bet on short odds), Caesars (first bet on short odds, free bet on long odds), Tipico (both bets on short odds),
$150-300/hour and higher variance:
BetMGM (both bets on long odds), Pointsbet (both bets on long odds, pointsbet following other comment in this post and very high-variance for non-itemizers), Twinspires (both bets on long odds), Superbook (bet on long odds), BetFred (short odds on first bet, long odds on free bet).
$50-150/hour and high variance
Foxbet (both bets on long odds), Bally Bet (both bets on long odds), Play Maverick (bet on long odds), Elite Sportsbook (garbage software that will test your patience, bet on long odds)
$50-150/hour and low variance
Draftkings (the bet $5 win 280 free option), Wynnbet, BetRivers (you can bet both sides of the same game).
Not worth doing:
Betway (offer recently pulled), BetWildwood, BetMonarch, Circa, SBK, TheScore, Sky Ute, Sportsbetting.com, Playup (due to promotion downgrade), Maximbet (due to rollover increase),
Unfortunately a few of the best CO offers got pulled or downgraded since this post was written eight days ago (Maximbet: Down from a $2,000 deposit match with a 1x rollover to a $2,000 deposit match with a 3x rollover. WynnBet: Down from a $1,000 risk-free first bet to a “bet $10, earn $200 site credit win or lose.” Playup: Down from a $750 stake-returning deposit match $200 deposit match.)
This trend will probably continue as people like us take advantage of these offers, then never bet another dime. DraftKings used to offer a $5,000 risk-free first bet, Caesars used to offer a $5,000 risk-free first bet, Sports Illustrated used to offer a $7,500 risk free first bet. Nevertheless, there is still a lot of opportunity in CO!
A Fanduel agent just told me “This currently is for users in Louisiana and New York. That promotion ended a couple weeks back” after I lost a $1000 bet and didn’t see the free bet. I got $100 in credit instead. So I guess Fanduel should get pulled?
What the agent said is false. Here’s the relevant webpages from earlier today, and a screenshot:
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MPVj5jFQq6IJ:https://promos.sportsbook.fanduel.com/promotion%3FpromoCode%3DRF1000AS%26hideFooter%3Dtrue%26hideHeader%3Dtrue+&cd=12&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1QyLKt7hvdcJ:https://support.fanduel.com/s/article/What-is-the-1000-Risk-Free-Bet+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HHeBLwMgPXkJ:https://support.fanduel.com/s/article/Do-I-Need-a-Promocode-for-the-Risk-Free-Bet-Promotion+&cd=16&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:CGpGKkaSNWYJ:https://support.fanduel.com/s/article/I-m-New-to-Sportsbook-Are-There-Any-First-Time-Deposit-Offers-Risk-Free+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
https://imgur.com/a/rgIfP81
That said something is going on, because all these pages have been taken down. That said, I don’t see how they can change this after the fact, given you betted when it was going on and well documented.
Thanks. I sent them this and chatted more but they stuck with their story and I don’t think I’ll be getting any other reimbursement.
Personally I I’d dispute the charge with my bank in that instance
Won the Paypal dispute :)
FanDuel ended up crediting my account after doing the same thing, and then reaching out to them on Twitter.
SI seems appx. equivalent to Draft Kings, but maybe I’m missing something?
https://www.sisportsbook.com/spt/bet10get300/
When I bet with SI it was similar to DraftKings, but now they’ve changed the promo to be a bit worse for those taking the standard deduction. You have to place 30 $10 bets to unlock 30 $10 free bets that do not return they’re stake
Strategy should be short odds for the cash bets, long odds for the free bets. Still worth doing, just a bit cumbersome. Thanks for spotting that!
PlayMaverick’s only withdrawal option seems to be:
WITHDRAW AT CAGE Get an authorization code and enable you cash withdrawal at the Maverick sports book counter.
So I passed on that one.
Strange, I was able to withdraw to a debit card or through PlayPlus (which I can then transfer to a bank account). Your withdrawal options may vary depending on what method you use to deposit.
Does Maxim Bet at $2k and 3x seem worthwhile? https://maximbet.com/promotions/big-game-supersized-bonus
Napkin math says no if you’re taking standard deduction but yes if you’re itemizing. Promo EV is about $1600, and you have to place $6,000 worth of bets to unlock it, so if your bets outperform a ~27% loss rate, this is profitable.
Be sure that the cash bets you place are no shorter than −200 odds because −200 is the minimum odds to qualify towards to rollover requirement. Also, the bet you place with the site credit should be on long odds because the free bet does not return its stake.
Some of these links are for New Jersey promo pages.
Caesar’s lets you do your free bet first, which messed me up and I ended up doing it on extremely short odds (based on the order above). Just sharing so no one else misses out by doing this!
Thank you for a great tip, this was not the case when I bet with Caesar’s just three weeks ago. It appears that the terms of these offers can change very frequently, I’ll edit this post when I get home to recommend that a participant carefully read the current terms and conditions before depositing/betting.
Here’s what customer service sent me: https://imgur.com/a/W8eIjm5
In instances where you have a free first bet, why is the second bet best to be on long rather than short odds?
Great point: If you’re allowed a free bet first that can be used separately from a cash bet (as is the case with Caesars’ new offer,) there is no reason to bet on long odds with your cash bet.
It looks like Superbook and PlayMaverick should be short odds?
Superbook:
PlayMaverick:
I believe both PlayMaverick and Super Book give credit that doesn’t return the stake, and credit that can only be used to subsidize cash wagers. This means the entire bet should be used on long odds, since the bettor has strong incentive to place site credit on long odds (higher EV) and only mild incentive to place cash wagers on short odds (lower variance).
Tipico looks like it should be long odds, right?
Good catch, the first bet should be long odds. Tipico’s site credit returned the stake for me, so the second bet really should be made using short odds. I’ll confirm that this is still the case with customer support tomorrow. The stake-return feature was why I categorized Tipico as a $400+ EV/hour book.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Thanks so much for writing up this detailed post! Has anyone done the PointsBet promo? It’s in a different format, so I can’t directly use OddsJam. I’d really appreciate some guidance on how to make reasonable bets there.
Yes, this was actually part of what I discussed with Robirahman yesterday. So the Pointsbet promo has two parts—one part is a $500 fixed odds risk free first bet for credit that doesn’t return the stake. For this part, you can just use OddsJam and look for the best long odds bets for both the initial bet and the site credit.
The second part is a $1,500 PointsBet. This is a gimmicky betting type that has a higher house edge. In a PointsBet, the amount by which your bet is right or wrong determines what multiple of your bet you win or owe. For example, if you bet $10 on a quarterback to throw for over 200 yards in a football game and they throw for 201 yards, you win $10 because they threw 1 yard more than the over, but if they throw for 205 yards, you win $50 because they threw 5 yards more than the over. Similarly, if the quarterback threw for 160 yards you would lose $400 since they threw for 40 yards below the betting line.
The best way to maximize your EV on the $1,500 risk free PointsBet is to find a hockey or soccer game where the betting line for a team is over 1 or 1.05 goals (or for a team’s first period/first half goals.) This way, if you lose your first bet, you lose the full $1,500. If you tried to bet $1,500 on the over 200 passing yards example I used earlier, PointsBet wouldn’t let you, since you stand to lose $300,000 if the quarterback threw for 0 yards. And if you bet a denomination lower than $1,500 (say $7.50,) most of the time you lose your bet you would not lose the full $1,500 and you would only be given a free bet of what you lost, which is only a fraction of the total promo value.
If you lose your first PointsBet, you be given site credit that does not return the stake that can be used on a fixed odds (normal) wager. Here, you can once again use OddsJam to find a great longshot as usual.
Let me know if anything is unclear, or whether there are other specific promos that you have questions about. I debated writing up a list of the best ways to game each promo, and what you have to keep an eye out for (like actually opting into FoxBet’s risk free bet through the promos page instead of through the account signup page) but I figured the post was long already and brevity would be more attractive to most readers.
thank you so much!
Would it be worth organizing some ‘field trips’ from nearby states to facilitate this? It could be a lot of fun and help us keep our resolve!
A brilliant idea, both for community building and fundraising! I would want to help coordinate these trips in any way that I could; I just accepted a role at Open Phil and I plan to lean on their network, but I would also love to connect with more EAs from all over to scale this idea up.
It’s funny that you mention this David, because Robi Rahman called me last night about best practices (which gave me great info for updating this post) and today he coached a group of 5 DC-residing EAs through this process in Virginia.
To anyone reading: please please message me if you want to organize a field trip and have any questions about the best way to go about it (from convincing people, to logistics, to real-time betting advice.)
Since New Jersey has more licensed operators, what extra consideration made you and your friends choose Colorado?
I’m guessing they went to Colorado because they were on the west coast and it was the closest state with legal sports betting.
Yep that’s right. NJ and CO have nearly the same amount of bonus money on offer, but they both have much more than the next best state. If you already live in one of the twelve states listed in the post, I’d just go for it where you live. If you’re traveling specifically to churn through new user bonuses like I did, NJ or CO are where it’s at.
Updating some tips HERE … QIP writeup
One difficulty I’ve had that’s not covered here is on some sites, they greatly restrict the amount you can bet on most, if not all available bets. On one site I wasn’t able to bet near the promo max, and on another something like 4⁄300 available bets allowed me to bet the promo max.
Sites are more likely to restrict the amount you can bet if you’re betting on an outcome the site has little confidence in (e.g., how likely is a certain rookie to collect over 2.5 rebounds). Sites do this to protect themselves from smart bettors who may know more than the site’s model. My advice is to try to bet on “main lines”, popular offerings that sites have high confidence in their odds of (e.g., how likely are the Rams to win this Sunday’s SuperBowl).
If a site restricts you from betting the promo max on any event, try calling customer support to figure out why you’re being limited as a first-time bettor. Hopefully, they can un-limit you or allow you to make multiple bonus-eligible smaller bets to get the most out of the promo. Good luck!
Is this why these opportunities exist? Because I would have thought they’d be closed / taken advantage of quickly.
These opportunities exist because each book sets its odds independently. Sports books respond to new information asynchronously and the books’ different models can overweight the likelihood of certain outcomes and underweight the likelihood of others. From my experience, BetMGM and Fanduel often give favorable odds on favorites (short odds), and DraftKings, FoxBet, Barstool, and Twinspires give favorable odds on longshots.
Another reason these arbitrage and +EV betting opportunities exist is that US sports books are new, and the operators are prioritizing growth/debugging/marketing above the accuracy of their betting lines. Offshore sports books’ odds are far more similar to one another than US sports books’. I would predict that by 2025, the opportunity to make >5% +EV bets on US sports books will be a shadow of what it currently is.
These opportunities aren’t being taken advantage of for the same reason that blackjack players aren’t all card counters: It’s stressful to bet large amounts of money on high-variance events even when you know you’re a mathematical favorite. And once a casino is sure you’re a winning player, you’re no longer welcome to play.
For anyone with the stomach and the bankroll for making hundreds of these slightly profitable bets per week, the opportunity is incredible until you get limited. With 60% confidence, I would estimate that someone with a liquid bankroll of $100,000 could profit between $40,000 and $200,000 within four months of advantage sports betting (8-12 hours/week). All they would need to do is bet on all >2% +EV betting opportunities that OddsJam suggests (with a tight market width/confidence interval), and use OddsJam’s Kelly Criterion calculator to responsibly size their bets.
I would recommend that anyone considering this path be selective about suspicious-looking bets. Player props and alternate lines can be red flags for books to limit you quicker. If I lived in a state with legalized online sports betting I would 100% be pursuing this; I’m happy to answer more questions or set up a Zoom meeting via Calendly if anyone is interested!
I’m on a ‘bonus trip’ now (also visiting Dad in upstate New York). Will keep you abreast of how it goes in my shortform here.
I hope others might benefit from my experience and help us learn to do this better.
Has anyone done analysis as to what extent opportunity exists for people who take the standard deduction / don’t itemize deductions on their taxes? Or is itemizing deductions a pretty strong requirement? If there is any, albeit reduced, opportunity available, and if it’s worth it in terms of time investment required, I’d love to participate.
Sorry if this has been covered already. I haven’t invested the time to do much more than skim the post, but I think having this question answered without myself and others having to read the whole post thoroughly will have value.
Thanks for bringing this up, I feel like such an analysis could enable many more EAs to participate. If you take the standard deduction you basically have to ask yourself “Is a promo worth it if individually, bets won are worth my marginal tax rate % less than they actually pay out?”
For example, lets say your marginal tax rate (including state tax) is 28% and you’re considering the Wynnbet $1,000 risk free first bet promo for site credit that does not return the stake. If you make your first bet and free bet at +100 odds you have:
(.5 win probability) ($1000 profit *.72 take home) +(.5 lose probability)((-$1000 loss but unlock free bet) + (.5 free bet win probability)($1000 free bet profit *.72 take home))
=.5(720) + .5(-1000 + 360) = $40 EV (compared to the $250 EV of making these same bets if itemizing.)
This is profitable but not worth the time. However this is also not an efficient betting strategy.
Let’s say instead you make your first bet and your free bet at +300 odds. The math would look like:
(.25 win probability) ($3000 profit *.72 take home) = $540
(.75 lose probability) [(-$1000 loss but unlock free bet) + ((.25 win probability)($3000 profit on risk free bet *.72 take home) + .75 lose probability (0 because it was a free bet))] = $-352.5
Total is $540-$352.5 = $187.5 EV ( compared to the roughly $562.5 EV of making these same bets if itemizing.)
In theory this is potentially worth the time, depending on the opportunity cost of the bettor. You will have to pay taxes on aggregate profits even if you itemize so this $187.5 after tax EV return is better than it looks. Many caveats though:
Risk of after-tax loss is much higher. This matters to the extent that we care about the experience of the EAs placing these bets, and humans hate the realistic possibility of losing thousands of dollars.
Tighter margins puts more strain on our assumptions. If bets are losing to the vig by 7% on a certain book (due to an absence of beatable lines) rather than breaking even, these bets have a chance to be unprofitable and a high chance of no longer being worth the time.
The bettor needs to be very aware of the tax implications of her bet. The variance of a bet actually effects the expected value of that bet, since only profit is taxed and losses cannot be written off (basically, you’re incentivized to lose as infrequently as possible.) This works fairly well for deposit match promos that return the stake, and risk free first bets for site credit that returns the stake, as these bets can be made efficiently on short odds.
Overall, I think the risk free first bets that do not return the stake are not worth doing, and the deposit match bonuses with more than 1x rollover requirements, or that match 50% or less are not worth doing.
Risk free bets win or lose seem that give non-stake-returning site credit seem worth doing but with significantly lower EV, as do 100% 1x rollover deposit matches that give non-stake-returning site credit
100% 1x rollover deposit matches that give stake-returning site credit and risk free first bets that give stake-returning credit seem like they’re still worth doing (your hourly rate when making these bets on short odds is reduced by a bit more than your marginal tax rate. So if $300ish/hour is still worth it for you, these are probably worth doing.)
I wouldn’t say I like such money-making apps. I used to look for any app that could help me make money when I was a child, and I was very good at it. I recall as clearly as if it were yesterday when I used such tactics to make some money and purchased a game from the App Store. I’m a skeptic today, but I continue to make money using apps. As a gaming platform, I like biggreenweek.com. People who believe it is fake are irrelevant to me. You should kiss me… if I can make decent money and buy all the stuff I need with that money. Sorry for being annoying, but I honestly feel those people are wasting my life!