A Guide to Rollovers, Playthroughs, Wagering etc
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I’ve decided to write this guide with a view to linking back to it when forum members ask about how to do the various rollover offers available, as they seem to be the offer that trips people up the most these days. Anything I’ve overlooked please chip in.
There are three rules for doing a rollover offer:
1. Make absolutely sure you have read the T+Cs and know what is expected of you do successfully complete the offer.
2. Make absolutely sure you have enough money to carry out ALL of the wagering you need to do to complete the offer. This means having enough money to cover EVERY SINGLE BET you have to make in the worst case scenario of every bet winning.
3. Do not fall into the trap of believing that high odds do not win. They do, and you will suffer if your 10/1 no-hoper causes an upset.
(4. The unwritten rule, don’t do winner! Unless you have unlimited cash and know how to do Accas)I’ll explain how to do the rollover offer with Bet365 as an example because its the easiest to do and therefore easiest to explain but the theory is the same with most rollover offers, minimum odds and timescales are usually the only difference. However please make sure you stick to rule No.1 and read the T+Cs. Its been ages since I did a sign up and the rules could well have changed. Do your own research, after all its your money, not mine!
The T+Cs here are relatively straightforward, the ones we are interested in are:
1.Make a qualifying deposit of £10 or more to qualify for a 100% matched amount as a bonus to bet with. Your qualifying deposit is your largest deposit (capped at £200) placed in the 7 days prior to you entering your Offer Code
4.You must have settled bets to the value of three times your qualifying deposit (capped at £200) and bonus before making a withdrawal (subject to conditions 12 to 15 below).
5.If the turnover requirements for this offer have not been met within 90 days of you entering your Offer Code any funds held in your bonus balance will be forfeited.
9. If a withdrawal or transfer out is actioned:
a) before you enter your Offer Code then any previous deposits will not count towards the initial qualifying criteria; orb) after you enter your Offer Code but before you complete the turnover requirements then any funds in your bonus balance will be forfeited and the offer will no longer be available to you.
12.Any single bets placed at odds of less than 1/2 (1.50) will not count towards any turnover requirement. In multiple bets at least one selection must have odds of 1/2 (1.50) or greater to count towards any turnover requirement.
13.Only bets placed on the first selection in any market/fixture combination, both pre-match and In-Play, will count towards any turnover requirements. Any subsequent bets placed on other selections in the same market/fixture combination will not count towards the turnover requirements. This term is applied in conjunction with the other restrictions. As an example, once you have qualified, a bet on Man Utd to beat Chelsea on the Full Time Result market at odds of 1/2 (1.50) or greater will count towards the turnover requirements, however a subsequent bet placed on Chelsea on the Full Time Result market in the same game either pre-match or In-Play will not count towards the turnover requirements. Where your first bet on any market/fixture combination is less than 1/2 (1.50), this bet and any subsequent bets on this market/fixture combination will not count towards any turnover requirements.
I’ll explain these one at a time:
1 Tells us what to actually do to get the bonus.
4 This is the important one. It tells us that we need to rollover our deposit and bonus 3 times in order to withdraw and therefore complete the wagering requirements.
In this case we can work out that the rollover required is deposit (£200) + bonus (£200) times 3.
£200 + £200 x 3 = £1200. so we need AT LEAST £1200 in our exchange to complete this offer. (this is on top of the £200 we have put in the bookie) personally I’d have a couple of hundred more just in case.5 Tells us how long we’ve got to do the offer before they cancel it.
9 The warning that we will lose our bonus if we try to withdraw before completing wagering requirements. Bear in mind that you won’t just lose the bonus, but all the money that you used to cover the bet from your exchange as well.
12 This tells us the minimum odds we need to bet at to complete wagering. Usually a bookie will let you bet at lower odds but it won’t count towards wagering.
13 Tells us that only the first bet on any market will count towards wagering (note, a “market” in this case means Team A v Team B OR correct score OR HT/FT etc. so you can bet on say team A to win, 2-1, and Team A/Team A in the same match and be ok. What they mean is you can’t bet on Team A and then lump on another bet on Team A as the second bet won’t count towards rollover.)
With all that in mind we can make our first bet. Bet365 adds the bonus funds to your balance but doesn’t let you bet with them until your first bet has settled if I remember right, so the qualifying bet is just a straight-forward matched bet at 1.5 or above. Whether this wins or loses makes no difference to how to proceed, as you have ensured you have enough money to cover you as per Rule No.2 haven’t you?
Your balance is now composed of the bonus and any winnings you have from the first bet. This is treated in exactly the same way as the first qualifying bet. This is because Bet365 expect you to rollover your balance 3 times instead of taking the stake money away from the freebet the way other bookies do.
Almost all bookies either do Stake Not Returned (SNR) freebet style bonuses OR Stake Returned (SR) rollover type bonuses. The only exception I know of is BetVictor, who combine the two. In their case, a freebet appears on the betslip to tick, so we would use this bet as an SNR and then rollover the winnings at the minimum odds required.
There are other types where the bookie will drip feed you bonuses as you bet, Unibet I think do this where they will have a bonus of say £90 and will give you it in 3x£30 steps. Again you would just keep betting at minimum odds until you get through. If all your bets lose then you will have to deposit more to keep going. This can be a problem if you are waiting for a withdrawal from the exchange to recycle into the bookie and you have a limited time to do it in, so probably best if you can cover the deposits without having to wait, but don’t depost the whole amount because if your first bet wins its quite likely you will now have enough to finish off.A quick rant on high odds.
Its a particular bugbear of mine and has been the ruin of many a young padawan. HIGH ODDS DO WIN! Stop thinking that they will lose and your exchange will fill up with lovely cash. High odds are winning all over the place. There would be no gambling, no sport even, if the underdog didn’t win sometimes, what would be the point in competing if the big boys always thrashed everyone. Ask any England fan what they thought about the odds when they ran up against the mighty Iceland! Or what Leicester City thought about their chances of winning the premiership. Or even Donald Trump or Brexit.
There is a more serious point with regards to matched betting, in that if you bet at high odds when attempting a rollover and it wins, you are very much worse off for two reasons. Firstly, the difference between the bookies odds and the exchange odds will usually be more, meaning a higher qualifying loss, and secondly you will have much more money sitting in your bookie that you can’t get at. Imagine a bet of £100 @ 1.6. if it wins you now have £160 in your account. You are £60 worse off than you started but you have done £100 of wagering and your exchange is still healthy because you followed rule No.2. Now imagine a bet of £100 @ 8. all of a sudden you have £800 in your bookie, £700 worse off! And you’ve still only done £100 of wagering! AND it now means you will have to do ALL of the rollover because even if all your subsequent bets lose you still have all the money needed to do the rollover in the account! AND you will lose more money trying to find good odds matches because you’ve got to get this damn money out somehow. AND you will now have to revert to lower odds to do the rest of the rollover anyway because your exchange has had a coronary! All the time there’s a small balance there’s a chance you could bust out without having to roll it all. After all, for every high odds win, there’s a low odds loss.Common Questions
Q. Do I have to deposit more to complete rollover if I lost both bets?
A. No, if the bets lose and your account is empty, you’ve been lucky and the offer is over.Q. What happens if I win the qualifying bet but lose the bonus part?
A. Depends on the bookie, some (like 365) only apply the rollover to the bonus, other apply it to all the balance (and BetVictor apply a Stake Not Returned element as well!)Q. How much should I bet? £200 or 4 x £50?
A. Depends again on the bookie and what the T+Cs say, but its also personal choice. There is a fear factor involved when you first start out so its human nature to not want to bet huge amounts of money even though the outcome will be the same. After a while you become acclimatised to it and don’t think twice about slapping £1000 on a horse, you just see the £3.59p profit it makes you! Lol You also need to make sure there is enough liquidity at the exchange for what you want to bet on, but it shouldn’t be a problem with big league footballQ. I’ve accidentally done the Winner sign up, am I fucked?
A. yupI hope this helps and good luck!
