Do Sportsbook Promos Actually Make You Money? (The Math)

[00:02] we're going to be discussing sportsbook promos and bonuses. [music] Are they profitable? Are they trap lines? Is it worth playing sports book promos? So, all of these books, prize picks, flip, you can see tons of different promos on

[00:18] the screen right here. All of these books are in ruthless competition, you know, for customers. They want to keep people coming back to their platform. kind of like a restaurant giving out free appetizers. So, long story short,

[00:32] all these books are on promos and it's kind of your job as a sports better to figure out which ones are actually profitable and worth playing. But the short answer is most promos are actually good, positive EV, positive ROI. And

[00:48] really what it boils down to is maximizing your profit margin or playing them in in the right way. Like so much of sports betting revolves around edge of sports betting revolves around edge maximization. You know, little returns,

[01:03] increases in returns make a big difference over time. You can see at this point I'm up over $700,000 sports betting. That wasn't from one parlay. I've been betting on sports for years, and it was a slow grind exploiting the

[01:16] sports books, taking advantage of no-brainer promos, using sharp betting strategies like arbitrage. But regardless, the point of this video is very simple. To cover, are sportsbook promos profitable? What's the math? How

[01:31] do you maximize profits? And again, the long and short answer is yes, you can make a lot of money off sportsbook promos. I highly recommend you watch this video on sportsbook signup bonuses. I'll link to it above, but basically, I

[01:45] I'll link to it above, but basically, I did a video. You can make $18,000 in riskfree [music] profit solely off of sportsbook signup bonuses. It's kind of like credit card hacking, but basically what this means is if you traveled to

[02:00] every single state, signed up for every book, and did their signup bonus in the mathematically optimal way, you could make 18 grand in guaranteed profits. So, books run these promos? And again, it's

[02:14] a marketing cost. Sports books make approximately an average of $2,000 per customer per year. So FanDuel doesn't really care, right? Giving out $300

[02:26] getting somebody to sign up because they know 97 to 99% of sports betterers lose a ton of money long-term over the course of the long run and they're going to make that money back really quickly. But without further ado, let's get into some

[02:41] examples of promos because I because I'll say like promos call fall into three main categories. The first is the no-brainer, the obvious. You don't even have to think. You just bet it, right? Jared Goff to throw one passing yard. I

[02:54] mean, that's literally free money. Boosted to plus 100 odds unless he gets injured in the first play. This is literally free money. If you log into Fliff, if you take the 10 seconds to log into the sports book, place this bet,

[03:07] you're $10 richer. I mean, it doesn't get much easier than that. There's nothing really to think about. The second category I'd say is [music] the not profitable sports book promos when they're trying to trick you. So, I'll

[03:19] give you an example is you can see on Sleeper, they're like, "Oh, we have this promo on Jamar Chase. We have him at 66 half receiving yards." You don't want to play that. If you look at other sports books, his line is literally lower and

[03:33] they're not even running promos, right? Jamar Chase's line is 65 and a half on prize picks, 64 and a half on other books. This is a trash promo from Sleeper. You want to avoid it. So, I do recommend, you know, there's the obvious

[03:47] no-brainers, but in general, doing a little bit of factchecking and just trying to get a sense of is this promo actually good? Is it not good? Is really helpful. Another example of a trash promo is right here. Bo Nicks on Sleeper

[04:02] as well, right next to Jamar Chase over one and a half passing touchdowns boosted to a 1.9x payout. So what does a 1.9x payout mean, right? I don't know why, but Sleeper puts their odds and

[04:15] this is called decimal format or payout format. So you can just use an odds converter calculator like right here to convert the odds from decimal odds to convert the odds from decimal odds to American odds. A 1.9x payout means

[04:27] you're betting 100 to win 90 in profit. So it's the same as minus 111 odds approximately. And that's not a good promo. It's not a good promo. Like if you look at other books, for example, on Novig, they're giving you a better price

[04:41] and there's no promo on Novig. They have Bo Knicks over one and a half passing touchdowns at minus 110 odds. So this minus 111, long story short, that Sleeper is offering as a promo is trash. You don't want to play it. So you do

[04:56] kind of want to sense check a lot of these promos. And then finally, I'll say there's the promos that are definitely profitable if you use them in the right way. So I'll give you an example is tonight for Monday Night Football, the

[05:09] day I'm recording this video, FanDuel has a 50% profit boost. Well, you have two options. You can get one 50% profit boost or you can take two 30% profit boost or you can take two 30% profit boosts. So the average hold or vague or

[05:24] juice that sports books charge is about 4 to 5%. And they're giving you a 30% boost in your odds. So if you bet something plus 300, you're now getting plus 390. So basically, you can probably

[05:38] pretty blindly bet this promo and make money. But again, it goes back to edge maximization. What's the right decision? Should you take one profit boost to 50% Should you take one profit boost to 50% or two at 30%. What is mathematically

[05:51] optimal? And how do you maximize your edge? So, I'll give you an example of running through how I would think about how I would strategize using this promo. And again, it's a great promo if you just know how to use it. So, I'm going

[06:05] to show you how to do that. So, here you can see FanDuel and I have two options. can see FanDuel and I have two options. I can take one 50% boost or two 30% boost. What is mathematically optimal? That's what we kind of want to go

[06:17] That's what we kind of want to go through. So the first thing I do is I promo is actually better. And there's a few ways you can do that, right? So these profit boosts on FanDuel for most people usually you get a max bet size of

[06:33] $25. So basically, if I take two 30% profit So basically, if I take two 30% profit boosts, then I'd have $50 that I can bet total, and I could just put the $50, right? I could put both promo plays,

[06:48] both 30% boosts on the same play. [snorts] So, what this Odds Jam promo converter does is it essentially just shows you how to convert your profit shows you how to convert your profit boost into risk-free cash, right? So you

[07:02] boost into risk-free cash, right? So you can see right here what what what Odds Jam is saying is you could bet on Kent State. Well, this isn't a football play for tonight. So what I actually need to do is I need to filter because it has to

[07:15] be for football, I believe it says. So what I need to do is I need to filter for the NFL. So what this is saying is, hey, you could bet on Justin Fields, right? both of your profit boosts. You could put $50 on him total at plus 280

[07:31] and then you could hedge bet his under on Novig at minus $219 to make a risk-free profit of about $10. So what I want to do next is be like, okay, is want to do next is be like, okay, is that better making $10 or is it better

[07:46] that better making $10 or is it better to take this, you know, $25 uh for a 50% profit boost? And you'll see it's approximately equal. Like this play once approximately equal. Like this play once again, you'd be making about $10 in

[08:00] guaranteed profit. So in this scenario, it doesn't really matter. So what I can do is I can say, okay, let's do this. So let's go back here because I I do have Novig logged into. So let's just see if we can um quickly find a play that seems

[08:16] we can um quickly find a play that seems decent to bet, right? So let's take a look here. Right, Olly Gordon. So, let me opt into this FanDuel promo. So, $7 me opt into this FanDuel promo. So, $7 to $10 if I run um or sorry, this is

[08:29] supposed to say 30%. What am I doing here? So, basically what I can do is I can grab these profit boosts on FanDuel. I can say claim reward. Man, they limited me. Now, they're only giving me a max bet

[08:43] size of $10. But regardless, the mass still holds. What I can do is I can go to the Dolphins game [snorts] and I can take Justin Fields to score a and I can take Justin Fields to score a touchdown at plus 280, right? And

[08:57] obviously I think this is a great bet to begin with. Like you don't even necessarily need to hedge it if you just want to run it as a positive EV play. But just to show you the math that like, hey, this is profitable is what I can do

[09:10] is I can go back here and I can say they're only letting me bet $10 on this promo play. And where is Justin Fields? So, they're letting me bet $10 and it's a 30% profit boost. So, let's go back

[09:25] here to Justin Fields. So, what this is telling me is, hey, you can guarantee a dollar or $3 risk-free profit if you hedge on Novig and bet $25 on his under. that. You can see on Novig, it's a peer-to-peer betting exchange. And

[09:41] obviously this isn't a lot of money, but because I've been profitable on FanDuel, they've cut down my max betting limit on these promos. I used to get $50, then it went down to 25, and apparently now it's 10. So what I can do is I can just go to

[09:56] this Jets game. You know, these promos do not take long once you kind of learn the math and how to do them. You go to anytime touchdown scores and we want to anytime touchdown scores and we want to take Justin Fields is under for $25.

[10:08] There's plenty of money in liquidity. So, what I can do is I can just lock So, what I can do is I can just lock this in really quickly. Bang. So, now we can go through the math. I have $10 on Fields to score a touchdown at plus 280.

[10:22] And then I have 25 bucks on him to not score at minus 219. So, I'm basically just taking this FanDuel promo and converting it into a risk-free profit. So, basically, there's two options, right? He's going

[10:37] to score or he's not going to score. So, if he doesn't score, I'm going to lose 25 or sorry, if he does score, I'm going to lose 25 on Novig. On FanDuel, I bet $10 right at plus 280 odd. So, I'm going to make 28 bucks in profit. [snorts] So,

[10:52] my net profit is going to be $3. On the other hand, if he doesn't score, I lose other hand, if he doesn't score, I lose 10 on FanDuel. And I also on Novig am going to win. You can see here 1139 which would be the same as 25 * 100 over

[11:08] 219, right? So maybe a little bit of a rounding error, but regardless of what happens, I'm making money. Obviously, you don't have to hedge these promos. A you don't have to hedge these promos. A lot of times what I do is simply I'll

[11:21] filter for football is I'll just try to find a positive EV betting opportunity. Positive EV betting opportunities just mean bets, you know, with a mathematical edge. So obviously if you're positive EV betting your promo play may lose. The

[11:36] point of showing you you can hedge is just showing you these promos are really profitable. You can literally convert them into risk-free guaranteed profit in a couple button clicks. But obviously you don't have to do that. So what I

[11:49] want to do is I want to filter for games today in the NFL. And what I could do, right, is I could just run this as my second play over 54 1/2 points in the

[12:01] game. You can see FanDuel is giving you a great price. This is just the odds Jam positive EV tool. Doesn't do anything complicated. Basically scans, reads in, updates millions of odds across sports books every second in real time to point

[12:16] know, profitable bets, bets with an edge. So maybe for my second one, I just want to run this straight up at plus 420. I just want a positive EV bet on a mathematically profitable bet. Obviously, this bet may lose, but that's

[12:32] not really the point because I could Fanatics has the under at minus 350. So what I could do, right, I'm on the over at plus420 is because these two books are so out of sync, both of these sports books are in Virginia, I could

[12:47] just hedge, right? I could just hedge and guarantee a risk-free profit or I was like that seems a little too good and make a risk-free profit of $156. So

[13:00] profitable, right? I could just So obviously this promo is a great promo because I could just hedge it and guarantee a profit of $156. So I'm just going to let this stand. I'm just going to run it as a positive EV

[13:15] wager. And it's the same thing here. So you can see Prize Picks has a discount on Boon Knicks. It's a 22 yard discount. Obviously, you know, 22 yards, it's not guaranteed to hit by any means, but the

[13:29] question is, is this worth playing or not? So, I've done videos on the math behind prize picks. And basically on prize picks, you have to win about 55% of your picks to be profitable. So in other words,

[13:44] if you and they just moved that line, but let's just go to a simple example. If you can win your bets such as, you know, Bo Knicks over under half of one and a half sacks taken. If you can win these overunders, prize picks is setting

[13:59] them to essentially be 50/50. There's a 50% probability of going over or under. If you can have a win rate on these overunders of 55%, you're winning 55% only losing 45%, you have a real edge. Then you're going to be profitable on

[14:15] prize pick. So basically the question is, does this play on Bon Knicks, right, him throwing 200 plus yards, do we think this play has a win rate above 55%. So what I can do is I can go over to FanDuel. FanDuel is one of the only

[14:30] FanDuel. FanDuel is one of the only sports books that offers alternate passing lines. So basically I can go here to Bon Knicks, right? And you can see he's a minus 205 favorite. Obviously there's some juice baked into that, but

[14:45] there's some juice baked into that, but he's a minus 205 favorite to go over 199 1/2 yards, the same as 200 plus yards. He's a minus 205 favorite according to FanDuel. Granted, that market has some juice in it, but regardless, what you

[15:00] can do is I can just go over to an odds converter calculator, right? Minus 205 minus 200 would be a 2:1 favorite. 2/3 to win 66%. [sighs] So, a minus 205 favorite is even better.

[15:15] still in this market. You'd need to devig it, but this play clearly clearly has a win rate above 55%. Right? FanDuel's not adding in that much juice. So, it's not a guaranteed win. It's not a guaranteed hit, but this would be a

[15:30] great promo play to include in a prize pick slip. Again, it's not a guaranteed win, but it would be a great play that you could include. So, that's kind of how I think about promos, how I optimize promos. Kind of random video, but I hope

[15:45] of questions about sports book promos, which ones are profitable, which ones aren't profitable. If you have any questions, comment them below. But questions, comment them below. But thanks so much for watching this video.