Every offshore book we could check computes rollover on deposit plus bonus, not on the bonus alone. That one detail doubles the requirement on a 100% match, and almost nobody writing about promo codes mentions it.
Promo pages go stale faster than anything else on a betting site, so we are not going to give you a table of this month’s offers that will be wrong by October. What we are going to give you is the arithmetic, because the arithmetic does not change.
Once you can work out what a bonus is actually worth, you can price any offer yourself, including the ones that have not been announced yet.
On this page
Rollover is on deposit plus bonus
This is the finding that matters most and it is published, in the books’ own words, on their own help pages.
| Book | What rollover is calculated on |
|---|---|
| Bovada | Deposit plus bonus |
| Bookmaker.eu | Deposit plus bonus, and a 1x deposit rollover applies even if you take no bonus at all |
| MyBookie | Deposit plus bonus |
| BetUS | “Combined deposit and bonus” |
| Everygame | “The deposit and the bonus” |
| Xbet | Deposit plus fees plus bonus, at a multiple that rises with deposit size |
| DraftKings, BetMGM, Caesars, bet365, Fanatics | Bonus only, 1x |
MyBookie publishes its own worked example, which saves us the trouble of doing it for them: deposit $100, get $50, that is $150, multiplied by ten is $1,500 that you have to put in action. Bovada words it as a multiplier of the bonus plus the deposit amount.
So when a page tells you an offer is “10x rollover”, ask 10x what. On a 100% match, ten times the bonus and ten times deposit-plus-bonus are a factor of two apart. On a 50% match they are three apart.
Xbet deserves a specific mention because its structure runs backwards from how it is marketed. The multiple is tiered by deposit size, rising from 5x through 10x to 15x above $1,001 and 20x above $2,001. The more you put in, the worse the deal gets.
The rule that inflates your turnover by half
Here is a second rule, published at four books, that almost nobody explains. When a bet wins, the amount credited toward your rollover is the lesser of the risk amount or the win amount. Losses credit the full risk.
Bovada, Bookmaker.eu, MyBookie and BetUS all publish a version of this. BetUS words it as the amount of cash action risked or won, whichever is lower.
Work through what that does. Bet a favourite at minus 200, risking $200 to win $100. If it loses you get $200 of credit. If it wins you get $100. Expected credit per $200 risked is about $133, which means you have to risk roughly one and a half times as much money to clear the same requirement.
Underdogs do not help either, because there the risk amount is the smaller number and it is the one that counts.
The rollover-optimal price is exactly even money
At plus 100 the risk and the win are identical, so a winner credits the full stake. Every step away from even money in either direction inflates the turnover you need. If you are clearing a bonus at a book with this rule, bet near pick’em and you will clear it for meaningfully less than someone hammering short favourites.
The break-even multiple
Now we can put a number on it. At minus 110 the house expects to keep 4.545% of every dollar you risk. A bonus is worth taking only if the bonus exceeds what you expect to lose clearing it.
Turnover is deposit plus bonus, multiplied by the rollover. Cost is turnover times 4.545%. Net value is the bonus minus that cost.
| Match size | Break-even rollover | Break-even if the lesser-of rule applies |
|---|---|---|
| 50% match | 7.3x | 4.9x |
| 100% match | 11.0x | 7.3x |
| 125% match | 12.2x | 8.2x |
Above those multiples, a break-even bettor is paying the book for the privilege of accepting a gift. Here is the same maths run against real published offers.
| Offer | Turnover required | Expected cost at -110 | Net value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Everygame 100% to $500, 8x | $8,000 | $364 | +$136 |
| MyBookie 100% to $1,000, 10x | $20,000 | $909 | +$91 |
| Bovada 50% to $250, 5x | $3,750 | $170 | +$80 |
| Xbet 50% to $200, 10x | $6,000 | $273 | -$73 |
| BetUS 125% to $2,500, 14x | $63,000 | $2,864 | -$364 |
| BetUS, clearing on baseball (counts 50%) | $126,000 | $5,727 | -$3,227 |
That last row is not a typo. BetUS publishes that baseball action counts at half rate toward rollover, and it excludes props, futures and quarter markets entirely. A baseball bettor taking the headline 125% offer is looking at a six-figure turnover requirement on a $2,000 deposit.
The biggest advertised number on the page is, reliably, the worst offer on the page.
Free play is worth about half its face value
A free play or bonus bet does not return your stake when it wins. You get the profit only. That makes its value depend entirely on the odds you use it at.
The formula is simple: the free play is worth its face value multiplied by one minus the reciprocal of the decimal odds.
| Odds used | Share of face value captured | $250 free play is worth |
|---|---|---|
| -200 | 33% | $83 |
| -110 | 48% | $119 |
| +100 | 50% | $125 |
| +125 | 56% | $139 |
| +200 | 67% | $167 |
| +300 | 75% | $188 |
| +1000 | 91% | $227 |
So the way to extract value from a free play is to use it on a long price. Which is precisely why some books cap the odds you may use it at.
BetOnline’s free play offer runs the usual odds restriction backwards. Instead of a minimum price, it publishes a maximum: baseball and hockey capped around plus 125, combat sports capped at minus 200 for favourites and plus 125 for dogs, and football, basketball, soccer and tennis restricted to spreads and totals. A $250 free play with no rollover sounds excellent until you notice you can only deploy it in the part of the price range where a free play is worth least. Realistically that is somewhere around $120 to $139 of value against a $250 headline.
Compare that to a regulated bonus bet with no published odds ceiling, which you can put on a plus 300 shot and capture roughly 75% of face. The regulated offer with the smaller number on it is worth more.
Free play does not usually count toward rollover
At MyBookie, Bookmaker.eu, BetUS and Xbet, winnings from free play do not credit toward a separate cash bonus requirement, and Bookmaker’s free plays carry a rollover of their own. Two bonuses running at once do not clear each other.
The deposit lock
At most offshore books, accepting a bonus locks your own money until the rollover is met. Bovada states that all deposits must be wagered completely before any winnings can be withdrawn. Everygame requires the deposit to be rolled over once. Bookmaker.eu applies a 1x deposit rollover whether or not you took a bonus.
Withdrawing early does not just cancel the bonus. At Bovada, Xbet, MyBookie, BetUS and Bookmaker.eu, an early withdrawal forfeits the bonus and anything won with it. Bovada’s terms also treat cashing out a placed bet as a trigger.
That is the real cost of a bonus and it is not measured in money. It is measured in the weeks during which you cannot get at your own bankroll. If you value liquidity, and after reading our bankroll page you probably should, decline the bonus and deposit clean.
Why regulated offers look smaller
They look smaller because regulators made the books stop lying about the big ones.
Ohio’s rule is the strongest in the country. Promotions described as free or risk-free must not require the customer to incur any loss or risk their own money, and, critically, a promotion must not restrict the customer from withdrawing their own funds or winnings from wagers placed with their own funds. That provision would make the offshore deposit lock illegal in Ohio.
Massachusetts and New York carry near-identical wording on “free” and “risk-free”, and both require the wagering condition to be printed in the same size and style of font as the headline number. Virginia requires full disclosure of material terms and bars any offer that delays full implementation beyond 90 days. Arizona requires material facts and conditions to be disclosed on anything described as free. The American Gaming Association’s own marketing code dropped “risk-free” industry-wide in March 2023, which is why the phrase vanished overnight.
None of that binds an offshore book. The honest framing is that offshore headline numbers are bigger precisely because nobody is forcing them to print the requirement in headline font, release your deposit, or stop calling a locked credit free.
A four-question check before you claim anything
- Is the rollover on the bonus or on deposit plus bonus? If the page you are reading does not say, it does not know.
- Does a winning bet credit the risk amount or the lesser of risk and win? If it is the lesser, add about 50% to your turnover estimate and bet near even money.
- What is excluded? Sports that count at half rate, props, futures, live betting, horse racing, quarters, hedged bets and no-juice games all show up in published terms.
- Is my deposit locked, and what happens if I withdraw early? At five of the offshore books we checked, early withdrawal forfeits the bonus and everything won with it.
Run those four questions against the arithmetic above and you can price any offer in about two minutes. Our bonus listings carry current offers, and you should still check the operator’s own terms page before you deposit, because ours can go stale too.
Common questions
What does 10x rollover actually mean?
At every offshore book we could verify, it means ten times your deposit plus your bonus, not ten times the bonus. MyBookie publishes the example itself: deposit $100, receive $50, and you must put $1,500 in action. On a 100% match that makes the requirement twice what most people assume, and on a 50% match three times. Regulated US books work differently, using a 1x playthrough on the bonus alone.
Are sportsbook bonuses worth taking?
Only below a certain rollover multiple. At minus 110 odds the house expects to keep 4.545% of everything you risk, so a bonus is worth taking only if it exceeds the expected cost of clearing it. The break-even points are roughly 7.3x on a 50% match, 11x on a 100% match and 12.2x on a 125% match. Above those, you are paying the book to accept a gift. A 125% offer at 14x rollover is worth several hundred dollars less than nothing, and considerably worse than that if you bet a sport that counts at half rate.
How much is a $250 free bet worth?
Between about $83 and $227, depending entirely on the odds you use it at, because a free play does not return your stake. At minus 200 you capture 33% of face value. At plus 100 you capture 50%. At plus 300 you capture 75%. This is why the odds restriction on a free play matters more than its size, and why some offshore books cap the maximum odds you may use it at, which confines you to the range where it is worth least.
Can I withdraw before I finish the rollover?
You can request it, but at Bovada, Xbet, MyBookie, BetUS and Bookmaker.eu doing so forfeits the bonus and any winnings generated from it. Bovada’s terms go further and treat cashing out a placed bet as a trigger. Several books also lock your own deposit until the rollover is met, so the money you put in is not available either. Ohio’s regulations would make that deposit lock unlawful for a licensed operator, which tells you something about the practice.
Which bets count toward rollover?
Fewer than you would expect, and the exclusions are published. BetUS excludes props, futures and quarter markets and counts baseball at half rate. Everygame excludes horse racing, hedged bets and no-juice games and caps the stake that counts. Xbet excludes casino, live betting and horse racing. Bookmaker.eu counts graded sports bets only, with no cash-outs. Every book credits nothing for a push or a void. At Bovada, Bookmaker.eu, MyBookie and BetUS, a winning bet credits only the lesser of the risk and the win, which makes short favourites the worst way to clear a bonus.
Why do offshore bonuses look so much bigger than DraftKings or FanDuel?
Because state regulators forced the regulated side to describe its offers accurately. Ohio bars calling anything free or risk-free if the customer must risk their own money, and bars restricting withdrawal of the customer’s own funds. Massachusetts and New York require the wagering condition to appear in the same font size as the headline number. The American Gaming Association dropped “risk-free” industry-wide in March 2023. An offshore book faces none of that, so it can advertise a large number and put the conditions that make it small somewhere else.
Sportsbooks.ag may earn a commission from some links on this page, at no extra cost to you. Every figure here comes from an operator’s published terms, a regulator rule or our own computation, and commercial relationships did not influence what we said about any offer. See our affiliate disclaimer, editorial policy and how we rate sportsbooks.