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What Does Bonus Whore Mean In Sporting Betting?

by Doc's Sports - 10/2/2014

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The world of online sportsbooks is very competitive. To attract new customers, books will often offer incentives, or bonuses, for people to sign up. They could, for example, offer to match your first deposit up to $500 - if you deposit $500 they will give you $500 more. Someone who signs up for books primarily to receive the bonus, and who sign up at a lot of books chasing these bonuses, is called a bonus whore.

There are, of course, strings attached - books just aren’t throwing around cash. Typically, you have to bet several times the amount of the bonus before you can cash it out or use it. You might, for example, have to bet six times the amount of the bonus to clear the bonus and be free to do with it what you wish. Up to that point the money is not yet yours, and you can’t use it for betting. So, a bonus is like a certificate you can cash in only after you have jumped through some hoops first.

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Bonus whores will attempt to bet the highest volume at the lowest risk they can. There are ways to do this - at least theoretically. For example, you can bet the over at one sportsbook, and the under at the same total at another sportsbook. No matter what you will have a winning and a losing bet, and all it will cost you is the juice on the bet. As long as the combined amount of juice you pay doing this is smaller than the bonus you would make money on this approach.

While some bonuses can be attractive, and there are ways to efficiently chase them, being a bonus whore and having your decisions driven by these bonuses is almost always a bad idea. If you are a committed long-term bettor then the prices you bet are much more important than the bonuses in the long term. If you are committed to chasing bonuses then you aren’t likely always betting the best price; you are essentially throwing real money away in the pursuit of free money - a balance that rarely works out in your favor.

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