Matched Betting Reload Offers: What Stays on the Table After the Welcome Bonus

Updated October 2026

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Data current as of 27 October 2026, verified against the Gambling Commission’s public register.

The welcome bonus fades quickly. What replaces it, the reload offer, is the engine of matched betting once the first free bet has been claimed and used. Reloads are smaller, more frequent, and conditional on behaviour bookmakers can watch in real time: how much you stake, which markets you favour, whether your account is already in the bookmaker’s “limited” pile. This page explains how reload offers fit into matched betting, what the Gambling Commission rules from 19 January 2026 did to the arithmetic, and which of the ten reviewed operators still leaves room for the technique to work.

Responsible gambling: the frame before the technique

Matched betting starts with a bankroll and a notebook; it ought to start with a safeguard. Every operator reviewed here holds a Gambling Commission remote licence and is a member of GAMSTOP, the national multi-operator self-exclusion scheme. GAMSTOP periods run six months, one year, five years, or five years with auto-renewal, and after the minimum period the exclusion stays in place for a further seven years unless the customer asks for it to be removed. A matched bettor who finds the routine crowding out sleep, or who has chased a reload through a week of declining balance, has one free route out: register with GAMSTOP, and the doors close across every GB-licensed site at once.

The Commission’s financial vulnerability check (LCCP condition 3.4.4, in force since 30 August 2024) is the next layer. Once deposits minus withdrawals exceed £150 in any rolling 30 days — the threshold has applied since 28 February 2025 — the operator runs a public-record check: bankruptcy registers, county court judgments. It is not an income check, and it is not a credit reference search, but it is automated, and it fires earlier than most casual bettors expect. Announced separately, a staged plan for fuller financial risk assessments appeared in a Commission article of 7 July 2026; the plan has no start date and is best described as announced, staged, with no implementation confirmed. None of this is theatre. A matched bettor running several reloads a week will trip the £150 threshold inside a fortnight.

Help exists outside the operators: GamCare runs the National Gambling Helpline, GambleAware funds treatment, NHS gambling clinics operate in several regions, and Gamblers Anonymous meetings are held in person and online. The matched-betting community, for its part, treats reload offers as a craft and the craft as a hobby. The two attitudes collide when one reload a week turns into four, or when the “qualifying bet” stops looking like an instruction and starts feeling like a session. Recognising the drift matters more than the next free bet does.

How matched betting actually works

Matched betting is a technique for profiting from bookmakers’ free bets and promotions, using accounts with two or more bookmakers or betting exchanges, at least one of which offers a free bet. The mechanics run on three legs: a back bet at the bookmaker, a lay bet on an exchange covering the same outcome, and a free bet that the bookmaker credits once the qualifying stake has settled.

The qualifying bet

A qualifying bet is a bet with the bettor’s own money that unlocks a free bet; the same result is backed at the bookmaker and laid at an exchange to cover the loss if it does not occur. The aim is not to win. It is to lose as little as possible while the bookmaker registers a settled stake large enough to release the free bet. A typical welcome offer asks for a first single bet of at least 5p at odds of 1/1 (2.00) or greater, after a deposit of at least £5; the matched bettor will back that selection at the bookmaker and lay it at the exchange at a near-identical price, pocketing the difference between the back and lay odds as a small guaranteed loss that the free bet then recoups.

The free bet itself

Once the qualifying bet has settled, the bookmaker credits a free bet. Most free bets in Great Britain share four traits: the stake is not returned with the winnings, the bet must be placed at minimum odds (often 1/2, sometimes EVS), the free bet expires within a fixed window (30 days at Sky Bet is the longer end; 7 days at Midnite and Dabble is the shorter), and the free bet cannot be split across multiples or used on virtuals at some houses. Each of those clauses changes the maths.

The exchange side

Betting exchanges let customers back and lay, with another customer matching each bet. Commission is usually charged as a percentage of net winnings per market and not at all on a net loss. Exchanges generally restrict odds to between 1.01 (1 to 100) and 1000 (999 to 1), so a free bet at 1.01 backed and laid is theoretically possible but economically pointless once commission is taken. The exchange is also where the matched bettor absorbs the small loss on the qualifying bet. Without an exchange there is no matched bet — only an ordinary punter taking an ordinary offer.

The calculator and the result

A matched betting calculator takes four inputs: the back stake, the back odds, the lay odds, and the exchange commission. It returns a lay stake that locks in the closest available outcome to a flat profit (or, on a free bet where the stake is not returned, the closest available outcome to extracting the free bet’s value). The calculation is mechanical, the inputs are public, and the discipline is to repeat it for every leg of a reload offer rather than trusting the eye.

Bonuses and free bets under the January 2026 rules

Two rule changes from 19 January 2026 have reshaped the reload market. The first caps wagering requirements on bonuses at 10x — a £10 bonus at 50x needed £500 of qualifying bets before the cap, and now needs no more than £100 of qualifying bets after it. The second bans mixed-product promotions: an offer that requires gambling on two or more product types such as betting, casino, bingo and lottery, for example “bet on football to get free spins”, is no longer permitted at a GB-licensed operator. What is not yet established is whether the cap applies to free bets with no wagering condition at all, and whether there is any cap on the money value of a bonus itself.

Free bet versus bonus

The two are different products. A free bet is a stake the bookmaker gives the customer, and the winnings are paid without the stake — a £10 free bet at 5.0 returns £40, not £50. A bonus is credit added to the customer’s balance, often with a wagering requirement, and the stake usually does count when the bonus is converted. The arithmetic that follows uses the free-bet form, because that is the form reload offers most commonly take.

The value of a free bet in plain numbers

A free bet whose stake is not paid back is worth less than its face value. The general formula is: free-bet value = free-bet amount × (odds − 1) ÷ odds × payout share of the market. Take a £10 free bet placed at decimal odds of 1.90 (9/10 fractional) on a two-way market priced symmetrically at 1.90 / 1.90. The payout share of a symmetric two-way market at 1.90 / 1.90 is approximately 1 ÷ (1/1.90 + 1/1.90) = 1 ÷ 1.053 = 94.97%, leaving the bookmaker a margin of about 5.03%. Plug in the £10 free bet: 10 × (1.90 − 1) ÷ 1.90 × 0.9497 = 10 × 0.4737 × 0.9497 ≈ £4.50. That is the expected value of the free bet after the bookmaker’s margin is taken into account, before exchange commission. Deduct a typical 5% exchange commission on net winnings from the lay side, and the realistic realised value lands closer to £4.25.

The point is not the £4.50. The point is that the face value of the free bet — £10 — is not what the offer is worth. The value sits between roughly £4.00 and £5.00 on a typical market once exchange commission is taken, and that band is the figure a matched bettor should plan around when sizing qualifying bets. Longer free-bet odds raise the value toward the face value; shorter odds compress it. A £10 free bet at EVS (2.0) on the same 5% margin market sits around £4.75 before commission; a £10 free bet at 4.0 sits around £6.85.

The minimum price that matters

Every reload offer carries a minimum odds clause. Sky Bet’s free bets, for instance, can be used only on single or each-way markets, exclude virtuals, and carry a 30-day expiry. Betway’s free bets carry 1x wagering at odds of 1.75 or higher. SBK’s £20 first deposit and £20 bet at minimum odds of 3.0 unlocks £60 in free bets within 48 hours. Each of those minimums shapes which selections the matched bettor can use, and how aggressive the qualifying bet has to be to release the free bet at all. A reload whose minimum odds sit below 1.50 is hard to lay off at a price that locks in profit; a reload whose minimum is EVS or longer is workable on most football and horse racing markets.

Deadlines, caps, and the shape of the offer

Reloads are time-limited in three ways. The free bet expires (Sky Bet: 30 days; Dabble: 7 days; Midnite: 7 days from crediting). The qualifying bet must be placed within a window from the trigger (Midnite: 14 days from sign-up; SBK: 48 hours to receive the £60 bundle). And the offer as a whole has a season — William Hill’s Football Acca Boost, for instance, runs until 30 May 2027. None of those dates is generous. A reload that pays crediting 50% up to £50 with a 7-day free bet expiry and a 14-day qualifying window is workable for one bet a week and impossible for someone who only checks the app on weekends.

The ten reviewed operators: what each brings to a reload routine

The ten operators reviewed here are all holders of a Gambling Commission remote licence and all members of GAMSTOP. None of them is a “best” reload operator — each is built around a different product — and the table below sets out the licence position and what the operator’s own terms say on reloads. Several operators trade under the same parent: Betfair sits alongside Paddy Power under PPB Counterparty Services Limited, and the matched bettor who plans to run reloads at both should know they share a single eyes-on-deck. The phrasing in the table is from each operator’s published terms and App Store listings; reading those terms directly is the discipline the technique rewards.

The matched-betting technique needs three things from any operator it touches: a back book, a layable market with reasonable liquidity, and reload offers that survive the qualifying bonus exchange. Exchanges (Smarkets, Matchbook) provide the lay side. Sportsbooks (Betfair, Midnite, Sky Bet, BetGoodwin, Kalooki Sportsbook, Tote) provide the back side and the welcome offers. Spread-betting firms (Sporting Index, plus Spreadex, which is FCA-regulated for spread betting and Gambling Commission-regulated for fixed-odds) sit outside the matched-betting core but supply bonus bundles that a careful reader can convert into fixed-odds value if the terms are read line by line.

Betfair — the sportsbook-plus-exchange hybrid

Betfair is unusual in that it runs a betting exchange and a sportsbook under one roof, licensed to PPB Counterparty Services Limited. The matched bettor can lay at the exchange and back at the sportsbook without funding a second site. The sportsbook carries in-play betting, a Bet Builder, free live streaming of UK and Irish horse racing and football within the app, and a 90 Minute Payout market that settles on the result at the end of normal time regardless of extra time or penalties. The combined offering matters for reloads because the same liquidity pool serves both sides of a matched bet; the sportsbook’s free bets are layable on the exchange’s own platform within seconds of being credited.

Betfair’s parent also operates Paddy Power. Anyone running reloads at both brands is visible to one licence holder, and the matched bettor who values account longevity should treat the two as a single counterparty rather than two independent books.

Smarkets and the SBK sportsbook

Smarkets runs a betting exchange under Smarkets (Malta) Limited and a sportsbook called SBK. The SBK sportsbook’s new-customer offer is a £20 first deposit and a £20 bet at minimum odds of 3.0, returning £60 in free bets within 48 hours, with Cash Out, Bet Builder and live horse racing streams. The 3.0 minimum odds is the meaningful figure: at 3.0 the lay side needs to be priced sharply to leave a workable margin after exchange commission, and on busy football and horse racing markets the SBK free bets are layable on the Smarkets exchange at a small spread. The minimum-odds floor is high enough that casual on-lunge play does not extract much value; the disciplined matched bettor will run the offer with a calculator rather than an instinct.

Matchbook — the long commission-free window

Matchbook runs a 110-day commission-free betting window from registration for new customers who register with the code shown in the listing and make a deposit; standard commission applies once the window closes. Triplebet Limited holds the licence. A matched bettor who plans to run multiple reloads across a quarter should look closely at this: 110 days is long enough to cover two full Premier League rounds of football and the bulk of the Cheltenham Festival and Grand National meetings. The commission saving on the lay side during that window is where the matched-betting edge sits; afterwards, the edge compresses.

Kwiff and the Supercharge

Kwiff’s Supercharge feature can instantly boost the odds on a bet, for example from 2/1 to 20/1, and it can apply to single or multi bets on any sport. The matched bettor’s question with Kwiff is whether a boosted price still leaves enough margin for the lay side to absorb the bookmaker’s edge. A 20/1 boost on a selection the exchange prices at 18/1 is a near-wash; a 20/1 boost on a selection the exchange prices at 14/1 is a backable offer with layable downside. Eaton Gate Gaming Limited holds the licence. Kwiff sits awkwardly inside matched betting because the boosts are the offer rather than the wrapper, and the matched bettor has to value each boost on its own rather than averaging across a portfolio.

Midnite — short windows, sharp bundle

Midnite’s sports welcome offer is the tightest of the ten reviewed operators: new customers who bet £5 or more on pre-match odds of EVS or greater within 14 days of sign-up receive £25 in free bets and 50 free spins, valid for 7 days. Midnite Limited holds licence 101839. The 14-day qualifying window is workable; the 7-day free bet expiry is not generous. The £25 in free bets is layable on the major exchanges within minutes of going live on the Midnite site, and the matched bettor who plans a Midnite reload should set a phone reminder for day six of the free-bet window. The site itself shows in-play events, an acca builder, popular accas and price boosts with maximum-stake limits, and a reader comparing markets will note that the price-boost side of Midnite is more developed than the matched-betting-friendly reload side.

Sky Bet — the £30 trio and the 30-day clock

Sky Bet’s welcome offer is the standard of the GB sportsbook market: £30 in free bets credited as three £10 free bet tokens after a deposit of at least £5 and a first single or each-way bet of at least 5p at odds of 1/1 or greater. SBG Sports Limited holds licence 67370. The free bets can be used only on single or each-way markets (not multiples), exclude virtuals, are non-withdrawable, do not return the stake with winnings, and expire 30 days after crediting. The 30-day expiry is the longest on the list, and that 30 days is the matched bettor’s real working time on each Sky Bet free bet. The site is also Best Odds Guaranteed on UK and Irish racing from 8 AM on the day of the race, a feature that does not change the matched-betting maths but does change the size of the back bet’s expected return when the SP drifts.

BetGoodwin — three small free bets

BetGoodwin’s sports welcome offer is Bet £10 & Get £15 in Free Bets, split as a £5 sports bet, a £5 acca and a £5 Sub-Cover bet. Goodwin Racing Limited holds licence 2927. The split is the offer’s character: three small free bets, each with its own market restriction, rather than a single £15 free bet. The acca leg cannot be matched in the conventional sense because accas are not layable as a single instrument on the major exchanges; the matched bettor’s move is to use the £5 sports bet and the £5 Sub-Cover bet as reloads and treat the £5 acca as a small punt on a price-boosted combination. The total face value (£15) overstates the matched-betting value of the bundle; the realised value is closer to £6.50 across the three legs on a typical margin.

Kalooki Sportsbook — the speed play

Kalooki Sportsbook, operated by Kalooki Sportsbook Limited under licence 57730, advertises instant withdrawals by bank transfer within minutes, Best Odds Guaranteed on UK and Irish horse racing, in-play betting, daily boosts and extra place races. The withdrawal speed matters for matched betting in one specific situation: the bettor who has cycled a reload and wants the profit out of the sportsbook account before the next one starts. A withdrawal that takes three working days interrupts the routine; a withdrawal that takes minutes does not. The matched bettor running multiple Kalooki reloads in a week will value this more than the welcome offer, and the reader comparing sites should weigh the bank-rail speed against the absence of a headline-grabbing welcome bundle.

Sporting Index — the spread-betting detour

Sporting Index’s new-customer offer sits outside the matched-betting core: a £10 fixed-odds bet at minimum odds of 1/2 unlocks three £10 fixed-odds free bets, three £5 Total Goals spread bets, three £5 Winning Favourites spread bets, and a £1 Race Index spread bet. Sporting Index Limited holds licence 27343. The qualifying bet cannot be placed in play or cashed out early. The fixed-odds free bets are matched-betting-friendly in the conventional sense; the spread bets are not — a Total Goals spread of 2.5–3.5 pays on a sliding scale, and the matched bettor who treats it as a fixed-odds position misreads the product. The realistic reload value of this bundle sits in the three £10 fixed-odds free bets; the rest is product showcase.

Tote — the pool-betting foundation

Tote runs pool betting on UK and Irish racing under TDCO Limited, licence 54779. Pool betting is a different mechanism from fixed-odds or exchange betting: the dividend is set after the race by the pool’s stakes minus the operator’s take, and there is no price to lock in advance. The matched-betting technique as it is usually practised does not apply to pool betting in the same way — there is no back-and-lay structure, and there is no exchange liquidity to lay off a free bet credit. Tote earns its place in the table for two reasons. First, William Hill’s Best Odds Guaranteed on UK and Irish racing from 8 AM on the day of the race, on both single and multiple bets, does not apply to ante-post, tote or pari-mutuel bets — which means Tote sits outside that particular price guarantee by design. Second, Tote is a long-established GB brand and its inclusion here reflects the breadth of the GB-licensed market rather than a claim that pool betting is a matched-betting tool.

The legal frame: licences, vulnerability checks, and the offshore gap

Great Britain requires a Gambling Commission remote licence at the point of consumption. The Gambling Act 2005 covers England, Scotland and Wales; Northern Ireland is outside the Act and runs its own older law. Since the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 an operator whose remote facilities are used in Great Britain needs a Commission licence wherever it is based; a Curaçao, Maltese or Gibraltar licence is not a substitute. There is no state monopoly and no cap on the number of licences.

The Commission’s public register is the whole test of whether a brand holds a licence, and it can be searched by business name, trading name, domain or account number. Licensed operators use .com as well as .co.uk, so the domain proves nothing. The register’s categories include remote general betting standard (real events), remote general betting standard (virtual events), remote general betting limited, remote pool betting and remote betting intermediary (the licence for betting exchanges). Several brands can run under one licensee — Ladbrokes and Coral, Paddy Power and Betfair, Sporting Index and a sister spread-betting firm — and a matched bettor with accounts at more than one of those brands is visible to a single licence holder across all of them.

Identity verification before the first deposit means no anonymous play at a licensed site, and source-of-funds questions at higher spend are normal under the money-laundering rules. Minimum age is 18. Credit cards are banned for gambling in Great Britain (since 14 April 2020, LCCP condition 6.1.2), including credit-card-funded payments through an e-wallet; debit cards and bank-based payments are not covered by that ban. A British named-account rule, a state list of permitted payment methods and any rule for or against cryptocurrency deposits at licensed operators are not established, and payments should be read from each operator’s own terms.

The promotion rules in force since 19 January 2026 are the ones that change matched-betting arithmetic directly: wagering requirements on bonuses are capped at 10x, and mixed-product promotions are banned. The 10x cap means a £10 bonus at 50x (which would have required £500 of qualifying bets) is now a £10 bonus at no more than 10x (requiring no more than £100 of qualifying bets). The mixed-product ban closes a class of offer — “bet on football to get free spins” — that several bookmakers had used to push casino product through sportsbook signups.

The tax position is simple for the matched bettor: the player pays no tax on betting winnings in Great Britain. General Betting Duty is the operator’s tax on gross profits, currently 15%; from 1 April 2027 a new remote betting rate of 25% applies within it, while remote bets on UK horse racing, pool betting and in-person betting stay at 15%. Whether operators pass duty on through odds is not established, and the player is never charged duty directly. Spread betting has its own rates — 3% on financial, 10% on other — and is a different product.

Offshore is a different conversation. A GB licence is compulsory at the point of consumption; providing gambling facilities without one is an offence under section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005, aimed at the operator. No offence aimed at a customer who merely bets on an unlicensed site was found in the relevant statute. What is lost by going offshore is concrete: no GAMSTOP coverage, no Commission complaints route, no approved dispute-resolution body, no British consumer redress if funds are withheld, no application of the 10x bonus cap or the £150 vulnerability check. Enforcement is disruption, not blocking — cease-and-desist notices, search-engine referrals, work with registrars, hosts and payment providers — and the Commission has been given, or is about to receive, court-order DNS blocking powers. A matched bettor who values account protection will not run reloads at unlicensed brands; the offer looks larger because the rules that bind licensed operators do not bind the unlicensed ones.

Matched betting in the broader landscape

Matched betting sits at the intersection of three products that developed separately: the sportsbook’s free bet, the betting exchange’s lay bet, and the calculator that prices the gap between them. Each leg was built for a different purpose. The sportsbook free bet is a marketing tool that pays the customer to try a market. The exchange lay bet is a mechanism for price discovery on events the exchange’s customers want to bet against. The calculator is the joined-up arithmetic that lets a disciplined customer treat the marketing offer as a small profit rather than a punt. The three only meet at a customer who knows what each leg costs.

What the technique does not change is the bookmaker’s edge. A 5% margin on a market is a 5% margin on a market whether the bet is matched or not, and the matched bettor’s edge comes from extracting the free bet’s value against a lay price that absorbs the margin, not from beating the margin itself. The reload offer is where this edge compounds: one welcome offer per brand, then smaller free bets on a recurring basis, then smaller still as the operator notices the pattern and limits the account. Limiting is real, and the matched bettor who extracts ten reloads from a single brand before the stake ceiling collapses is the lucky one, not the typical one.

The reload market is also where the new rules bite hardest. The 10x wagering cap has flattened the gap between a £10 bonus at 50x and a £10 bonus at 10x; the mixed-product ban has removed the cross-sell offers that propped up several sportsbook welcome packages. What remains is a thinner, more frequent reload market — the £5 here, the £10 there — on tighter terms. A matched bettor who ran ten offers a month in the pre-2026 market may run six now, and the discipline is to value each one rather than chase the headline figure.

Reading the terms before claiming

Reload offers vary along four axes, and the matched bettor who treats each offer as a small project rather than a quick click will read each axis carefully.

The first axis is the minimum odds. A free bet at minimum odds of 1/2 is harder to lay off at a price that locks in a profit than a free bet at minimum odds of EVS, because the lay side on a short-priced favourite carries a wider spread against the back book. SBK’s minimum odds of 3.0 for the £60 free-bet bundle is the high end of the market, and that 3.0 is the figure the matched bettor plans around.

The second axis is the expiry. Sky Bet’s 30-day free bet expiry is generous; Midnite’s and Dabble’s 7-day expiry is not. A reload whose free bet expires in seven days is workable for one bet a week and impossible for someone who only checks the app on weekends. The expiry is also the clock on the matched bettor’s discipline.

The fourth axis is the stake cap and the winnings cap. Most reload offers do not cap winnings on a free bet outright, but a few cap the stake the customer can place the free bet at, which has the same effect at the long end of the odds scale. Reading the operator’s own terms — not the App Store summary — is the only way to see those caps in plain language.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is matched betting?

Matched betting is a technique for converting bookmakers’ free bets and promotions into a small consistent profit by backing a selection at a sportsbook and laying the same selection at a betting exchange. A qualifying bet is placed with the bettor’s own money to unlock the free bet, and the same outcome is laid off at the exchange so that the loss on either result is roughly fixed. The free bet itself is then placed and laid in the same way, with the stake not returned on most free bets, and the difference between the back and lay prices — after exchange commission — is the realised value. The bookmaker’s margin on the underlying market still applies.

Is matched betting legal?

Matched betting is legal in Great Britain. The customer is using the bookmaker’s own promotional offer, and the bookmaker is licensed by the Gambling Commission under the Gambling Act 2005. The activity sits inside the law as long as it is done through licensed operators and the bettor is 18 or over. Matched betting is not a regulated activity in its own right: the law regulates the operators, not the techniques customers use to extract value from their promotions. The offshore caution still applies — running the technique through unlicensed brands removes the protections GB licensing brings.

What is no-risk matched betting?

No-risk matched betting is the language used for the matched-betting routine when the qualifying bet is laid off so precisely that the loss on either result is near zero. The qualifier “no risk” describes the lay-off, not the underlying bet: a bet at a sportsbook still loses if the selection does not happen, and the lay bet at the exchange pays out to cover most of that loss. The result is a small, fixed cost in exchange for unlocking a free bet, and the free bet’s value (typically 40–50% of face value on a standard market after commission) is the realised profit. The qualifier holds when the lay-off is precise; it does not hold when the back and lay prices diverge or when the bettor forgets to place one side.

What is the maximum wagering requirement on a betting bonus in Great Britain?

Wagering requirements on bonuses at GB-licensed operators are capped at 10x since 19 January 2026. A £10 bonus at 50x would have required £500 of qualifying bets before the cap; under the cap no more than £100 of qualifying bets is allowed. The cap does not yet have a published position on whether it applies to free bets that carry no wagering condition at all, and any cap on the money value of a bonus itself is not established. Mixed-product promotions — an offer that requires gambling on two or more product types such as betting, casino, bingo and lottery — are banned outright under the same rule change.

What do minimum odds and the wagering requirement mean in a sign-up offer?

Minimum odds are the floor below which a bet does not count toward the offer’s conditions. A free bet that requires minimum odds of 1/2 cannot be placed on a selection priced below 1/2; a qualifying bet at minimum odds of EVS must be placed at EVS or longer to release the free bet. The wagering requirement is the multiplier applied to the bonus (or the bonus plus deposit) to set the turnover the customer must generate before withdrawing. A £10 bonus at 10x wagering requires £100 of qualifying bets; a £10 bonus with no wagering requirement is withdrawable as cash once the bonus has been credited. Both clauses are operator-specific and the matched bettor reads them in the operator’s own terms before claiming.

Why is the stake of a free bet not paid back with the winnings?

A free bet is a marketing credit, not a cash stake. The bookmaker’s offer is to credit the winnings on a successful selection without returning the stake, which is why a £10 free bet at decimal odds of 5.0 returns £40 (the £10 stake is not returned) rather than £50 (the £10 stake is). The clause is a cost the customer pays in exchange for the chance to place the bet without risking their own money, and it changes the free bet’s value. The general rule is: free-bet value = free-bet amount × (odds − 1) ÷ odds × payout share of the market, and on a 5%-margin market a £10 free bet at 1.90 returns around £4.50 in expected value before commission. Reading the operator’s terms confirms the stake-not-returned position and the expiry window.

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