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COVID 19 has changed the world. Now people are constrained to spend their time at home. So it is not surprising that there is a spurt in online activities all over the world – be it business or entertainment. People are also trying to play casino online and earn some money.

Those who are seeking fun along with a prospect of trying lady luck are taking a large interest in exploring online gambling.  There are mainly two types of online gambling that people like to indulge in – betting on sports events and casino games. These days due to COVID-19 there are restrictions on all outdoor activities. As such, all sports events are put on the back burner.  However, we shall include both types of online gambling in our discussions and try to throw some light in the ways means of making money out of the bonuses offered by each of them.

Matched betting

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Bonuses from the matched betting are also called sportsbook bonuses.  People talk about gambling as a risky business, but people refer to matched betting as really risk-free and with a little knowledge one can make money out of it. The bonuses offered in it are called “risk-free”. Let us see whether it is true or not.

Sportsbooks offer bonuses on the first bet made. If the person loses the bet a bonus amount is made available free to play further on. So, if a person has put a wager on team X playing against team Y, and team X loses, he/she will not lose all of his money immediately because a bonus of the amount wagered is made available free.  Now the bonus credited to the player’s account is to play further and if the person loses the wager then the money is lost. So, this is not exactly “risk free”.

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On the other hand, if the person places another bet and wins then he/she can withdraw the money. Of course, only the winnings are allowed to be withdrawn, and not the winnings plus the credit.

Top casinos like toponlinecasino.my are offering wonderful opportunities to the players to earn money.

Some sites put a limit on the risk-free bet.

There is also a bonus offered which is known as “free bet”. Here, the limit is higher  (in some cases up to $500) and the bonus is 100% of the first wager. Here, if the player places a wager on a team and makes a win his account has the winning money, the stake and also the bonus. However, some sites put a limit on the free bet, usually 30 days of first utilization. If the player uses the free bet to place a wager and wins he can collect the winnings but not the stake.

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Matched bet is another type of bonus, which is offered on the deposit. If a person makes a deposit of say $10 a matched bet of $10 is offered free, which can be used for betting.

However, one should be very careful about the ‘Welcome Bonus” offered. These always come with strings attached. So, if a welcome bonus of $3000 is offered then one must play a specified number of wagers before one can withdraw money. So, it is very important to study closely the terms and conditions before availing these bonuses.

The advantage of matched betting bonuses is that the “free bets” offered could be exchanged on betting exchanges where people buy and sell bets. So, if one does not want to get into the risky business of placing a wager, one can sell the bet and still make some money out of it irrespective of the outcome of the bet.

Online Casino Bonuses

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Unlike matched betting, casinos cannot be called risk free. But, like matched betting the online casinos also offer bonuses and in these days of COVID-19 pandemic, they are coming up with higher bonuses to attract customers.

Before going into the ways of making money from online casino bonuses let us investigate how the casinos themselves, make money.

If we go back to our basic math we can recall that the chance of a win or loss from a single toss of a coin is exactly the same – 50% chance of a win and 50% chance of a loss. This means if a coin is tossed and the bet is that if the player wins $1 the casino loses $1 for heads and the player loses $1 and the casino wins $1 if the coin shows up tails, it is fair play.  There is another term called the ‘expected value’ of the outcome or briefly EV. The EV is calculated on the probability and a prediction of the outcome can be made depending on the number of times the coin is tossed. But, then how the casinos make money?

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Casinos cannot thrive on fair play.  So, taking the example of the toss of a coin, the player gets $1 and the casino loses $1 if the coin shows up head, but the casino gets $1.01 and the player loses $1.01 if the coin shows up tails. This difference is called the ‘house edge’.

Without going into details of math let us note that normally there is a 0.5% house edge for Blackjack.

Let us proceed from here and see how to make money from online casino bonuses.

Let us consider the example of a gaming site where one is required to make a deposit of $20 and place a series of bets totaling to $200 after which a matching bonus of $20 will be paid.  So, considering 0.5% house edge it is expected that there will be a loss of $1 and can retain $19. The player can withdraw $19+$20 = $39. So, there is a profit of $19.

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The risk is that the player could lose more than the expected house edge.  Taking account of the fact that Blackjack has a house edge of 0.5% and a standard deviation of 1.15, there is a 95% chance that the player can make $7.75 to $40.25 on a $1 bet. There is a 7% chance of suffering a small loss.

Bottom Line

So, this is how one can make money from online bonuses. However, one should be careful and note that nothing is really risk-free but knowledge and alertness can help in making money.