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Bovada has long been one of my favorite US sports betting sites. Although Bovada itself is only a few years old, the people who run the book have been involved in online sports betting for decades. These are the same people who have managed Bodog (another sportsbook) since the late 90s. They run a clean operation and have always treated customers like gold.
Anyways, Bovada has a sports betting bonus that all new players should know about. After you sign up for an account at Bovada, you’ll get a 50% bonus added to your first deposit. This bonus is good for up to $250.
Note: no bonus code is necessary for this promotion.
How It Works
This isn’t a straight-up cash bonus; it’s a free bet bonus. What that means is the money is added to your account, but it cannot be withdrawn. It can only be used to place additional bets in the sportsbook. You are welcome to withdraw any winnings that you earn with the bonus, but the bonus money itself disappears when you initiate your first withdrawal from Bovada.
The bonus also comes with a 3x rollover on the first deposit plus bonus amount. So what that means is if you deposit $100 and get a $50 bonus, you’ll need to place a total sum of bets equal to $450 ($150 x 3) before you can withdraw any winnings earned off the bonus.
You get 30 days from the time of your first deposit to use the bonus and clear it. If you make any withdrawals before clearing the bonus, you will lose the bonus AND any winnings associated with the bonus.
Overall, these terms and conditions are pretty standard for sports betting bonuses. The main thing to keep in mind is that you have 30 days to roll over the bonus 3 times before making a withdrawal.
Strategy
The strategy that I like to use for sports bonuses like this is to use the bonus money to place high risk, high reward bets. If you lose the bonus money, it’s no big deal. You couldn’t withdraw it anyways. But if you win, you then have a bunch of extra money that you can use to meet the rollover.
If you do win a decent payoff with the bonus, you can then switch to low risk, low reward wagers to clear the bonus. A bunch of straight-up bets on favorites is an easy way to clear the bonus. I wouldn’t normally recommend just blindly betting on favorites, but this strategy works well for clearing a bonus quickly and with minimal risk.
Normal sports betting strategy is to look for value in lines that don’t match reality, such as getting in on an underdog at +270 that you estimate is actually worth +220. This strategy is excellent for long term success, but short term variance is high. If all you want to do is clear a bonus, low risk wagers get the job done fastest. After you clear the bonus, you can go back to your normal strategy.
