In this section you’ll find free bets that contain a casino element. Or to put it another way, casino offers that include free bets. Whichever way you look at it, these promotions are aimed at punters who like to place a few bets whilst also have some spins in the casino.
These offers are normally triggered by placing a sports bet of £5 or £10, but dish out a combination of free bets, free spins, casino bonuses and lotto bets rather than just free bets. The value of the bonuses is often higher as well, handing out rewards worth up to 6x your initial deposit (or more).
Just Want a Casino Bonus? The following promotions specifically combine both sports bonuses and casino elements. For casino-only bonuses you can see a larger list on our main casino bonuses page.
Free Casino Bets
Betfred have an interesting offer for acca and slot fans. Make a deposit of £5 or more and place an accumulator with three legs or more on Football or Horse Racing and if it loses they'll match it with a free bet for the same amount, up to the maximum of £30. Min odds for the combined legs are 2/1. In addition, you'll also receive 50 free spins regardless of how your accumulator gets on.
- Sports - £30 matched bet if your first acca loses
- Casino - 50 free spins
Betfred have a great multi-product bonus that covers sports, casino and lotto. The offer is triggered by a £10 sports bet (min odds are evens) which will earn you a total of £40 in bonuses made up of:
- Sports - £30 in free bets
- Casino - 50 free spins (20p per spin)
As we mentioned earlier, there are plenty more offers than just these but they’ll be specific to either sports or casino. You can find these on their respective pages:
What is a Casino Free Bet / Free Casino Bet
To us, casino free bets (or free casino bets, if you’d prefer) are those that combine multiple elements. Most betting sites these days offer more than just sports bets and you’ll often find an online casino, poker tables, lottery games and even bingo games if that takes your fancy. The two that are most closely related in terms of offers are sports betting and casino games.
For this reason, most of the offers we’ve seen tend to include free bets as well as some kind of casino bonus – such as free spins or bonus money to use on the tables. There’s also plenty of offers that have been and gone that have included a lottery portion as well, which is no surprise considering the popularity of fixed odds lotto betting in the bookies. It is rare, however, to find a bonus that also incorporates bingo or poker games as well.
Normally these offers are found in the sportsbook section of the site rather than the casino side, and for good reason. More sports bettors crossover into casino games than the other way around. A good example of this is at a bookies – punters at a betting shop will often place a bet and then jump on the FOBT for a few spins of roulette, whereas players in a brick and mortar casino don’t necessarily have any interesting in placing a sports bet.
As well as being a bit of a logistical tip on where to find them, this slight sports bias also affects how the offers are triggered as the majority of them require a sports bet at minimum odds.
How to Claim
Claiming these offers is usually pretty straight forward. Sign up, add a payment method and make a real money deposit. Then place a qualifying bet in line with the terms. For example, you might need to deposit and bet £10 at odds of evens or more.
Some offers require a bonus code, but these seem to be the minority and it tends to be limited to sites who have more than one offer available at the same time. Where a code is needed it will be clearly stated in the key terms, which we include along side the offer above.
Once your bet has been place you may get your bonus (or part of it) straight away, although often the bet needs to settle first. Normally there will be a time limit for you to place your first bet and have it settle, and also a limit on how long you have to redeem your bonuses.
One slight variation to the above is when some offers include no deposit spins as they will normally be given upon sign up, or once the account has been successfully verified.
What Are the Different Parts of the Bonus?
Because the offer spans multiple products, there could be a scenario where there’s a portion of the bonus that you’re unfamiliar with. In this next section we’ll break down the more commonly found promotions:
Sports Free Bets
Part of us would like to assume that you’re familiar with the concept of a free bet, but we’ll break it down just in case. A free bet allows you to place a wager on a sporting event without actually using any of your own money. If it wins then your bet is paid out but if it loses you’ve lost nothing.
Often the bet stake itself doesn’t really exist, meaning that you only get paid out on the winnings from the bet and not the free bet stake itself, but sometimes you’ll find an offer that does include the stake. When you only receive the winnings it is known as stake not returned and you’ll normally some variation of those words in the offer terms.
Free bets are sometimes given as specific tokens – such as two £10 free bets – which must be used in their entirety. For the £10 free bets this means that you couldn’t use it to place two £5 bets and it needs be used in one go on a £10 wager. Sometimes you can stack free bets, meaning you could combine your two £10 free bets to place one £20 bet, but often you can only use one free bet token at a time.
Some bookies handle free bets differently and instead award free bets that can be used as you like. With these kinds of offers you can sub divide and split up your bets however you like, meaning £20 in free bet funds could be used to place ten £2 bets, if you so chose.
The exact handling of the free bets is normally spelled out in the terms, but it should be fairly obvious from within the account as well (once they’ve been credited).
Using a free bet is usually as simple as adding the bet to your bet slip as normal and then clicking a “use free bet” button and following the instructions. The exact process varies from bookie to bookie but the underlying concept is pretty similar.
One important thing that we should mention about free bets is that you can’t use them in conjunction with other offers (unless otherwise stated). Often bookies will run retention offers such as “faller insurance” which you won’t receive if the bet was placed with a free bet. Just bear this in mind when planning our your bets.
Lottery Bets
Whilst this may conjure up images of people sitting at home clutching a lotto ticket hoping for a jackpot payout, lotto betting doesn’t actually involve buying lottery tickets. Instead, you’re betting on the outcome of the lottery numbers without ever interacting with the lottery itself.
Another way to think of it is like a very elaborate roulette wheel. In roulette you’re betting on the number that will be spun, whereas in fixed odds lotto wagers you’re betting on which numbers will be drawn.
Because lotto betting is different to entering the lottery, the payouts are also different and you can often win by getting just one ball correct (depending on the lottery).
The way the offer works is pretty simple. You’ll be given the equivalent of a free bet as described above, except that instead of using it on the 3:20 from Newmarket you’re using it on which lotto balls will be drawn.
Free Spins
If you’re a fan of having a few spins on the fruit machine then you’ll be wanting to watch out for offers that include free spins. These give you a set number of spins, normally on a predefined slot (or group of slots) where the winnings are yours to keep. Sometimes the free spin winnings will be immediately spendable as cash whilst other times there may also be wagering requirements attached.
When an offer includes free spins it can be a little hard to know how much it’s worth because the value of the spins themselves can vary. Two different sites could both offer 50 free spins but if one is giving them at 20p a spin and the other is giving them at 1p then there’s a very big difference in their value (£10 v 50p). Whenever comparing offers that include free spins always look at the value of the spins themselves, not just the number.
Casino Bonuses
Often the offer with contain a more traditional casino bonus portion, which is like being comped with casino chips to use as you wish. Like free spins they too can be used to play slots, but you’re usually less restricted on what those games are. You’ll also often be allowed to play table games such as blackjack and roulette, although this will vary from offer to offer.
A casino bonus will almost certainly come with wagering requirements, meaning that you’ll need to play through the bonus a certain amount of time on games before you can withdraw any winnings that you’ve accrued. Casino wagering requirements are also often weighted towards slots, meaning that if a bonus was a 40x wagering requirement and slots count 100% then a £10 bonus would need £400 in wagers before it can be withdraw.
However, if blackjack is allowed you may find that it has a lower weighting which would require additional wagers compared to slots. For example, if blackjack counted 25% towards your wagering requirement then you would need to place £1,600 in blackjack wagers before withdrawing.
Wagering Requirements
We’ve mentioned wagering requirements a few times on this page, but it’s an important feature than probably needs addressing directly. Especially as some punters coming from the sports side of things may not be familiar with them as they’re more commonly associated with casino bonuses.
A wagering requirement is a minimum amount that needs to be wagered (“bet”) before you can withdraw the bonus funds or any winnings from them. For sports free bets, there is normally no wagering requirement. Especially considering that the free bet stake often isn’t included in the returns. Sometimes you will find an offer that places a wagering requirement on a free bet, which we only consider to be acceptable if the stake is returned. Otherwise it’s one to avoid.
Casino bonuses almost always have wagering requirements attached to them, but it’s a bit of a toss up as to whether free spins will or not . Since the ASA stepped in and raised a few eyebrows over the wording of free spin offers, many sites are choosing to offer “true free spins” where they’re treated the same as cash spins.
As a general rule of thumb we’d expect to see the following:
- Free Bets – Normally stake not returned but no wagering requirement
- Free Spins – Might have a wagering requirement on the winnings from the free spins
- Casino Bonuses – Almost always has a wagering requirement
Sites have to clearly inform you of any kind of wagering requirement so, if one applies, it should be listed in the key terms of the offer.
What’s a good wagering requirement, we hear you ask? It’ll vary a little by game. For a sports free bet we don’t really tolerate any kind of WR unless the stake is returned or it’s given as a bonus rather than free bet. In this scenario it could be reasonable to see 2x – 4x the bonus as a minimum turnover.
When it comes to casino the numbers will be much higher. Expect to see 20x or more for casino and slot winnings, and it’s not uncommon to see up to 40x. Anything over this is getting a little bit high, especially for slots (we would expect to see bigger numbers for games like blackjack and roulette).
Maximum Winnings
One final, but important, factor that we’ve not addressed yet are maximum winnings. Pure sports punters probably won’t be familiar with this concept and free bets rarely have maximum winnings, but you will often find them on casino bonuses. When a maximum winning is listed it limits the amount you can win from the casino portion of the offer, often to a set figure such as £100 or as a multiplier of the bonus (eg: max win 10x the bonus).
Whilst we would prefer to not see maximum winning terms on free casino bets, we also understand that the bookies have risk management departments breathing down their necks when they set up an offer. Make sure you’re aware of any such term and adjust your playing style accordingly – for example, if there is a £100 maximum win, don’t be placing £10 single number bets on roulette.