Indiana Sportsbook Bonuses, Odds Boosts and Free Bet Offers
Legal online sports betting in Indiana is here, which means you can compare the best offers from the top betting sites.
Below is a guide to help new Indiana sports bettors understand all the various bonus offers they may receive. However, the first and most important advice is to read the fine print on bonuses carefully before accepting.
There can be terms and conditions attached that make a bonus a poor use of time. The bonus requirements could potentially be too onerous, so you should make sure to do the research beforehand.
As online sportsbooks continue to launch, it will become increasingly important to check with Play-indiana.org often. As a leading affiliate, we often have bonus offers exclusive to our readers, and there can be hundreds of dollars in free money or bets available.
Best Bonus Offers at Indiana Sportsbooks
What are No Deposit Bonuses?
No player should ever let a no-deposit offer go unclaimed. No-deposit bonuses are free money that the sportsbook is giving away. Even if certain strings are attached, there's no reason to ignore this kind of opportunity.
Most of the time, a no-deposit bonus will occur as a condition of creating a new account with the sportsbook. So, a player must only complete the registration process to redeem the free cash. The money will be waiting for them.
Terms and conditions for no deposit bonuses
With any bonus, there is always fine print. No-deposit offers are no exception, so here are some terms and conditions typically found for a bonus of this type:
New accounts only
- These bonuses are almost exclusively for new players.
- Existing players rarely receive similar offers, although it can happen.
Playthrough requirements
- The bonus money may not be immediately available for withdrawal.
- Some online sportsbooks will require players to wager a multiple of the bonus amount to render the bonus money eligible to take out of the account.
- This multiple can range as high as 50 times the bonus amount. Usually, though, it will be much less for no-deposit bonuses; a single turnover may be all that's necessary.
Validation
- Some sites may require confirmation of the account before releasing their funds into it.
- A simple button-click on an email should be enough to suffice.
Opt-in
- Funds may not be waiting in the player's account.
- If a site promotes a no-deposit bonus but no funds appear automatically, check the “My Bonuses†(or something similar) section.
- It may be necessary to click a button to opt into the promotion.
Time limit
- Some bonuses have a limit to the amount of time it takes to claim.
- Other times, the playthrough requirement may have a time horizon by which it must be satisfied or the bonus is lost.
Eligible bets
- The sportsbook may designate some wagers as off-limits for no-deposit bonus funds.
- These prohibitions will be on bets that have their promotion, like odds boosts or other types of adjusted wagers.
No matter the terms, though, there are a few reasons not to take advantage of a no-deposit bonus. Sportsbooks offer them to get people through the door, certainly, but not all marketing schemes are evil, especially if they involve handing out free money.
Deposit Bonuses, Match Bonuses and Reload Bonuses
No-deposit bonuses are frequent on sportsbooks, to be sure.
However, deposit bonuses are on nearly all of them. Few online sportsbooks would fail to offer these types of spiffs to their players. As its name implies, a deposit bonus is a bonus paid out on deposits. Specifically, a player makes a deposit, and the sportsbook pledges to add a certain percentage of that deposit into the player's account.
Hence, deposit bonuses are often called match bonuses. Reload bonuses are also the same thing, although a reload bonus tends to pop up more often for veteran players.
Anyway, the percentage of the deposit to be matched varies greatly. A book might match anywhere from 10% to 100% of the deposit amount. In the latter case, the effect is that the player has doubled their money without betting on anything.
Terms and conditions for deposit bonuses, match bonuses and reload bonuses
Before everyone gets too excited, there are some catches to all this money-matching. Deposit matches tend to offer far more money than no-deposit bonuses, so the distance to withdrawable funds is longer. Here are some of the possible requirements with match bonuses:
Promotional code
- It may be necessary to enter a special code at the time of deposit.
- The bonus advertisement will mention the code prominently, so if it's not there, there probably isn't one.
Playthrough
- The sportsbook may require that players wager through the bonus amount multiple times.
- Usually, the multiple on deposit bonuses are higher than no-deposit bonuses. It's not uncommon to see requirements in excess of 25 times the bonus amount.
- Please pay attention to the fine print about the requirement because some books may require that bettors wager through their deposit and bonus amount. This wrinkle can effectively double the playthrough requirement.
Maximum bonus
- Each deposit match will specify how much bonus money the sportsbook is willing to dole out.
- Look for language in the offer that states the bonus is good “up to $XX†because that's the maximum.
- Use the maximum to determine the highest deposit that a player should use for that bonus.
- For example, if a sportsbook offers a 20% match up to $100, the player should deposit $500 to maximize the deal ($500 x 20% = $100).
Bonus drip schedule
- Sportsbooks will commonly release pieces of the bonus money on a regular schedule.
- So, a player with $100 in bonus money will receive the bonus in $5 increments.
- The incremental releases occur as the player satisfies the playthrough requirement.
Time limit
- Most deposit match bonuses have a specified time limit to redeem them.
- Once the bonus is active, players either have a specific date or a set number of days to clear the playthrough requirement.
- After the end date, any uncleared bonus will be forfeited.
Are Deposit Bonuses Worth the Effort?
If it's not clear already, deposit bonuses are not a simple release of funds to bettors. In many cases, a player will have to devote a significant portion of time and money to release the full amount of the extra cash into their account. So, the obvious question is whether these bonuses are worth all the trouble. The simple answer is that it depends.
Suppose the bettor is a high-volume player, anyway, or the bonus money amount is trivial compared to the customer's usual stakes. In that case, accomplishing the playthrough requirement will likely be a simple endeavor. After all, if the player expects to play through that much cash, anyway, then it's not a problem.
However, for a more casual sports bettor, satisfying the playthrough requirement may significantly extend their usual betting habits. So, the stress that fulfilling the bonus would entail might make the bonus not worth the hassle.
Playthrough requirement math
However, every player needs to answer another concern about each deposit bonus. The truth is that, despite being a so-called bonus, a player could reasonably expect to lose money redeeming it.
Sportsbook house edge
Like casinos, sportsbooks have a house edge over players to profit.
For sportsbooks, the house edge is called the vigorish, or “vig,†for short. Knowing the house edge means that we can calculate how much money a player can expect to lose to the book over the course of redeeming the bonus. So, a typical sportsbook will charge a 10% vig on straight sports bets like point spreads and totals. In other words, bettors must wager $110 to win $100.
On the surface, it seems like that means the house advantage is 10%. However, remember how sports bets work; there are two sides to every bet and one winner. For instance, if two bettors each wager $110 on a spread, that means that there's $220 in the pot. The winner will receive their $110 back, plus the $100 that the win promised.
That's only $210, though. The remaining $10 goes to the house. Obviously, the loser is out $110. So, out of the $220, the book will keep $10. Therefore, ($10/$220) means that the house edge is actually 4.55%.
Expected playthrough loss
With that in mind, a bettor can reasonably expect to lose $4.55 for every $100 they wager on one of these bets. Well, let's extrapolate how that expectation would translate over the course of a playthrough requirement.
Let's say that a sportsbook offered a bonus match that had a maximum bonus amount of $100. The deposit percentage is not relevant here, so let's say that the player exercised the bonus for the full amount. As it turns out, this bonus carries a 25x playthrough requirement. So, in order to release the bonus, the player must bet through $2,500 (25 x $100).
Remember that we expect to lose $4.55 for every $100 we bet. Over the course of betting $2,500, then, a player would lose $113.75 ($4.55 x 25). In that case, the player could expect to be $13.75 in the hole after the bonus. Naturally, this outcome would mean that we shouldn't redeem this bonus.
Deposit bonus: Conclusion
The math described above may seem a bit onerous. However, it is vitally important to work the numbers before jumping into a deposit bonus with both feet.
Make sure to plug in the numbers according to the steps described above. Figure out the vig based upon the bets you are most likely to make, and go from there.
Odds Boosts
Odds boosts are a type of bonus mostly exclusive to sports betting. Few other games at an Indiana online casino will tinker with odds and payouts to entice action.
In an odds boost, the sportsbook will manually adjust the odds of a particular game or group of games. The adjustment will always make the odds more favorable to bettors.
So, players who want to bet on the favorite will find that the team needs to win by fewer points to beat the spread. Conversely, underdog bettors will receive more points on their side of the wager, allowing for bigger losses to cover the spread than before.
These boosts are always to the players' benefit. They deserve consideration whenever they pop up because they are easier wagers to win.
However, don't expect to get rich on odds boosts. The sportsbook usually limits the maximum wager to modest amounts. It's rarely possible to bet a boosted game for more than $100.
Still, a profitable situation almost always deserves attention, and odds boosts are precisely that. Of course, the bettor still needs to pick the correct side of the wager to collect, but it should be a more straightforward proposition if they have done their homework.
Loyalty and Rewards Programs
One other type of bonus that sports bettors may encounter is the loyalty program.
A loyalty rewards program is a scheme in which players receive non-monetary points for their volume and level of play. Those points are then redeemable for various prizes, including cash, site perks or other goodies.
Loyalty programs are less common in the sports betting world. Quite frankly, the churn of slot machine play is far more valuable to most gambling operators, so that's where their generosity falls. Nevertheless, some sportsbooks offer their patrons the opportunity to participate in such a program. Bettors can receive perks for the amount of money they bet and how often they wager.
A loyalty program might also feature several reward status levels and grade each bettor according to their amount of activity and dollar spent. As players ascend these levels, the sportsbook may offer special perks or other services, like preferential treatment at land-based properties or increased earning percentages.
Loyalty programs are almost always free to join. In fact, in many cases, every player is automatically enrolled in the lowest tier when they register. For players, the perks of a loyalty program can be a nice bonus for their play. However, players need to ensure that they don't play to earn points in the program.
Final Thoughts
With any bonus, it's important to exercise a reasonable amount of care. Not all bonuses are worthwhile, and, in some cases, they can be a net negative for the player. Even if a bonus would be a positive cash or prize flow, smart bettors should maintain perspective about the kind of players they are. No bonus is worth an excessive amount of play that hurts a sportsbook customer in their professional or personal life.
After all, bonuses are supposed to be fun.