Fanduel Risk Free Bet
Since both fanduel and draftkings offer risk free bets, and they are by far the most popular sportsbooks in the states, I decided to do a walkthrough on how to utilize them. If this is your first time on the site, I would recommend checking my beginner’s guide here first.
What the heck is a risk-free bet?
A ‘risk-free’ bet is NOT exactly what it sounds like. In fact, it’s almost criminal that sportsbooks are calling it that. Risk free implies that if you lose, the sportsbook will give you a full cash refund. A ‘risk free bet’, on the other hand, is basically the sportsbook saying that if you lose your bet they’ll give you the amount you lost in bonus money.
Bonus money is a lot worse than cash. Usually, not only do you need to bet that money again in order to have any hope of withdrawing it, but assuming you make that bet and win, you only receive the winnings from that bet, not the bonus money itself.
If you made a bet with 500 dollars cash with odds -150 and won, it would pay out $833.50, but if you made that same bet with bonus money you would only get $333.50….so obviously there is a huge difference.
New users to FanDuel’s Sportsbook can receive a risk-free $1,000 bet. To claim it, new users simply need to register, make a first deposit and then place their first real-money wager on FanDuel — up to $1,000. If a user loses their first wager, their losses will be refunded in the form of a free bet up to $1,000. For existing FanDuel bettors: Bets up to $100 risk-free if you end up net negative on the first day back betting. For new FanDuel bettors: the first bet triggers a $1,000 risk-free bet and begins daily clock for risk-free $100. If you end up net-negative on the day you’ll get up to $100 back in vouchers plus up to $1,000 if lost first bet. Signing up at FanDuel Sportsbook. Joining FanDuel Sportsbook is a very simple process and only takes a minute to complete.
The traditional bonus for FanDuel online casino is a risk free first day. This welcome offer will cover your losses up to $200 within the first 24 hours after account creation. $1,000 Risk Free Bet We already discussed the up to $1,000 risk-free bet, which is valid for one use when first joining FanDuel. The online sportsbook will refund your account up to $1,000 in site credit if you lose your first wager. Multi-Sport Parlay Insurance gives money back to bettors as well.
Despite this, risk free bets can still be very profitable, especially in the US of A, where books like Draftkings and Fanduel are offering $500 dollars in risk-free bets as intro offers.
So how do you use matched betting to turn a risk-free bet into cash?
Any time you come across an offer that you aren’t used to or haven’t seen before, it’s helpful to ask yourself two simple questions.
- What steps can I take to turn this offer into cash?
- How much cash can I turn it into?
These questions are helpful because it gets you to re-imagine bonus offers as cash with extra steps. This allows you to analyze those steps and remove the risk from them.
Risk free bets have two steps: the first step is making the bet to unlock the free bet, and the second is to make another bet to turn that bet into cash. The second step should be obvious, as it is really just your average matched bet; place your lay and your back bets and you’re done. The first one, however, is a little more difficult to manage, because if you win you don’t unlock the bonus bet and you’ve essentially lost that bonus. How do we get around this?
Remember when I said you should think of these bonus offers as cash with extra steps? Well that’s the solution here.
Place your lay and back bets accounting for the risk-free bet in terms of the cash it’s worth.
For example, let’s take the $500 Fanduel risk free bet offer. Let’s assume there’s two tennis games (let’s call them games A and B) in the month, both with odds -150 to 150, which you’re going to use to unlock your free bet.
Your plan of action with game A should be to match your bets so that your payoff if the fanduel bet loses equals a payoff (p), while your payoff if the fanduel bet wins equals p + the cash value of the risk free bet.
Fanduel Risk Free Bet
So we need to convert the $500 in ‘bonus money’, a made up term, to what we really care about, cash money.
Now, to do this imagine for a second you already bet on the first game, lost with fanduel, got your $500 bonus bet, and are now using the second game to turn that into cash. You would place your $500 bonus bet on the side with 150, and you would put $450 on the side with odds -150 to net a profit of $300 in either scenario.
This means your $500 dollar risk free bet is actually worth $300 dollars in cash.
So, when you’re placing your lay/back bets for the first game, make sure you earn $300 more if your fanduel(lay) bet wins, because if you LOSE you get a bonus worth $300.
I’ll break what I just did into steps:
- Find two games with tight odds, one for unlocking the bonus money, and the second for converting the bonus money into cash
- Calculate how much profit in cash you would make in the second game from your risk-free bet
- Use that figure for profit to balance your lay and back bets for the first bet
Now there are two scenarios, the first being that your fanduel bet wins, in which case you are done and the second game was merely a hypothetical used to calculate your first how much to place on your first bet.
Risk Free Game
The second scenario is that your fanduel bet loses, in which case you need to actually place a back/lay bet for the second game.
Regardless, you make the same amount of money.
Now, if all this blew over your head there is a simpler way
Just find two matched bets, and bet them against each other. This is EXTREMELY easy to do in the US, where the two most popular sportsbooks, Fanduel and Draftkings, each offer $500 risk free bets. I’ll break this down into steps too.
Fanduel Risk Free Bet Parlay
- CHECK THE T&Cs. I can’t stress this enough. Make sure the two bonuses operate and are unlocked the same way and make sure you understand how they work. Books often change these, so even though it was straightforward when I did it, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be when you do.
- Find a game with close to 1:1 odds
- Place a bet on one side with Fanduel
- Place a bet on one side with Draftkings
- No matter who wins unlock your free bet!
This method is a lot simpler and easier for people to wrap their heads around, and so definitely what I would recommend using. The reason I mention it last though is because you’re not always going to have me holding your hand for these matched bets, and it’s important to have a deep understanding of how this works. This is particularly important for matched betting where the only real risk is you understanding something wrong.
Risk free bets often throw off the traditional matched bettor, including myself when I first started. When I came across the Fanduel ‘risk free’ bet offer, my first instinct was to simply use them to offset my ‘normal’ matched betting with the casinos, and treat it like a normal ‘back bet’, ironically using this risk free bet to create an element of risk. I hope that following this guide, you guys can avoid making the mistake I made when I started out.
Fanduel Promo Code
I hope you guys enjoy, and feel free to reach out to me here with any questions!