Advanced Casino Offers & Strategy

The majority of matched bettors generate a profit from sports bonuses. These offers come in many different forms and from various bookmakers. The typical matched bettor starts their matched betting journey by completing the new customer offers from bookmakers. These generally generate a large enough profit to take advantage of offers for existing customers. Offers like 'Bet £10, Get a £10 free bet', Money back if your horse finishes 2nd, free bet if you back a winner at 4/1 or more etc. There's a lot of profit to be made by taking advantage of sports offers and many matched bettors make in excess of £1,000 a month by doing so.

One type of offer which is overlooked by many matched bettors are casino offers. The main reason casino offers are not as popular as sports offers is that there is risk of losing your own money. However, as this may be the case in the short term, it is quite the opposite in the long term.

In this article I'll explain how you, the player, can turn the odds in your favour so that you have the edge over the casino. To explain this best, let's start with how casinos make money, aside from people who have had one too many to drink!

Casinos make money by having an edge on the player. Take roulette for example, there are 37 possible outcomes (numbers 1-36 + zero). Therefore, the odds of the ball landing on your number are 36/1. However, if the ball does land on your number, the casino only pays you 35/1. Let's say that you and a group of 36 friends went to a casino and each placed a £1 bet on a different number on the roulette table so that you cover every possible outcome. You and your friends will have bet a total of £37. The croupier spins the wheel and the ball lands on a number. You or one of your friends is guaranteed to win a you've covered every number. The casino then pays the winner at odds of 35/1 which would mean the winning player would receive £36 back. Therefore, you and your friends have placed £37 in bets but only received £36 back. That £1 difference is the casinos edge. They have an edge on 

Risk-Free bonuses are when there is no risk to your own money. Generally, with risk-free bonuses, a deposit is not required in order to claim the bonus. Some casinos offer no-deposit bonuses to new customers to entice them to sign up. These bonuses usually come with high wagering requirements which means that you may have to wager the bonus or the winnings from the bonus a certain amount of time before being able to withdraw. There are usually winnings caps on these bonuses also, meaning that even if you hit the jackpot, if the max winnings are £500, that's what you'll get. Risk free bonuses are not just given to new customers and many bookmakers and online casinos give things like free slots spins or bonus funds to existing customers to encourage them to play more or to promote new games. As you don't have to deposit any money to receive these bonuses, they're definitely worth doing. 

Deposit bonuses are when you have to make a deposit in order to receive the bonus. The amount you have to deposit and the size of the bonus you receive vary between offers. Deposit bonuses generally come with wagering requirements which can make them unappealing to most. However, I'm going to show you how some of these offers can return a profit over time and how you can have the edge over the casino.

EV stands for 'Expected Value'. This is calculated mathematically based on the RTP (Return to Player) of the casino game. For example, if a casino slot has a RTP of 97%, this means that for every £100 staked, the slot will pay out £97. The other 3%, or £3, is the house edge. The slot won't pay out £97 every time £100 is staked. It pay pay out £1 one time and £193 another but if you take the average payout over time, it will be £97 per £100 staked.

The above is how many people calculate the EV of casino offers. You'll find EV calculators on many matched betting sites such as MatchedBets.com, ProfitSquad.co.uk and OddsMonkey.com where you input the deposit amount, bonus amount and RTP of the casino game and it will tell you what the EV is. If the EV is positive, then the offer is worth doing. If it is negative, then you should stay away as on average, players would lose money doing that offer.

Take a look at the EV calculator below. Let's say that a casino is offering a £100 bonus when you deposit £100. To withdraw any winnings, the bonus has to be wagered 40 times. This means you have to place £4,000 worth of bets before you can withdraw.

Putting this information into the EV calculator shows us that if we wager our bonus on roulette, we won't make a profit and we won't lose anything either. Therefore, this offer isn't worth doing as it is not +EV.

However, is this really the case?

The 'True EV' of casino bonuses is possibly best explained in an example.

Lets take the example offer above and play out a scenario as if we were wagering our bonus on roulette. The screenshot of the EV calculator above tells us that if we had to wager £4,000 on roulette, we'd, on average, break even. However, what happens if we up the stakes?

Lets say that we placed all of our money on a single number. This includes our initial £100 deposit and our £100 bonus. There are 37 possible outcomes on a roulette spin and so the odds of the ball landing on our number are 36/1. 

We should, theoretically, win once if we place a bet on a number 37 times. This will be the case over time based on the law of averages.

So, each time we place a bet on a number, we're risking £100 of our own money. Our total bet is £200 (£100 of our own cash + £100 bonus money). 

If we spin the wheel 37 times, we've bet a total of £7,400 and risked £2,700 of our own cash.

However, one of those spins should win which would pay out £7,200. 

Therefore, we're up £4,500!

From our winning spin we have wagered £200 and so we must place £3,800 worth of bets to complete the wagering. This means that even if we lose every spin until we complete the wagering, we would still be up £700.

We've now turned what initially seemed to be a poor offer into a +EV offer.

It's done by increasing the stake. By increasing the stake, the EV also increases. 

Now that we have shown how casino offers can be profitable, should you do them?

Advanced casino offers are not for everyone and we certainly wouldn't recommend them to beginners. You need to be 100% sure that you understand the offers you are doing, how they work, how to calculate the EV and whether or not they are profitable. 

We've explained briefly how seemingly unattractive casino bonuses can be very profitable in the long term. However, the EV of a casino bonus is not what you will walk away with every time. There will be times where you lose your deposit and stake many times in a row and so you must be prepared mentally and financially for these downswings.

Profiting from advanced casino bonuses takes a lot of discipline so read articles, ask questions and be 100% sure before you dive in. It is advisable that you start with bonuses which require a smaller deposit to minimise risk until you have gained experience.

This article has just scratched the surface of advanced casino strategy. We'll be writing more articles, digging deeper into strategies, stake sizes and why they matter, which casino games to wager your bonuses on and much more. However, with something like advanced casino strategy, you will no-doubt have questions. Therefore, it's a very good idea to join a community which is full of people who have been there and done it. People who have tried every type of advanced casino offer and know which strategies work.

Where to find these people?

ProfitSquad.co.uk are a matched betting site but have a very strong community of members who participate in advanced casino offers regularly. Many matched betting sites such as OddsMonkey and Profit Accumulator, tend to stay away from advanced casino offers as they require experience and can result in short term losses. However, this is where Profit Squad stand out. 

You'll find a strong community of matched bettors on Profit Squad and their forum is a popular place to discuss advanced casino methods. Since their partnership with MatchedBets.com, they've launched a matched betting discussion group on the Discord app which is an invaluable place for members to chat and ask questions. They have dedicated groups specifically for casino chat and with the experience their members have, it's the perfect place to learn, ask questions and gain knowledge before you get involved.