Horse racing Promotions and Bonuses

Bonus Back Promotions

The most prevalent and popular horse racing promotion that betting sites offer are Bonus Back Promotions, which are promotions that give you your stake back in bonus bets if the horse you bet doesn't win but runs a place. For example, the promotion may be Bonus Back up to $50 if you run 2nd or 3rd at Randwick this Saturday, this means if we were to back a horse to win at Randwick and it doesn’t win, but it runs 3rd, we get our stake back in bonus bets.

Deposit Match Bonus

A deposit match offer is where a betting site offers to match a customer's deposit in full or in part with bonus bets. A deposit match promotion could say something like 100% matched deposit up to $100 in bonus bets. This means that we could deposit up to $100 and also receive that same amount in bonus bets on top. For instance, if we deposited $100 in cash, we would get back $100 in bonus bets for free!

Winnings Boost Promotions

Some betting sites have a variety of winnings boost promotions where, if your bet wins, you will receive additional profits in the form of bonus bets. For instance, the promotion can be 100% extra winnings up to $50 in bonus bets when your three-leg Same Race Multi wins.

So if we make a 3 leg Same Race Multi with odds of $3.00 and place $20 cash on it, it then wins and returns $60 in cash, additionally, we receive $40 of bonus bets (as $40 is the portion of our return that is considered winnings) giving us a total of $100 to bet with now, that’s the same as if the odds of our bet was $5.00, a big boost!

Boosted Odds Promotions

Boosted Odds promotions are frequently offered by betting sites when big races or popular horses are running, whereby they considerably increase the odds for a particular horse to win.  For instance, one offer may be Nature Strip to win The Everest at $5.00 (boosted from $2.50). These deals are excellent value since they give substantially higher odds than you can find anywhere else on the market, so keep an eye out for them in our Tips of the Day articles to see when they appear.

With there being so much competition among online betting sites these days, they are constantly coming up with new horse racing promotions to entice us to place bets with them. The following are a few of the more common ones related to horse racing:

• Quaddie Promotions: Betting sites occasionally offer promotions on Quaddies, with the most popular being some form of bonus back promotion, typically Bonus Back if your Quaddie fails by 1 leg. This means that if you only pick 3 out of 4 of the races in the Quaddie, you will receive your stake back in bonus bets, which is great for preventing the heartache of losing your Quaddie on the final race.
• Best Tote Promotions: These promotions can slightly differ depending on the betting site, but generally Best Tote promotions guarantee punters the best dividend out of the 3 official Tote pools, sometimes these offers also go further and include the oncourse starting price and bookie fluctuations. These promotions are great and ensure you’re always getting the best odds for your selections without worrying about the Tote pools.
• Trifecta and First Four Promotions: Sometimes betting companies may offer promotions on Exotic Bets like Trifectas or First Fours. These are often bonus back promotions like Bonus Back if your Trifecta loses by 1 leg, where if your Trifecta loses but you correctly chose two of the top three runners, you will get your money back in bonus bets. Boosted winnings promotions are also occasionally offered on Exotic Bet markets.
• Lay Of The Day Promotions: Sometimes bookmakers are confident that a certain horse won’t win a specific race, and they offer a Lay Of The Day promotion, which usually is a bonus back promotion where if you place a bet on the nominated race and the bookies ‘Lay Of The Day’ horse was to win, you receive your stake back in bonus bets, no matter how your selection performed.

What Is A Bonus Bet?

A bonus bet is funds that have been added by the betting site to your account. Bonus bets act just like regular cash for the most part, you can place them on any markets of your choosing or use your bonus bets for a multi-bet. You cannot directly withdraw the value of your bonus bets, you are just able to use them to place bets, think of them as free bets provided to you by the betting site.

How To Place A Bonus Bet?

Once you have any bonus bet cash, using them is fairly straightforward. Bonus Bets may be used to bet on any markets you would normally bet on, just like your regular cash balance. Although it may vary somewhat from website to website, generally speaking, the option to use your bonus bets is located on the bet slip, usually next to the stake entry box. 

By simply clicking the bonus bet button and entering your desired stake, your bonus bet funds will be used to place the bet rather than your cash balance. The key distinction between bonus bets and regular cash bets is that in the case of a win, the stake is not returned, only the ‘winnings’ (see our example below).

Placing A Bonus Bet Example

1. In this example we want to back Giga Kick in Caulfield Race 5 using our bonus bet funds; 
   First, we navigate to the racing tab and find Caulfield Race 5.
2. Next we open the race page and find Giga Kick at $5 fixed odds and add to our bet slip.
3. Once the selection is in our bet slip, we click the bonus bet button and add 50 to our stake, this will use $50 out of our bonus bet balance.
4. Giga Kick goes on to win the race and our payout is $200 (explained below).

$50 (our bonus bet stake) x 5 (the odds) = $250
$250 - $50 (the bonus bet stake) = $200

Due to new legislation, it is more difficult for bookmakers to advertise their current promotions to users who do not already have an account with them; nonetheless, at OnlyRacing, we try our best to find the best bookmaker promotions currently on offer and advise our readers on them when possible. The best way to learn about the current best horse racing promotions being offered by bookies is to visit our list of online betting sites or check out our Saturday and Wednesday tips. From there, you can explore the list of all the betting sites and read our reviews of each one.

Once you've decided on a new betting site, simply click on our link to create up your account. Once your account has been created, you can visit the betting site's Promotions page to view all of the current bonus bet promotions that are being offered. You are also able to contact live chat, and they will make sure to inform you of any horse racing promotions for which you are currently eligible, including deposit match offers.

So-called "sign up bonuses" are no longer allowed to be offered by online betting sites since it is now against regulations for these betting sites to offer incentives to users to open an account. A deposit match bonus is the closest comparison to a sign up bonus that a betting site can offer these days, Deposit matches are where the betting site either fully or partially matches the value of a customer's deposit with bonus bets or bonus credit.

What Is A Deposit Match?

Many online bookmakers provide a deposit match bonus, which is a promotion in which they offer to match a user's deposit in full or in part with bonus bets or bonus credit in a bid to entice customers to make a deposit. For example, a betting site could offer you a 100% deposit match up to $50 in bonus bets. This implies that if you were to deposit any amount up to $50, your deposit would be fully matched with bonus bets of an equal value. For example, if you deposited $50, you also receive $50 in bonus bets.

How Does A Deposit Match Work?

For this example, let us say a betting site offers you a 100% deposit match up to $100 in bonus bets, with no extra requirements such as turnover or any expiry date.

To Get The Deposit Bonus

• First we need to create an account at the bookmaker via one of the links on our site, and then wait and see if they send you an offer!
  Check our list of all betting sites for the link to create an account
• Then we need to deposit into our account, let's make the most of the offer and deposit $100
• Now that we’ve deposited, we have $100 in cash balance as well as $100 in bonus bets, great!

How to Use the Deposit Bonus

• Now that we have both our bonus bets and cash ready to go, we use our cash to place a $100 bet on Zaaki in the next race at Randwick at odds of $2.00
• Now with our bonus bets, we go over to Flemington and place our $100 of bonus bets on Mr Brightside at odds of $2.50

Unfortunately, Zaaki is beaten in the home straight and loses the Randwick race, losing us the $100 cash we deposited. Mr Brightside, however, absolutely flies in, and as a result, we won the second bet we placed using the bonus bet, which won us $150 (we don’t get the bonus bet stake back).

Overall, we made a deposit of $100, were able to bet $200, and ended up winning a total of $150. Therefore, we made $50 profit off of our $100 deposit, that’s very tidy!

What Are The Best Deposit Matches?

Many of the online betting sites we feature provide deposit matches to clients, however because of recent gambling industry laws, it is difficult for bookmakers to promote these deposit matches to users who haven't yet opened an account. 

Therefore, the perfect place to learn about deposit matches and other current bonus bet promotions is our Bookmaker Reviews section online. Here, you can browse through our list of recommended betting sites and read the reviews that go along with them. Then, once you've decided on a new betting site, simply follow our link to create an account.

After you open a new account with a , they may send you an email or text to let you know about a deposit match bonus, you can also hop on live chat or send an email to ask about potential deposit matches. Don't be shy!