Bonus bet calculator

A $50 bonus bet is not $50. The bookmaker keeps the stake when the bet wins, so the only thing of value in it is the profit portion, and the only way to hold onto that value regardless of the result is to cover the same selection on an exchange.

What you end up with is usually somewhere around 70 to 80 percent of the face value. That is a typical range rather than a promise: the real number falls out of the odds you can get on both sides and the commission your exchange account charges. A poor pair of prices can convert far less, and no pair of prices converts the full face value.

Australian bookmakers issue these constantly to customers who already hold verified accounts, usually as a refund from a bonus back offer on racing or a multi. Advertised sign-up inducements to new customers have been prohibited here since 2019, so the ongoing existing-customer promotions are where the value sits. We explain that market properly on our matched betting in Australia page.

Because the bookmaker keeps the stake, the lay only has to cover the profit, not the profit plus the stake. That is the whole difference between this and a qualifying bet: the back odds have one subtracted from them before anything else happens.

The commission rate goes into the denominator as a decimal fraction, so five percent is 0.05 and lay odds of 6.40 become 6.35. An exchange only charges commission on a net win, which is exactly what subtracting it from the lay odds represents.

You hold a $50 bonus bet, stake not returned. You back a selection at 4.00 and lay it at 4.20 on the exchange, with five percent commission.

• Lay stake: ((4.00 - 1) x 50) divided by (4.20 - 0.05), which is 150 divided by 4.15, which is $36.14.
• Liability: the unrounded lay stake of 36.1446 multiplied by 3.20, which is $115.66 held by the exchange until the market settles.
• If the back bet wins: the bookmaker pays $150 profit and keeps the bonus stake, and the lay loses its $115.66 liability, leaving $34.34.
• If the lay bet wins: the exchange pays $36.14 less five percent commission, which is $34.34, and nothing of your own is lost at the bookmaker.

Both outcomes land on $34.34, which is 68.7 percent of the $50 face value. Run the same bonus at 6.00 back and 6.40 lay and the conversion is different again: the calculator above is loaded with those odds so you can see it move.

Bonus bets are converted at longer odds because that is where a bigger share of the face value survives. Longer odds also mean a much larger liability: the exchange holds the lay stake multiplied by the lay odds minus one, so the same bonus covered at 21.00 ties up several times what it would at 4.00.

This is the reason beginners stall after two offers. The bookmaker side is fine and the exchange balance is not. The page on how much money you need to start goes through the capital side honestly.