Free bets UK: nine bookmakers' offers and their terms

A free bet is released after a qualifying bet: a cash bet of a set size at set minimum odds, usually within a set number of days of opening the account. Among the listed bookmakers the qualifying stake is £5 or £10, and the minimum odds are 1/2 at three of them and evens at most of the others. Whether the qualifying bet wins or loses usually makes no difference; the free bets arrive once it settles.

The free bet itself is settled with the stake not returned. Say you place a £10 cash bet at 2/1: a win returns £30, your £10 back and £20 profit. Place a £10 free bet at the same price and a win returns £20, the profit only. That missing £10 is the main reason a free bet is worth less than its face value.

The expiry comes first. Every offer listed here gives seven days to use the free bets, so an offer claimed in a quiet week for the races you follow may run out before anything you want to bet on starts.

Then the markets. Some free bets are tied to particular sports or bet types. BetVictor's qualifying bet and free bets are on football markets; NetBet's qualifying bet needs at least one football selection and its free bets go on football bet builders, football accumulators and in-play tennis. Read the terms before the qualifying bet, not after.

Then payments. Some offers exclude certain deposit methods, usually e-wallets or prepaid cards, so check which method qualifies before you deposit. And one practical point: BoyleSports's offer is for app sign-ups and excludes Northern Ireland.

Each-way terms in cycling are set per market, commonly a quarter or a fifth of the odds over three or four places; check them on the bet slip. Say you have a £10 free bet, the bookmaker allows it on a cycling outright and allows each-way, and you split it £5 each-way on a rider at 16/1, an implied 5.9 per cent, at a quarter of the odds.

The rider finishes third. The win half loses. The place half is settled at a quarter of 16/1, which is 4/1, an implied 20 per cent. A £5 cash stake at 4/1 would return £25; as a free bet the stake is not returned, so £20 is paid. If your qualifying £10 bet had lost, you would be £10 up across the whole sequence; if it had won, more. The each-way calculator works through other prices and terms.

A free bet follows the same rules as any other bet on that market, and those rules differ between bookmakers. At William Hill, a bet on an ante-post outright loses its stake if the rider withdraws, while a non-starter in an ordinary race-winner market is refunded and Rule 4 may apply to winners. Read the rules page of the bookmaker you use before placing a free bet on an outright weeks before the start.

Some promotions pay bonus funds that must be wagered before they can be withdrawn. The UK Gambling Commission has capped wagering requirements at 10 times since 19 January 2026. Say a £20 bonus carried a five times requirement: you would need £100 of settled bets first, and at a 10 per cent margin the expected cost of those bets is £10, half the bonus.

Odds boosts and offers for existing customers are a different thing again: a boost raises one price, it does not give you a stake. Read what the promotion actually pays before treating it as a free bet.

An offer is worth claiming only if you would place the qualifying bet anyway, on a market you know, at a stake you can afford to lose. Leave it if the terms push you into markets you would not otherwise bet on, or if the seven days fall in a week with nothing you follow.

Set a deposit limit before the qualifying bet. Every listed bookmaker offers deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion, and GamStop, the national self-exclusion scheme, covers all of them at once. The National Gambling Helpline 0808 8020 133 is free and open around the clock.