First off, before I jump in, I just want to say that I think the past couple months of posts here may have been a little sub-standard. I believe I may have gotten a bit too loose/sloppy writing at times. If you're a regular reader here, you can expect a bit more thoughtfulness going forward. I'm not talking about the content, just the style of writing.
Anyway, since I am on the absolute cutting edge of the sports betting world, I have recently discovered...you ready for this...LEGAL online sports books!
OK obviously I'm like a decade behind here and I'm really only half joking, but I have to admit, I did not fully understand how much these books were offering until fairly recently. I've talked about it before but I was always so used to the wild wild west days of illegal sports betting where getting money on and off these sites was a nightmare, at best, and the promos all had miles of fine print and crazy roll over requirements.
When I was just starting out, I ran a BoDog/Bovada account up from $500 to $13k, grinding mostly $100 to $200 bets at a time, before they finally gave me the boot. And let me tell you, actually getting that money was almost like a part time job. I'm not kidding. Just to get it processed took days, if not weeks. Among many other hoops they had me jump through, at one point they sent me a paper packet type thing that I had to fill out by hand and fax back to them. I was at a public library in Henderson NV (this was when I lived in LV) making multiple pencil shaving copies of my debit card to send in to them, plus copies of my license. They seemed to be looking for any excuse not to pay me. When they finally processed the withdrawal, I had to take the money in the form of multiple pre-paid debit cards, each loaded with something like $2k that I had to withdraw from an ATM. Every time I tried to use one, it would have something like a 25% chance of working. So I would always be out and about on the strip with a card or two on me, trying them out as I came across ATM's. It would usually not work, but about one in four times the ATM would spit out $2k. It was actually kind of funny. They sent me something like a card a month. From the time they kicked me out to when I finally had all the money in my hands was something like 6 months. And that was a successful withdrawal story! The amounts of horror stories I have heard and read about are endless. Plus with the success I was having with PPH books, any kind of real sportsbook that you had to deposit money onto was pretty much a non starter for me until quite recently.
As you may know, I started with Draft Kings for this most recent football season and have been pleasantly surprised. I've since added Fanduel and now Fanatics and have been using all three quite a bit now, so I thought I would offer a detailed review of all three along with some sneaky little tips and tricks on how best to use the promos, odd boosts, free bets, 'fancash', 'Crowns', and the sites themselves.
Again, I realize this is like 7 years late and a chunk of my readers will have burned through their DK and FD accounts by now, but if not, this could definitely be of some use to you. Even if you just ate up the welcome bonuses and stopped using them, you might be surprised at what's available.
OK so let's start with Draft Kings. I've discussed them a few times on here before but I've learned a lot more about their promos and the site in general since, so here goes.
(By the way I suppose I should mention, I get absolutely zero dollars from anyone. So none of this is an ad or part of any kind of affiliate scheme or anything like that. If it was, there would be a referral link somewhere. If anyone out there would like to pay me for things, feel free to reach out. If I ever do accept any kind of money, which I severely doubt will ever happen, I would tell you guys about it).
First off, DK is an impressive book. Honestly, it may be the single best all around sports book I've ever had an account at. Getting money on and off is almost hilariously simple and quick, especially compared to how things used to be. If you link your bank account, you will have your withdrawals sometime within hours. Never more than 24 hours. If you don't want to do that, they have all kinds of options, including venmo. They also offer a truly astounding amount of markets, easily the most I've ever seen. Most of them are drowning in juice, useless one way markets, but a good chunk of them aren't.
Their juice is standard. Worse than sharp books but not as bad as most square ones.
They are, as far as I know, the industry leader for live betting. They're pretty ballsy with it, I have to admit. They put up a line on a game and pretty much leave it open for the entire game. They're quick to move, which isn't ideal, but it is impressive.
The best thing about DK though, in my opinion, is the rewards. I have come to learn that optimally using these rewards is a skill on its own. So here is how I use them.
First off, anytime I log into DK, the first thing I click on is the rewards tab. That brings you to a page where you have all your available Promos there to see. First thing I do is browse them and opt-in to anything I may use. I don't recommend auto opting-in to everything, only because I assume that is something they look at. For me, anything 30% or above is generally worth using. Any kind of bonus on any kind of straight bet is almost always worth using.
Once you've opted in to your various Promos, while still in the Rewards tab, you then click on Rewards. This shows you everything you've opted in to so far. When I first got the account, most of my bonuses had a $200 max. Now this is very important. You always want to be maxing out the reward, even if you don't want that full $200 at risk. Mathematically, and in a vacuum, you will make the most amount of money just letting these bets ride. However, you might want to scalp some or all of it out in order to guarantee yourself profit. If you can find a +EV number on the other side, or (especially) if you can bet the other side with some kind of bonus or odds boost from another account, then you're really cooking. We'll get more into that later.
Here's a great little DK tip I just stumbled upon myself. There's a tab at the top called 'VIP'. For whatever reason, I had never clicked on it before. I decided to the other day, and it takes you to a page where you just send them an e-mail asking to be a VIP. I did just that and I got an e-mail back from some kind of VIP host. They had me fill out a survey, (tip: always them they're only getting a small piece of your overall action, even if that isn't true. That's what they're hungry for) sent me another e-mail, then I got a promo in my account I have never seen before. It's called 'VIP Showcase'. Basically, I have to bet a certain amount inside a certain amount of time to unlock a bunch of bonus bets. It says 'round 1' so I assume there will be another round after this. With the bonuses I have from other accounts, clearing this one will be easy. Something to consider if you've never tried that before.
(Quick aside: you can just do shit like that. Way back in the day when I was playing Full Tilt poker, they announced a big rake back offer for new players only. It was a really good deal, I remember the existing player pool was pissed; why were only new players getting this deal? We've been loyal customers for years. I felt the same way so I e-mailed FT and laid out my case. And guess what? I got the rake back deal! Forever! Well, until Full Tilt lasted, at least. But it was free money that lasted a long time. Never be afraid to send e-mails like that).
So anyway, to finish up on Draft Kings, I highly recommend them. They have a nice loyalty program that gives you 'Crowns' for every bet you make. You climb through these tiers and get additional Crowns for every tier. You can treat the Crowns like cash, basically. They sometimes offer flash sales on merch and I've ordered some clothes before. They were decent quality, actually better than I was expecting. I got my wife a few things and she still wears them regularly, so that's a good sign.
There's another kind of weird section of DK called 'Pick6' in the top menu. It's a kind of DFS thing where you're basically parlaying player props. (You can't just load up on players from one team though, I've tried). I haven't done a deep dive on the math of it yet, though I will at some point. It doesn't really look to be anything special, except for the fact that they offer a bunch of promos and rewards for it that you can't see until you actually go into the Pick6 section. They're all pretty small but if you're hunting for these promos like me, they're worth using. I don't think I'll be using this Pick6 page much at all after I use up the first time promo's.
Overall, I give DK an A+. The fact that I'm still on there and still getting rewards every day is beyond encouraging. If you thought of them as a square book that will throw you out instantly, you might be quite mistaken. Now, I do bet pretty small these days, very rarely 4 figures, so this might not apply to the real pro's. But if you are anything but a real, full time professional sports bettor, there really is no reason to not have a DK account. Even if you are a big time pro, it's worth having an account for as long as they'll have you. You won't have to worry abut getting paid at least.
My daily betting now is mostly centered around what kind of deals I get every day, and most of that has come from Draft Kings.
That is, until quite recently.
The most recent account I just opened is from Fanatics. They have a really great new customer deal out now where if you bet $100 a day for 10 days straight, you get 10 $100 dollar free bets. So basically a $1000 value. When you sign up, they give you two options, that one, or one where if you bet $5 you get $200 in free bets instantly. Something like that. The $1000 in free bets is the far better option, obviously.
So far I have been quite impressed with Fanatics as well. It's a clear step below DK but it is for sure worth having. On top of the $1000 free bet promo, they offer daily promos and odds boost which are almost always worth using. (The only promos I don't use, in general, are same game parlay ones. If they're 30% or more I generally will. Some of them are 3 legs minimum and some are 4. You want the least amount possible, obviously. Any kind of promo on any kind of straight bet is almost always worth using, except on the one way markets).
My Fanatics promos are mostly $200 max right now which is good. They even offer stuff like a 50% boost on straight bets, usually with a $50 max. That's completely free money being offered every single day. Maybe a fifty dollar bet is beneath you, I don't know, but it isn't for me. You're fucking around on your phone or computer all the time anyway, why not make a little bit of money while you're at it?
Fanatics also offers a decent little loyalty program with 'Fancash' and different tiers. Very similar to DK, just called different names. You earn a little bit of 'Fancash' for every bet and just like DKs Crowns, you can think of it like cash. They have certain games with '2x Fancash rewards' every day.
I haven't tried withdrawing from Fanatics yet, but I can't imagine it will be a problem. That appears to not really be a thing anymore, which is great (and quite ((yet another)) blow to libertarianism). If it is, you guys will be the first to hear about it.
The app itself is decent, not as good as DK but perfectly fine. Not nearly as many offerings but plenty of props available. Like I've been saying though, I mostly focus on the promo's and they offer a bunch, new ones every day so far.
Overall I give Fanatics an A-, noting that I have yet to withdraw or really use my Fancash yet. I will be giving an update on these guys in the coming months.
Lastly, we have Fanduel. Cue the sad trombone sound. 'Wah, wahhhhhhh'. Fanduel sucks, honestly. It's the worst account I have, by far. The only positives are: during the NFL season when I was really locked in, I noticed they had the best numbers on big dogs very often. Even better than Pinnacle a lot of the time. That alone makes them worth it. During NFL, with my Wong teaser strategy, I often needed to hedge a -1.5 teaser. I'd usually take at least a chunk on the dog money line, and a lot of those bets went in at FD. It's why I got the account in the first place.
The other positive is that they feel like a little bit of a dumb, slow moving target. I've caught them slow on a big line move a few times, especially live. I've picked off a couple off market in-season futures on there too, as well as seen a couple mistakes that I don't really want to name right now. Nothing egregious, but they definitely feel like the slow one in the bunch.
For rewards, they offer next to nothing. NO loyalty program whatsoever. I did get some reload bonuses in the first couple months when they might have thought I was a whale, but those have all come and gone. They offer daily promos and odds boosts, and they were decent for a little while, but they've gone from $100 max to $25 to now $10, which is basically worthless (but I still do use them, to be perfectly honest. So what! It all adds up!)
The app sucks, too. Bad color scheme, 'sticky' feeling. I would say FD is worth having for any kind of intro new customer bonus, and if you're like me and need to bet on big ML dogs as part of a bigger strategy, it's worth keeping a balance on. But it is far and away the worst account I have. I'd give it a C. (I would say D+ but they're super fast with withdrawals so I can't complain too much).
Lastly, I want to touch on how I use these promo's.
With any kind of straight bet, I usually just bet the best number I can find and let it ride. With free bets, you generally want to bet on underdogs. Pretty straight forward. However, with parlays it can get interesting.
A big time promo that I get at DK and Fanatics is a 30 or 33% boost for a 3 team parlay. If I want to lock money up with these, I will bet on three games that are all on at different times. This is important. You want each leg to be over before the next one starts. You max out the 3 team parlay, let's say it's something like $100 to win $800. You then hedge the first bet of the parlay, to win something like $110. If the first leg of the parlay loses, you lose $100 on the parlay and win $110 on the hedge. So half the time you make a free ten bucks. Whatever - they add up. (The actual amount you want to bet to win on this first hedge is up to you. Sometimes, depending on what numbers I can get on the hedge, I might make it just to win $100. So if the first parlay leg loses, I break even. Other times I might make it to win as high as $130. But generally, if you're doing this kind of thing, you want to make it win somewhere between $105 and $120.)
If the first leg wins, now you hedge the second leg. For this hedge bet, you want to bet to win something like $225 here. It depends on the exact odds you have on the parlay, but you want to make it so if the second leg loses you still make money. If it does lose, you will lose $100 on the parlay, and the first hedge bet, which will be something like $125. So you need to bet to win at least $225 here to break even. I would bet something like to win $240 here. (pro tip: bet absolutely retarded amounts sometimes. Like $243.86 to win $236. I don't have any proof exactly, but I think betting like that makes you look square. You definitely shouldn't bet to win perfect, even amounts all the time. Squares do not bet like that.)
If the second leg wins, you simply hedge out of the last leg. You'll have a bet of something like $100 to win $800 on a team lined at -110, so hedging that is easy. You have to do some math and figure out exactly how much to bet, but it should be something around 'to win $450'. No matter what happens, if you do it right, you'll lock up something like 25-30 dollars on average. If it's a $200 max promo, just double everything.
Now you might be thinking, that seems like a lot of work for twenty five bucks. I thought the same thing at first. But you have to remember; these books are quite literally paying you to bet with them. Whether it be through Crowns or Fancash or future rewards/odds boosts, or access to VIP programs if you're regularly making normal looking hundred, two hundred or four hundred dollar bets on widely available lines, nearly every day, you're going to stack up some rewards. You can then use these rewards to keep getting more rewards, and on and on. And when you can hedge with other promo bets or bets to clear a bonus, that's even better. (One thing I will say though is that you need access to a sharp books lines for this to really work. A lot of my hedges go in at Pinnacles price, which always has way less juice than anyone else. You need the hedges to be either part or some kind of promo, better than Pinnacles price or at a reduced juice book.)
One thing I've been doing with March Madness is using two 30%, 3 team parlay promos against each other. I'll bet on opposing teams for the first leg and pre hedge the second leg, then set an alarm on my phone for 15 minutes before the last game starts. So around 70% of the time I don't have to do anything and I just lock up 25ish bucks. When the second leg wins, I evenly arb out of the last leg and take my free money.
It is a bit time consuming, I suppose, but it's nothing compared to capping props or trying to chase steam. You can do it anytime during the day and could get it all done in less than twenty minutes, really. You just have to set alarms for each leg and put in a quick bet on your phone when appropriate. Once you do it a few times you can really develop your own little system and it becomes pretty seamless. I like doing it, I think it's fun. And as I've shown, you can parlay it into access to VIP programs and other kind of rewards that you normally wouldn't get. You need to be maximizing the rewards and your access to future rewards.
Anyway, that's it for me today. I'll have another post up soon, I want to get into some more news/politics and bitcoin stuff. Thanks for reading, bye for now!
