My main man Bullajami talked me into jumping into the world of sports betting two weeks ago. I had always avoided it because it seems like the kind of gambling that your mother warned you about. You know what I mean, every movie that starts with someone betting on sports always ends with the same guy getting his kneecaps busted up with a baseball bat or living on the streets.
So far, it doesn’t look like either one is going to happen to me. I’m limiting myself to the highest rated sportsbooks by Sportsbook Review (which may or may not be reliable). Some people say that they effectively get kickbacks from sites who get the highest scores, but you’ve got to trust someone. Consumer Reports isn’t likely to do an off-shore wagering issue anytime soon.
I signed up with Pinnacle, CRIS and Hollywood. All highly rated and all with some kind of decent bonus offer. Hollywood offered $750 in cash and $750 in free plays on a $5,000 deposit. CRIS offered $1,000 in free play on a $5,000 deposit and Pinnacle offered $500 on a $5,000 deposit. I decided to wager them against each other willy-nilly and sort out the damage once I was done.
I looked for arbitrage bets and found what seemed like solid bets on every event. Since I had money on both teams, I pretty much knew what the results would be before games were played. Unfortunately, I misunderstood the terms of one of the bonuses and gave up almost $400 in value by misplaying my wagers. Fortunately, the bonuses covered my mistake and then some. I busted out of Pinnacle and lost most of my roll in Hollywood. CRIS almost tripled.
I can’t get my money out of CRIS until I’ve wagered a whole bunch of money, so I need to keep betting against them as often as I can. I added some more money to Pinnacle and got a $100 bonus on a $500 deposit at VIP. I managed to lose the entire $600 in one bet to Pinnacle and then lost all the Pinnacle money into CRIS again. At this point, I’ve done it for two weeks and I’m up $2,200. Of that total, $46.63 is my profit on arbitrage and the rest is bonus money. I’m not sure this will be a great money maker once I exhaust the bonuses, but it is pretty good when you add them in.
I’m going to try to finally burn through my wagering requirement at CRIS and get at least one other bonus this week. I’ve also got a $150 freeroll wager to place, which should yield at least $100 risk-free. I’ll post something on the strategy of freeroll betting later.
