Choosing A Sportsbook

The author of this article, Frank Benjamin, is The Bettor Guide's resident sports betting writer and author of the popular betting guide, The Bettor's Guide to Sports Investing. You can pick up a copy at a discounted price by clicking the following link: Betting Guide.

Choosing a sportsbook that fits with your wagering style and limts is paramount. There are a plethora of sportsbooks online – Each of them competing for your business.

Just as every bettor is different, sportsbooks set themselves apart from each other. From the high roller to the recreational bettor, it is important to find the right sportsbooks for your wagering style and wagering amount.

Sign-up & Reload Bonuses

Since each sportbook is competing for your business, they all offer special promotions. Though these promotions might change from time to time in amounts and percentages, you can usually obtain free money for betting with you first sign up. Other sportsbooks also offer bonuses called reload bonuses when you reload your account after your initial deposit.

There a few stipulation that you will want to look at when review and comparing sign-up bonuses and reload bonuses.

Of course you want to look at the amount of the bonus offer. Typically a sign up bonus is a percentage of your initial deposit, usually around 20-40%. Some sportsbooks offer special 100% bonuses from time to time. But all these bonuses have stipulations called rollovers. A rollover is the amount you have to play before being allowed to withdraw the bonus from your account.

A rollover is usually so many times the bonus. If I am offering a 40% deposit bonus when you open a Diamond Sportsbook account with a minimum of $250, you will earn a $100 bonus with the minimum deposit. The rollover for this bonus is 10x the bonus amount. So you will need to place $1,000 in wagers (10 x $100= $1,000), win or lose, before you can request to withdraw the bonus.

I have seen rollover amounts as high as 40x. I am sure you can see why you want to review the bonus amounts and rollover prior to opening and funding your account.

A reload bonus is bonus that is provided when you make any deposit after your initial deposit. This bonus isn’t as popular as it once was, but you can still find them. If the bonus is a percentage, be sure to check the rollover requirement.

Deposit and Withdraw Limits

Just as important as the amount of the Deposit bonus and rollover are the funding limits. Each sportsbooks have minimum and maximum amounts that you can deposit and withdraw. Make sure your betting amounts are within the limits of the sportsbooks that you are considering.

Other restrictions that sportsbooks have is on withdraws. Just like deposits, sportsbooks set limits on withdraws. The limit usually depends on the method of withdraw such as a bank check, Western Union, etc.

Sportsbooks also limit how often you can request payout. They usually allow one free withdraw per month and will charge a fee for any payout requests over that limit.

Be sure to check all the deposit and withdraw limits of all sportsbooks you are interested in and choose a sportsbook that fits your wagering style.

Sports, Wagering Options and Amounts

Most sportsbooks offer the same sports, but you still want to check they offer betting of the sports you will be placing bets on. The amounts that you can place on each type of wager could also be different. Typically you can place more on a straight bet than you can on a parlay. Pick a sportsbook that fits your betting tendencies.

Sportsbook Deposit Bonus Reviews

The Bettor Guide has independently reviewed multiple sportsbooks and offer reviews of our suggested sportsbooks. Please educate yourself with our deposit bonus and sportsbook reviews of Diamond Sportsbook, BookMaker, Bet Canadian, 5Dimes and Bodog.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions. We want to be sure you choose the correct sportsbook.