# Sports book apps are offering me ridiculous “bonus bets.” What’s the catch? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [September 14, 2025, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-book-apps-are-offering-me-ridiculous-bonus-bets-what-s-the-catch/1023046 "2025-09-14T22:40:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 17
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2025, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-book-apps-are-offering-me-ridiculous-bonus-bets-what-s-the-catch/1023046/17 "2025-09-16T00:16:27Z")
Do you mean this one? I got $150 bonuses at 2 different sites, bet opposite 1:1 bets at both (I had to find 3 different games since one of the sites gave you 3 $50 bets you had to use separately), and wound up with $138 net profit. As I pointed out in that thread though, you’ve got to give a lot of info to the betting sites to open an acct, much more than you would on a normal commerce site. > [@Sports gambling promotions question](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-gambling-promotions-question/996543): > > Several sports gambling sites are currently offering promotions - open a new acct, bet $5, and get $150-ish in free bets. There’s some fine print - the free bets have to be used within 7 days, and obviously if you win, you only get the winnings, not the original stake. But it seems you could easily make some guaranteed money this way. Open accts at 2 different sites, bet the minimum $5 on opposite sides of the same game, then bet the promotional bets on opposite sides of another game, so you’re… --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sports-book-apps-are-offering-me-ridiculous-bonus-bets-what-s-the-catch/1023046)._