The Legalbet.uk team bring you all of the latest, the biggest, and the best Welcome Offers from the UK bookies in 2024. If we don’t list it, you don’t want it.
Best Betting Welcome Offers: UK Bonus List 2024 in December
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Top 3 Best Sign Up Offers
The Legalbet.uk team bring you all of the latest, the biggest, and the best Welcome Offers from the UK bookies in 2024. If we don’t list it, you don’t want it.
Betting sites with Welcome Bonuses are pretty common. We have checked, and continue to check, all legal UK bookmakers operating in 2024and can bring you the current cream of the crop below. All come from quality bookmakers, require low deposit amounts, and give excellent value for money.
Parimatch: Bet £5 get £30 in Bonuses
Parimatch offers the most bang for your buck for those looking for a low deposit betting sign up bonus. Just a £5 deposit wagered 1x on any event with odds greater than Evens (Decimal 2) within 7 days of registering means you are testing the waters of this bookmaker with relatively low stakes. In return for this you will receive £10 of Free Bet credit to be placed on single events, £10 of Free Bet credit to be placed on any accumulator bet, and £10 of Slots credit to be wagered in the Casino, withdrawable after wagering 20x.
888sport: Bet £10 get £30 in Free Bets + £10 Casino Bonus
888sport has a great promotion offering 3x £10 Free Bets after wagering your initial £10 deposit on anything at odds over two to one on (Decimal 1.5) within 30 days of registering. The Free Bets must be placed in full as a £10 bet but can be placed on anything in the Sportsbook up to 7 days after being credited. Separately in the Casino you have £10 of credit added which must be wagered on selected games 40x before it can be withdrawn.
Betfred: Bet £10 get £40 in Free Bets + 30 Free Spins
Betfred has a fantastic sports welcome bonus for new customers, £40 in free bet credit which can be broken up into smaller bets of your choosing. Simply register and deposit £10 via an eligible payment method (listed in the conditions). This must be wagered on any event at odds of Evens (Decimal 2) or above and once that bet is settled the bonus will be credited to your Free Bet balance. You also get 30 Free Spins to play on the slots game Blue Wizard. All bonuses must be used within 7 days of being credited.
What are welcome bonuses?
Bookmakers sign up bonuses have been a fundamental part of the online gambling industry ever since the very beginning. They are offered essentially to encourage customers to go through the hassle of registering and depositing, which can be off putting compared to the ease of using an existing account at a different operator. Another element sometimes overlooked is that they are designed to give you more chance of winning the first time. Bookmakers honestly want you to win the first time you play and welcome bonuses shift the odds into your favour making that likely. They do not want you to lose the first time, not enjoy it, decide that this gambling lark is not for you and therefore never come back. Once somebody has won they will always remember how much fun it was, and how easy it was, and they are therefore much more likely to redeposit again in future.
What are the types of online bookmakers sign-up offers?
There are several types of bookmaker sign-up offer and the exact details are unlikely to ever be exactly the same from one bookmaker to the next. They can be grouped into similar types though and the most popular categories are described below.
First deposit Free Bet offer
Probably the most common type of Welcome bonus that you will come across is that where you deposit a minimum amount, often £5 or £10 and must wager this amount 1x usually at minimum odds of Evens (Decimal 2) although this can vary. Once this bet has settled, although sometimes it can be after this bet has been placed, your account will have bet credit added to it. This is sometimes a fixed amount and must be placed as a certain value, other times the credit can be split up and placed for various stake amounts as you wish. You can use this credit to bet with and should you win you can nearly always keep and withdraw those winnings, BUT you do not get to keep the stake amount. For example if you bet £10 of Free Bet credit on something at odds of 2/1 (Decimal 3) then if it wins you get £20 added to your account balance.
Enhanced odds first bet offer
Many bookmakers try to keep their sports welcome bonus “current” and relevant to the weeks or even days action. They will pick just one major match or event coming up and massively boost the odds on that selection happening, usually on something very likely. It could be for example “England to score a goal” when they are playing Andorra! The odds would normally be around 1/10 on (Decimal 1.1) but the bookmaker may offer 5/1 (Decimal 6) but limit the maximum stake amount to a low limit. This bet will only be available to new customers either via a special web page or admin manually boosting the winnings should a new customer place this bet and it wins.
First bet refunded if it loses
Another fairly common betting welcome bonus is where you can deposit and bet up to a certain amount on almost anything (but there will be at least some odds range limit) and if it loses then your stake amount is refunded. Sometimes this refund will be as bet credit which needs to be wagered again before any winnings can be withdrawn but sometimes it is just refunded as cash.
Matched deposit bonus
A matched deposit bonus is pretty rare when it comes to the World of sports betting. What it means is that you deposit a set amount of money and your balance instantly raises by that amount PLUS an additional amount of cash as a bonus. Before withdrawing this bonus amount (or anything for that matter) a certain amount must be wagered at a certain minimum odds. Once that has been completed though what you have left is yours to keep.
Free gifts as a bonus
Occasionally it is possible to be given Free Gifts as a bonus from bookmakers. These gifts can range from football shirts, to Christmas hampers, to experience days or Holidays around the World. There is no limit to what Free Gifts may be sent to you or offered to you, and it is most common to receive these if you are a VIP player on or around your Birthday.
How to claim a Welcome Bonus?
Because every bookmaker is different, each can set whatever method they wish to choose when it comes to “claiming” a Welcome Bonus. For a start some do not even have to be claimed but are instead added automatically to all qualifying accounts. Others are claimed before registration by clicking through from a specific Welcome Bonus landing page or during registration by entering a “bonus” or “promo” code to the specified field on the registration form. Some, not many, but some, will have to be claimed by contacting the bookmakers customer services after all qualifying criteria have been met and have them manually add the bonus, whatever that may be.
Can you withdraw welcome bonuses?
As a general rule you can not withdraw the bonuses themselves if they were given as a Free Bet, because in these examples only the winnings from the Free Bet can be withdrawn. However there are many other types of welcome bonuses including refunds as cash, or cash amounts added to your account balance, or boosted odds on your first bet, and in all those cases it is very likely that you can withdraw the Welcome Bonus itself, whatever that may be.
What are play-through requirements for welcome offers?
Every Welcome Offer is different from the next so there is no one set answer to this, it can range from as low as zero (no play through at all) up to as much as 30x we are aware of at the moment and there is no reason that it could not be higher. Every XXX will have different requirements and it is important to carefully check the terms of every betting sign up bonus, because they will tell you the exact amount which will apply to you.
How to identify the best Welcome Bonuses
The headline bonus amount is only part of the story when it comes to what is the “best Welcome Bonus”. It would be simple to think that Bookmaker A offering a £20 Free Bet is better than the offer from Bookmaker B offering a £15 Free Bet. It is not always thats simple though and there are other considerations.
The deposit to bonus ratio
Some bookmakers may offer a large Free Bet but you must deposit a large amount to get it, in some cases they may require £200 or more. What is better is a bonus which does not require a large deposit amount to qualify for it, so look for bookmakers that give a high % ratio of deposit to bonus. For example a £20 bonus after a £5 deposit will, ceteris paribus, be better than a £20 bonus credited after a £20 deposit.
Qualifying Criteria - Odds / Sports / Types / Deposit methods
The ease of qualifying for a Welcome Bonus will be a large factor in deciding which is the best. You want the criteria to be as simple as possible with virtually every variable you can think of qualifying. As the criteria become more stringent this reduces the quality of the offer. For example you are looking for qualifying criteria which include all bets so no qualifying odds is best, but that is rare so you are looking for the lower the better. Similarly what sports qualify you to get the bonus? If it is just E-Sports bets only this is of less use than an offer where every sport counts. Look for what bet types count, some may only include an accumulator for example and this would not be as good. What deposit methods qualify for the bonus? Check this as some methods are excluded and if it is a method you like to use, well, this bonus may not be the best for you then.
Wagering Requirements
To qualify for a bonus often only takes one bet, but some may require more and so obviously the Welcome Bonuses that have lower wagering requirements to qualify are better. Once the bonus has been credited the ease of moving it from this stage and back to your bank account is going to define what bonuses are the best. Ideally the bonus when added will be cash, this is the best, you can just take it straight out. It is likely though that your bonus will in fact be a free bet credit, and this is fine, so long as the wagering requirements are not onerous. It is possible that bets using this credit may have to be on certain types of bet, perhaps an accumulator, or that you must bet winnings several times over before they can eventually be withdrawn. Overall it is fair to say that the less wagering requirements that a bonus has the better.
Time Limits
Some bookmakers set a time limit for how long you have from registering to deposit and place a qualifying bet. If this limit is prohibitively short then this would decrease the likelihood of this being the best Welcome Bonus for you. Likewise once a Freebet has been added or any other time of bonus, if it involves wagering in the next month or so then this is unlikely to be a problem but if it starts to be a week or less, this can serious decrease the utility value and this is in fact, at times, one of the most important things to look at. The vast majority of time limits will fall between 7 and 30 days which is reasonable. Some can be much shorter though and this is something to beware of, but some can be longer too, SkyBet has no expiry on their Free Bets at all.
Winnings Cap
Some Welcome Bonuses will have a set limit to how much money can be won from them. If this is a high limit such as £50,000 then this is not going to be an issue but if it is lower, in some cases it can be as low as £20, then this will massively affect how good a Welcome Bonus offer is. This is quite a rare thing to be an issue but it does exist and you should always just double check if there is a limit in place because you definitely want to know beforehand rather than find out after.
Conclusion
Welcome Bonuses are not the most important factor when choosing a bookmaker in the long run, BUT first impressions are important, and there is likely to be a correlation between the quality of a bookmaker's Welcome Bonus and of the overall quality of their service. Try to think about your budget before depositing, just because there is a possible £200 bonus on offer does not mean you have to maximise it. If you were only planning on depositing £10 then this is what you should do. Make sure you check the Terms and Conditions of each offer as one bookmaker will differ from the next, take nothing for granted. Finally, no matter what only deposit and gamble with money which you can afford to lose.
Bonuses by category
Bonus types: Free Bets | Cashback Offers | Enhanced Odds | Extra Place Offers | Early Payout Offers | Cash Bonuses | Risk Free Bets
Bonus conditions: Welcome Bonuses | Accumulator Bonuses | Loyalty Programs
Get & Bet: Bet £10 Get £10 | Bet £10 Get £20 | Bet £10 Get £30 | Bet £10 Get £40 | Bet £10 Get £50 | Bet £10 Get £60 | Bet £5 Get £20 | Bet £5 Get £30 | Bet X Get Y
Sports bonuses: Football | Horse Racing | Greyhounds | Royal Ascot | Euro 2024
Bookmakers free bets: 888sport | William Hill | Betfred | QuinnBet | Mr.Play | Betway | Ladbrokes | Bet365 | SponsioBet | Coral Sports | Betfair | Virgin Bet | Geoff Banks | Fitzdares | BWin | BetBull | Paddy Power | Star Sports | BetRegal | SportNation | NetBet | Boylesports
Bookmakers bonuses: Fitzdares | Mr. Play | Ladbrokes | Betfair | Virgin Bet | SponsioBet | TonyBet | LeoVegas | BWin | STS Bet | Unibet | BoyleSports | William Hill | Paddy Power | Geoff Banks | QuinnBet | 32RedSport | Coral | Betfred | Bet365 | 888sport | Betway | 10bet | All British Casino | CopyBet |
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