Claiming Stake Returned (SR) Bonuses

Stake Returned (SR) bonuses are usually added to your normal account balance and there is no way to really differentiate between the real money in your account and your bonus money. When you place a bet with your bonus money, it acts exactly like your real money. The consequences of receiving SR bonus money is that any attempt to withdraw from your betting account before your bonus conditions have been met, will result in the original bonus amount being removed from your balance before the withdrawal is processed.

SR Bonus Basics

So let’s say you deposit $500 and receive a $100 bonus. If you tried to withdraw your balance of $600, the bookmaker would only send you your original $500 back. If you placed a $500 bet and that bet lost, you would have $100 left in your account which you could still use to bet with, but you would not be able to withdraw any of it until you had placed enough bets to meet the rollover requirement.

The Rollover requirement is usually something like 3 or 5 times the amount you deposited plus the bonus. So in the quick example above, if the rollover was 5 times the deposit and bonus, you would need to place $600 x 5 = $3,000 worth of bets before you were allowed to withdraw the $100 bonus – until that rollover is met, any attempt to withdraw will result in $100 being removed from your account balance before the withdrawal was processed.

For a gambler, the rollover requirement can be a problem because it forces them to keep betting and risking their money repeatedly before they have a chance of receiving the bonus – most will lose their entire balance before reaching the rollover. When you are arbing though, rolling over your balance is part of the plan. As such, the strategy for claiming SR bonuses really comes down to ‘arb as usual’.

Rolling Your SR Bonus Over

So in order to make your bonus money real money, you need to either place enough bets to meet the rollover requirement, or better yet, lose all of the money out of that account into another betting account. You can’t control which side of an arb wins or loses (if you could, you wouldn’t bother arbing), but if you are lucky, you will simply empty the account of its entire balance and thereby avoid any need to meet the rollover requirements. Meanwhile, the entire value of that account has been won in other bookmaker accounts (plus usual arb profits).

The worst case scenario with a SR bonus offer is to win too much money in to your account. With the majority of your bankroll stuck in one account, you won’t have enough funded books to allow you to continue arbing the rollover requirement. The consequences of this scenario are simply that you will have to withdraw and forfeit your bonus money – not a real loss, just a shame to miss out on the free cash.

Recap

To quickly recap: SR bonuses are really easy – arb the rollover away, hoping to lose the money out of the account to free up the funds quicker. Once rollover is met, or the balance is emptied, the money is yours.

Stake Not Returned (SNR) bonuses, on the next page, are more complex than SR bonuses, and require more strategy...