Existing customer offers at UK bookmakers: what they actually pay out
A punter who already has an account sees a different set of promotions than a new sign-up. The headline number on a banner — £40 in free bets, 50% back as a free bet, a £60 free-bet bundle — is the entry price, not the value. What matters is what the bonus costs to clear, what odds qualify, how long the free bets last, and whether the stake is returned when a free bet wins. Great Britain has changed the ground rules for those offers. Since 19 January 2026 the Gambling Commission has capped wagering requirements on bonuses at 10x and banned mixed-product promotions that tie a sports bet to casino play. That single rule reshapes the comparison more than any one operator’s marketing page does.

This page is built around cost. Every figure below is paired with the condition it depends on, and every operator write-up ends on what the offer is actually worth to a named kind of punter. Where a brand’s site or app was skimped for specifics, that gap is noted plainly — the absence itself tells a reader what to check before claiming.
Data current as of 27 October 2026, verified against the Gambling Commission’s public register and each operator’s UK site or app listing.
How Great Britain regulates existing-customer offers
The Gambling Commission is the regulator for commercial gambling in Great Britain, sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and operating under the Gambling Act 2005. Northern Ireland sits outside the Act under older law, so a “Gambling Commission licence” is a GB licence and does not extend to Northern Ireland by itself. Since the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 any operator whose remote facilities are used in Great Britain needs a Commission licence wherever the operator is based — sections 33 and 36 of the 2005 Act, as amended. A Curaçao, Maltese or Gibraltar business licence does not exempt a brand from needing a GB licence, and licensed UK operators commonly run on a .com domain, so the domain is not the test. The test is the Commission’s public register, searchable by business name, trading name, domain or account number.

Three Commission rules now shape every existing-customer offer on a GB-licensed site:
- Wagering cap of 10x on bonuses. A £10 bonus that needed £500 of qualifying bets at 50x wagering is, from 19 January 2026, illegal. Under the cap, no bonus requires more than ten times its own value to be turned into withdrawable cash.
- No mixed-product promotions. An offer that asks a punter to gamble on two or more product types — for example “bet on football to get free spins” — is banned. Sportsbook, casino, bingo and lottery cannot be linked in one promotion.
- No anonymous play. Since 7 May 2019 name, address and date of birth are verified before a customer can deposit or gamble, even when only a free bet or bonus is at stake. The identity check is a one-off per customer, not a per-offer one.
The Commission’s licence categories matter because an offer lives or dies on the kind of licence the operator holds. Remote general betting standard (real events) covers the sportsbook; remote betting intermediary is the licence an exchange such as Smarkets runs on; remote pool betting covers tote products on horse and dog racing. A virtual-events licence is a separate category for computer-simulated events. The Commission’s public register is the only proof a brand is licensed at all — a single brand is never “the only” licensed one, because the register lists far more businesses than any comparison covers.
Financial spread betting is the one corner of the betting market the Commission does not police. Spreadex, for instance, holds an FCA authorisation for its spread-betting arm and a Commission licence for fixed-odds betting; losses on the spread side can exceed deposits. That is the industry why a spread-bet account and a fixed-odds account at the same brand are two different products under two different regulators.
Responsible gambling: what the framework costs the reader, what it gives back
GAMSTOP is the national multi-operator online self-exclusion scheme, and participation has been a mandatory licence condition for every GB-licensed online operator since 31 March 2020. Self-exclusion periods are six months, one year, five years, or five years with auto-renewal. After the minimum period the exclusion stays in force for a further seven years unless the customer asks GAMSTOP to remove it. GAMSTOP covers online sites and apps; the high-street betting shops run on a separate multi-operator service.

A second layer of friction sits one rung below self-exclusion. The Commission’s financial vulnerability check applies once a customer’s net deposits over a rolling 30 days exceed £150 — a public-records check, not an income or credit-reference one. The check looks at signals such as bankruptcy or county court judgments. The “affordability checks” announced in the press are a staged plan, announced on 7 July 2026 with no start date written down; the right wording is “announced, staged, no start date”, and any site claiming they are already live is wrong.
Deposit limits are a customer-set tool, not a state-set ceiling. Operators must offer a gross deposit limit on a fixed time frame — the first phase has been live since 31 October 2025, and a second phase was postponed to 30 September 2026. The state does not set a maximum stake or a maximum loss in betting: limits are the punter’s choice, and the same brand will look very different to a £5 punter and to a £500 punter.
Help is outside the regulator. GamCare runs the National Gambling Helpline. GambleAware funds treatment and education. The NHS operates gambling clinics in several regions, and Gamblers Anonymous runs peer-support meetings. These services are free at the point of use.
The trade-off is honest and worth naming. A licensed site verifies identity before the first deposit, which is friction. The same site has GAMSTOP, the bonus cap, an approved dispute route, and recourse by the destination if funds are withheld. An unlicensed site has none of those — and no consumer protection by the destination if it disappears with the balance. Neither is “the safe choice” by default.
How an existing-customer offer actually pays out
Most existing-customer promotions on GB-licensed sites fall into one of five shapes, and each shape costs the punter differently.
A free bet is a token, not cash. When a free bet wins, the stake is usually not returned — only the profit lands in the cash balance. Coral’s “Get £40 in Free Bets when you bet £20” is the model: a £20 qualifying bet at minimum odds of 2.0 (1/1) releases £40 in free bets within seven days, each free bet expiring seven days after issue. A winning £10 free bet at 3/1 pays £30 profit, not £40. The qualifying bet is paid in cash and the winnings are real; the free bet itself is the bit the house is giving away.
A price boost is a one-off enhanced price on a named selection. The bet is paid in cash and the stake is returned with a win, because the boost replaces the price rather than adding a free-bet token on top. Bet Builder+ at bet365, the daily Uniboosts at Unibet, and the football acca boosts at William Hill and Spreadex sit in this shape. The catch is the price is fixed for one bet only — the boost does not roll forward.
Acca insurance refunds a stake as a free bet when one leg of an accumulator lets the punter down. BoyleSports’ acca insurance is the clearest example: opt in, stake at least £5 at minimum odds of 1/2, settle all legs on the same day, and a one-leg failure refunds up to £20 as a free bet that expires in seven days. The refund is a free bet, not cash, so the stake is not paid back on a win. Acca Loyalty at BoyleSports is a separate, more demanding offer: a £5 minimum stake, minimum combined odds of 3/1, five or more settled legs, and the refund still expires in seven days.
A cashback returns real cash, not a free bet. Spreadex’s Acca Boosts pay a cash bonus from 5% up to 100% on football accumulators of three or more selections, depending on the number of legs. Copybet’s Acca Booster pays up to a 100% cash bonus on accas of at least three selections, with a separate Daily Profit Boost of up to 15% on top. Cashback is the rarer shape because the operator is paying from its own margin rather than giving back its own marketing token.
A deposit-gated bonus turns a deposit into bonus money that must be turned over before it can be withdrawn. BetTom’s sports welcome offer is the model: 50% back as a free bet up to £50 on the sports side, with a matching 50% back up to £50 as free slot funds on the casino side. The 10bet welcome offer is a 100% deposit match up to £50. Under the post-19 January 2026 rules the sportsbook side of any such offer is capped at 10x wagering, and a promotion that links the sports side to the casino side is banned outright — which is why the BetTom package, as published, sits on a knife-edge for a GB customer and is best read as two separate offers read together, with the casino leg subject to its own terms.
The arithmetic below turns a typical bonus structure into the thing it actually costs a punter. The wagering cap is the new floor: any offer whose turnover requirement, once multiplied, exceeds ten times the bonus is no longer on the table.
Worked example: how much betting a bonus takes to clear
Take a £40 free-bet bundle on a sportsbook offer of the shape “bet £20, get £40 in free bets” — the same shape Coral and Unibet publish. The £20 stake is paid in cash by the punter, so the question is not how to clear £40 of bonus cash but how the £40 of free-bet value lands.
A free bet that pays profit only is worth, on average, the free-bet amount times (decimal odds minus 1) divided by decimal odds, scaled by the payout share of the market the free bet is placed on. For a £10 free bet at decimal odds of 4.00 on a Premier League match-winner market with a 95% payout share, the expected value is £10 × (4.00 − 1) ÷ 4.00 × 0.95 = £7.13. Four of those, stack on top of one another, give a payback of £28.50 against £40 of headline free bets. The 29% gap is the cost of the stake not being returned.
Where a free bet carries its own wagering requirement, the new 10x cap applies. A £20 free-bet bonus with a 5x wagering requirement means £100 of qualifying bets before any winnings become withdrawable cash. The qualifying bets must be at or above the minimum price the offer names; Coral’s qualifying bet is at minimum odds of 2.0, so each qualifying bet is on a selection the bookmaker believes has at least a 33% chance of winning — the margin of the market sits inside that 33%. At a typical 6% margin on a Premier League match-winner line, the expected cost of £100 of qualifying bets is roughly £6 — a small slice of the £100 turnover, paid in expected loss rather than in fees.
The number of qualifying bets depends on the unit stake. A £100 turnover at £5 per qualifying bet is twenty bets; at £10 per bet it is ten. The same £100 turnover is the same whether turned on a Premier League weekend or across a week of lower-league fixtures, but the variance is different — twenty small bets smooth out the run of results in a more concentrated way than ten larger ones, and a punter who runs into a stake limit on their preferred market is forced to spread the turnover across longer-odds markets where the margin is wider. The band, not a single number, is the honest shape of the cost.
The bottom line: a bonus whose headline number looks generous is often the same offer as a smaller one once turnover is priced in, and the post-19 January 2026 cap means the largest legacy traps are off the table. The trap that remains is the one a free bet creates by not returning its stake — and the gap is widest on long-odds free bets where the bracket the marketing copy promises is widest of all.
The ten UK bookmakers compared for existing-customer value
The comparison below covers ten Gambling Commission-licensed brands with a substantial existing-customer offer programme. The ordering is by offer breadth and recurring value to a punter who already holds an account, not by sign-up generosity. Several brands can share a single licence holder — Coral and Ladbrokes, for example, are both run by LC International Limited — so the table below treats each brand as a separate product even where the company behind it is the same. Offers are described as each operator’s own UK site or app listing states them, with no bonus code printed.
| Brand | Licence holder and account number | What the operator’s own terms state on the existing-customer offer |
|---|---|---|
| bet365 | Hillside (UK Gaming) Limited, Commission account 55142 | Bet Builder+ combining markets from one event pre-match and in-play, Super Boosts, Winnings Boosts on Bet Builders and selected singles, daily Bet Boosts across football and horse racing |
| William Hill | WHG (International) Limited, Commission account 39225 | Football Acca Boost on accas of 2 or more legs each at 1/5 or bigger, from 3% on a double to 200% on 20 or more legs, maximum boost £10,000 per online bet, runs until 30 May 2027 |
| Coral | LC International Limited, Commission account 54743 | Free daily Reward Shaker, an Odds Booster across hundreds of markets, free-to-play Football Super Series with a £10,000 jackpot, plus the standard welcome offer of £40 in free bets for a £20 qualifying bet at minimum odds of 2.0 |
| Sky Bet | SBG Sports Limited, Commission account 67370 | Existing-customer free-bet clubs on football and racing, enhanced odds on selected fixtures, plus a welcome offer of three £10 free bet tokens after a £5 deposit and a first bet of at least 5p at odds of 1/1 or greater |
| Paddy Power | PPB Counterparty Services Limited, Commission account 10343 | Price boosts across horse racing and football, money-back specials on selected major tournaments, weekly free-to-play predictor games with cash prizes |
| Betfair | PPB Counterparty Services Limited, Commission account 10343 | Exchange commission structure unchanged, sportsbook-side price boosts and acca bonuses on the fixed-odds product, separate loyalty terms on the exchange side |
| Ladbrokes | LC International Limited, Commission account 54743 | Daily odds boosts, free-to-play games, accumulator insurance on football, plus the standard £20 in free bets for a £5 first bet shape |
| BetVictor | BetVictor Limited, Commission account 39535 | Regular price boosts, acca offers and free bets on selected events, with welcome offers shown in the app and governed by the customer terms and conditions |
| Smarkets | Smarkets (Malta) Limited, Commission account 39173 | The SBK sportsbook alongside the exchange: Cash Out, Bet Builder, live horse racing streams, and a £60 in free bets welcome shape for a £20 bet at minimum odds of 3.0 settled within 48 hours |
| Unibet | Platinum Gaming Limited, Commission account 45322 | Bet Builder, daily Uniboosts, live streaming through Unibet TV, in-play betting, Best Odds Guaranteed on horse racing, Cash Out on thousands of markets, plus a welcome offer of £40 in free bets for a £20 qualifying bet at minimum odds of 2.0 |
The headline pattern is that price boosts and acca insurance are the most common existing-customer shape, and that operators who carry the same group structure — Coral and Ladbrokes via LC International, Paddy Power and Betfair via PPB Counterparty — tend to mirror each other’s offers on a one-week lag. The shape of the comparison that matters is not the brand list but the offer type mix: a punter who values price boosts gets a different shortlist from a punter who values acca insurance or free-bet clubs.
bet365: the in-play and bet-builder benchmark
bet365’s existing-customer programme runs on the Bet Builder+ product: combining markets from one event into a single bet, available pre-match and in-play. Super Boosts are short-lived enhanced prices on selected football and horse racing markets, with the stake returned in cash because the boost replaces the price rather than adding a free-bet token. Winnings Boosts attach to Bet Builders and selected singles, lifting the return on a winning bet by a fixed percentage. Daily Bet Boosts cycle through football, tennis and US sports.
For a punter who bets in-play heavily, bet365 is the benchmark. The combination of Cash Out, Bet Builder+ and Super Boosts on the same fixture is what the rest of the market measures itself against. The drawback is that the brand’s welcome offer is modest by current standards, and the daily boosts are easier to miss than a free-bet club token — a punter who does not check the app daily leaves value on the table.
William Hill: the football acca boost leader
The Football Acca Boost covers accas of two or more legs, with each selection at 1/5 or bigger. The boost scales from 3% on a double to 200% on 20 or more legs, with a maximum boost of £10,000 per online bet. The product runs until 30 May 2027 and is the most generous acca boost on a Commission-licensed site by headline number.
The trade-off is the price floor of 1/5 per leg. Each leg at 1/5 (decimal 1.20) is a strong favourite, and stacking twenty such legs into one accumulator is a long-runner exercise in compounding small edges into a single ticket that is vulnerable to any one upset. The boost pays cash, not a free bet, so a winning acca returns stake plus profit plus boost. The £10,000 cap means a winning ticket above that ceiling pays no more than the cap, and the punter who builds a £50,000 acca has left £40,000 of potential return on the table.
Coral and Ladbrokes: the LC International pair
Both brands sit under LC International Limited (Commission account 54743) and run mirrored existing-customer programmes with a one-week lag. Coral’s offer stack is the daily Reward Shaker — a free-to-play tap-and-reveal game that pays free bets, Odds Boosts on hundreds of markets, and Football Super Series with a £10,000 jackpot. Ladbrokes runs a near-identical structure with its own branding on the free-to-play games. The standard welcome shape on both is £20 in free bets for a £5 first bet, qualifying at minimum odds of 1/2.
For a punter who already holds one LC International account, opening the other is the fastest route to doubling the free-to-play game schedule. The two brands do not share a wallet, so the cash balance on Coral and Ladbrokes is two separate balances, and any deposit-limit or self-exclusion configuration has to be set on each site independently. GAMSTOP covers both because GAMSTOP is a register, not a per-site opt-in.
Sky Bet: the free-bet club model
Sky Bet runs an existing-customer free-bet club on football and horse racing, paying a fixed free-bet token for each week a punter places a qualifying bet. The welcome shape is the smallest in the comparison: three £10 free-bet tokens after a £5 deposit and a first bet of at least 5p at odds of 1/1 or greater. The 5p minimum stake is a marketing artefact from the days before the bonus cap, and Sky Bet has left it in place because it widens the qualifying base.
For a regular weekly punter the free-bet club is the better value than the welcome shape. The trade-off is the qualifying bet must be at minimum odds of 1/1, so the free-bet club is a long-runner game on mid-range selections rather than a way to monetise short-odds favourites.
Paddy Power and Betfair: the PPB Counterparty pair
Paddy Power and Betfair share a licence holder (PPB Counterparty Services Limited, Commission account 10343) but operate two very different products. Paddy Power is a sportsbook with price boosts across horse racing and football, money-back specials on selected major tournaments, and weekly free-to-play predictor games with cash prizes. Betfair is a betting exchange where the existing-customer value is in the commission structure rather than in promotional free bets, with a sportsbook bolted on the side for punters who want both products under one login.
For a punter who values exchange liquidity, Betfair is the only GB-licensed exchange in the comparison. For a punter who values price boosts and free-to-play games, Paddy Power is the more obvious fit. The two do not share a wallet, and the sportsbook and the exchange carry separate customer-protection configurations.
BetVictor: the conservative recurring-offer book
BetVictor’s existing-customer programme runs on regular price boosts, acca offers and free bets on selected events, with welcome offers shown in the app and governed by the customer terms and conditions. The brand does not lead on any single offer shape but does not cancel any offer consistently either, which makes it a reliable second-string book for a punter who already holds a primary account elsewhere.
Smarkets and SBK: the exchange-plus-sportsbook pair
Smarkets runs the exchange and the SBK sportsbook under one licence (Smarkets (Malta) Limited, Commission account 39173). SBK’s existing-customer product is the sportsbook side: Cash Out, Bet Builder, live horse racing streams, and the welcome shape of £60 in free bets for a £20 bet at minimum odds of 3.0 settled within 48 hours. The minimum odds of 3.0 are higher than the rest of the comparison, which excludes short-odds qualifiers from the offer.
For a punter who wants exchange and sportsbook under one login, SBK is the cleanest fit. The trade-off is the SBK product is newer and the liquidity on less popular markets is thinner than at the bigger brands.
Unibet: the live-streaming and feature-rich book
Unibet has been operating since 1999, with the UK site run by Platinum Gaming Limited, Gibraltar, under Commission account 45322. The existing-customer stack is Bet Builder, daily Uniboosts, live streaming through Unibet TV, in-play betting, Best Odds Guaranteed on horse racing, and Cash Out on thousands of markets. The welcome shape is £40 in free bets for a £20 qualifying bet at minimum odds of 2.0, with the free bets expiring within seven days.
For a punter who bets on European football and tennis, Unibet’s live streaming through Unibet TV is the differentiator — the schedule covers more obscure leagues than the bigger UK-focused brands. The trade-off is the free-bet expiry of seven days is short, and a punter who does not check the offer tab weekly leaves free bets on the table.
Operators and offers that deserve a second look
Three brands sit outside the main comparison because their offer shape is narrower but their value in their niche is real.
DAZN Bet carries Cash Out, Bet Builder, daily bet boosts and in-play betting. Cash Out availability is not guaranteed and bets stand if it is unavailable, which is a clear-headed piece of terms drafting. DAZN Bet provides deposit limits, loss limits and wagering limits as safer-gambling tools, which is the right shape of customer protection. The brand’s offer schedule is lighter than the ten above, and the right reader is a DAZN subscriber who wants sportsbook access through the same login.
Star Sports runs pre-event and in-play markets with Bet Boosts, Daily Specials and Weekend Enhanced Boosts, plus in-play betting on football, horse racing, golf and US sports. The brand’s niche is on-course betting at British racecourses and a parallel online product. The right reader is a punter who bets on horse racing and wants Best Odds Guaranteed-style features on a smaller book.
Kalooki Sportsbook is operated by Kalooki Sports Book Ltd (company number 12938274), licensed under Commission account 57730, and is a GAMSTOP member. The site advertises instant withdrawals by bank transfer within minutes, Best Odds Guaranteed on UK and Irish horse racing, in-play betting, daily boosts and extra place races. The right reader is a punter who values withdrawal speed above offer breadth — the offer programme is narrower than the ten above but the cashout proposition is the cleanest.
Three further brands carry recurring-offer programmes that fit the same shape:
- 10bet runs a 100% up to £50 betting bonus for UK sign-ups, plus daily free bets and free spins on the casino side. The sportsbook offer is single-product, which keeps it inside the post-19 January 2026 mixed-product ban, and the daily free-bet schedule is the existing-customer draw.
- QuinnBet’s free bets are valid for seven days from credit, usable on any market at odds of 1/2 (1.5) or greater, with maximum odds of 50/1. Straight accumulators are allowed but Trixies, Patents and Yankees are not, which is an unusual restriction in the comparison.
- Sporting Index runs the spread-betting arm: a £10 fixed-odds bet at minimum odds of 1/2 unlocks three £10 fixed-odds free bets, three £5 Total Goals spread bets, three £5 Winning Favourites spread bets and a £1 Race Index spread bet. The qualifying bet cannot be placed in play or cashed out early. The right reader is a punter who wants both fixed odds and spread betting under one login.
Two further brands round out the offer landscape. Kwiff runs a Supercharge feature that can instantly boost the odds on a bet — for example from 2/1 to 20/1 — on single or multi bets on any sport, plus Bet Builder and Bet Builder+ and a guaranteed weekend acca boost. The Supercharge is unpredictable and has been known to apply to single bets only at the operator’s discretion. BoyleSports runs a £20 in free bets for a £10 qualifying bet welcome shape (€30 in free bets for a €10 bet for Irish players), plus the Acca Insurance and Acca Loyalty programmes described above.
What the cost of an existing-customer offer looks like in practice
Take the most common recurring shape in the comparison: an acca boost that pays a cash percentage on top of winnings. A 10% acca boost on a winning £50 accumulator at combined odds of 10.00 pays £500 profit plus a £50 boost, for a total return of £550. The boost pays in cash and the stake is returned. The cost is the boost comes out of the operator’s margin rather than the punter’s expected loss, so a brand that runs generous acca boosts is running a thinner margin on the boosted selections — a fact the punter cannot see in the price but feels in the long run.
Take the second most common shape: a free-bet club that pays a fixed token each week a qualifying bet is placed. A £5 weekly free bet at minimum qualifying odds of 1/1 has an expected value, on a market with a 95% payout share, of roughly £2.38 per week. Over a 52-week year that is £124 of expected value from the club alone — a useful supplement to a primary book but not the foundation of a betting bank. The cost is the qualifying bet must be placed each week, which means an active punter is always one qualifying bet away from the next free-bet token.
Take the third shape: a price boost on a single selection. The boost is paid in cash with the stake returned. The cost is the boosted price is offered on a market the operator is comfortable taking sharper action on, and the margin on that market is wider than the headline price suggests. A 50/1 shot boosted to 80/1 looks generous; the operator’s implied probability has moved further than the punter’s edge, and the long-run cost is in the unfavourable price the punter did not notice.
The honest summary: existing-customer offers on GB-licensed sites are cheaper to claim than they were before 19 January 2026 because the wagering cap is in force, and the trap that remains is the one the marketing copy was always built around — the gap between the headline number and the realised value once stake non-return, minimum odds and expiry are priced in. The cap removed the worst of the legacy traps; the gap is structural and has not gone anywhere.
How to check a bookmaker’s licence in 30 seconds
The Gambling Commission’s public register is at the Commission’s website and can be searched by business name, trading name, domain or account number. The brand name in the Commission’s records is sometimes the trading name and sometimes the licence holder, and the two are not always identical — Coral’s licence holder is LC International Limited, for example, while the trading name is Coral. A search on the trading name returns the licence holder as a related line.
A licence in the register carries an account number, a list of licence categories, and the trading names the licence covers. The categories relevant to sports betting are remote general betting standard (real events), remote general betting standard (virtual events), remote general betting limited, remote pool betting, and remote betting intermediary. A licence for casino only does not cover a sportsbook; a sportsbook licence does not cover casino. The two products have separate customer-protection rules.
A brand that holds a GB licence but runs an unlicensed white-label product is a different proposition. The Commission’s public register is the test of the licensed product; a sister site under the same group may be a different entity with a different licence status. The honest move is to check the specific domain a punter plans to use, not the parent company.
The bottom line on the comparison
For a punter who already holds one LC International account (Coral or Ladbrokes), opening the other doubles the free-to-play game schedule. For a punter who values in-play depth, bet365 is the benchmark. For a punter who values acca boosts, William Hill’s Football Acca Boost is the headline number in the comparison, capped at £10,000 per online bet and running until 30 May 2027. For a punter who values exchange liquidity, Betfair is the only GB-licensed exchange in the set. For a punter who values live streaming on European football and tennis, Unibet is the cleanest fit. For a punter who values withdrawal speed over offer breadth, Kalooki Sportsbook is the niche brand worth a look.
The wagering cap that took effect on 19 January 2026 has changed the floor of the comparison: any offer whose turnover exceeds ten times its bonus is off the table. The ceiling has not changed. The gap between headline and realised value is still where the operator’s marketing budget earns its return, and the punter who prices that gap correctly is the punter who comes out ahead over a season. The bottom line of this comparison is not which brand has the largest number — it is which brand’s offer, priced for its minimum-odds requirement, its stake non-return, its expiry and its qualifying bet, leaves the most realised value in the punter’s wallet at the end of the year.
Frequently asked questions
What is the maximum wagering requirement on a betting bonus in Great Britain?
A bonus offered on a GB-licensed sportsbook may not require more than ten times the bonus amount to be turned over before any winnings become withdrawable cash. The cap took effect on 19 January 2026 and applies to wagering requirements, not to minimum-odds qualifiers or to free-bet stake-return rules, which remain on each operator’s own terms.
What do minimum odds and the wagering requirement mean in a sign-up offer?
The minimum odds are the lowest price the qualifying bet must be placed at for the bet to count toward the offer. The wagering requirement is how many times the bonus must be turned over in qualifying bets before winnings become withdrawable. A £20 bonus with a 5x wagering requirement at minimum odds of 2.0 means £100 of qualifying bets, each at decimal odds of 2.0 or higher, before the bonus clears.
Why is the stake of a free bet not paid back with the winnings?
A free bet is a marketing token, not a cash stake. When a free bet wins, the operator returns the profit only; the original stake stays with the operator. A winning £10 free bet at decimal odds of 4.00 pays £30 in profit, not £40, because the £10 stake was a free-bet token rather than a cash bet. The stake-non-return rule is the structural reason free-bet value is lower than headline.
Can a bet on sport be tied to a casino bonus under the Commission’s promotion rules?
No. From 19 January 2026 mixed-product promotions are banned: an offer that requires a punter to gamble on two or more product types, such as betting and casino, is not permitted on a GB-licensed site. Sportsbook and casino offers must run as separate promotions, each with its own terms and each subject to the 10x wagering cap.
How can it be checked that a bookmaker holds a Gambling Commission licence?
The Commission’s public register is searchable by business name, trading name, domain or account number, and is the only proof a brand holds a GB licence. A GB-licensed operator may use a .com or a .co.uk domain, so the domain is not the test. A brand’s own website may also show the account number in its terms, which can be cross-checked against the register.
Are betting winnings taxed in Great Britain, and who pays General Betting Duty?
Betting winnings are not taxed on the punter: a winning bet is paid out gross, taxed, and the punter receives the full amount. General Betting Duty is the operator’s tax on gross profits and is currently 15% (with a 25% remote rate applying from 1 April 2027 to bets that are not on UK horse racing, not pool betting and not in-person). The duty is the operator’s liability, not the punter’s, and is not deducted from winnings.
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