So you’ve set your mind on trying your hand at sports betting. Now, one of your first decisions will be to find the sports betting sites or sportsbooks to use for your betting needs. But which one should you pick? And how many should you sign up for?
Depending where you look, tipsters and casual bettors alike will recommend signing up for more than one book. You can reap more benefits that way. But like with all things, there are both advantages and disadvantages in this strategy.
A quick look at the top online sports betting sites, as reviewed by Canada Sports Betting, will identify the best sites for new and experienced bettors alike. We’ll go a step further and identify why it can be both good and bad to divy up your hard-earned cash in many sportsbooks.
Pro: Avail Of Many Bonuses and Promotions
Let’s get the obvious out: the more sportsbooks you sign up for, the more bonuses and promotions you can use. Almost every top sports betting site offers a first deposit bonus: they will match whatever you deposit up to a certain amount.
If you put in $200, they will give you an extra $200 to bet with. And this is not the only bonus available to you. Every book has its own set of promotions and some even have one promotion for every day of the week including their online casino.
These promotions may be a rewards program, which will give you points for every bet you make, “boosted” betting odds for parlays or props, and/or a money-back promo for when you lose a bet.
Con: These Bonuses and Promos Have A Catch
Do these bonuses sound too good to be true? There is a big catch here: these “free cash” that you’re being given can only be withdrawn after you bet a certain amount of money. This is known as a “rollover”.
Depending on the book, these rollovers go from five times or ten times the amount you were given. So if you were gifted $200, you will need to wager between $1,000 to $2,000 to get a chance to withdraw.
And this is still subject to limitations. Not every dollar you stake or every bet you make will qualify for this rollover. Those “terms and conditions” that we all love to pretend we read through carefully? Yup, you will have to read them carefully to thoroughly understand how you can maximize your bonuses.
Pro: More Betting Lines To Shop From
Every experienced bettor will tell you that you need to be shopping for the best betting lines out there. What does this mean? It means that not every book offers the same betting line for the same game or match.
Depending on the book, some will offer a game with a lower total or a higher betting line on a favorite. The difference may not seem too much: maybe 5 cents or a half-point. But this could mean the difference between a losing bet and a winning bet.
Different books also open betting lines at different times. Some are market leaders and will be among the first to open a line while others may take a while. If you want to be able to bet as early as possible, having many books increases this chance.
Con: Can Be More Time Consuming and Exhausting
Sometimes simplicity is its own reward. When you are signed up for just one book, you are only checking odds at one place. But when you are signed up for a few, you may be spending a lot more time shopping for lines and/or asking a particular book if they can match odds (some offer this as a perk).
Of course, you do not need to do all of this. But to maximize the benefits of having multiple books, shopping for lines and odds-matching is a must.
On top of this, tracking your bets can take a longer time as well. You can ask various books to give you a betting record and download it neatly into a sheet. Or you can do it manually. Either way, having more places to do this will eat up your time.
The Bottom Line
If you compare the pros and cons, then the pros definitely outweigh the cons (even if we provided just two examples of each).
Signing up for multiple books will give you more choices and increase your exposure to more betting lines, which can in turn be your edge over someone who sticks to just one.