Betting is big business, and bookmakers are keen to keep the money rolling in. To do this, they need to attract customers to their websites and betting shops and keep them coming back for more. 

One of the ways to achieve this is to run offers that hand out free bets or other bonuses, usually after placing a qualifying bet or completing wagering on casino games. 

Some of these offers will be specific to certain events or one-off offers, but plenty of bookmakers run weekly bet clubs. 

There’s a great article about how betting sites make money here. To find out all about how bet clubs work and how you can make consistent profits from them through Matched Betting, read on. 

What Are Free Bet Clubs?

Free bet clubs are regular offers that bookmakers run to encourage their customers to keep betting with them. They often differ from one bookmaker to the next, but they’re all variations on a theme and are easy to understand. 

The regularity of weekly bet clubs makes them ideal for Matched Bettors. They give a reliable source of income and they’re perfect to add to your routine since you’ll get used to how to complete their offers (although it’s always worth checking to see if anything has changed from one week to the next). 

Something that free bet clubs have in common is that they all require the customer to place a bet to get their reward. This could be a single bet or an accumulator, depending on the offer. 

Types of Free Bet Clubs

Simple ‘Bet and Get’ Offers

With this type of offer, you need to place one or more bets using your own money to qualify for the reward. The reward tends to be a free bet but could be free spins or a combination of a free bet and free spins. 

Unless the offer states otherwise, your qualifying bet can be a single bet. If you have the choice of placing a single bet, this is by far the easiest option. 

Bookmakers generally have minimum odds requirements for the qualifying bet or bets, which will always be clearly stated. Bets also always need to be placed within a given timescale.

In addition, they often have other conditions attached to the qualifying bet, for example, placing it on a particular sport or as a Bet Builder.

Here’s BetUK’s current weekly bet club offer on Outplayed, which involves placing a qualifying Bet Builder bet to get a £5 free bet:

In-Store offers

With most free bet clubs you’ll be placing all your bets online, but a handful require placing them at a betting shop. 

As of the writing of this article, there’s only one in-store bet club, and that’s with Boyle Sports. However, with 392 stores listed on their site, lots of people will have a local branch of Boyle Sports. 

As you’d expect for an Irish betting company there are a large number of branches spread widely across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland: 

There are far fewer Boyle Sports betting shops in the UK, with none in Scotland, a few spread across England, particularly in the North West, Yorkshire, and the Midlands, and a solitary Welsh branch in Cardiff:

You can find an up-to-date list of Boyle Sports stores here. 

The offer itself is quite generous - stake £50 across five different bets to receive a £15 in-store bet. At least one qualifying bet needs to be placed in-store using a BoyleXtra card.

Here’s the offer on Outplayed: 

Accumulator offers

Several bookmakers have free bet offers that require bets to be placed on accumulators. An accumulator, also called a multiple bet, involves betting on two or more selections. 

An example is betting on both West Ham to win one football match and Brighton to draw against Chelsea in another. For your accumulator to win, you need both of your selections to win.  

Here is DAZN Bet’s weekly accumulator free bet club, as listed on Outplayed:

How Can You Make Consistent Profits From Free Bet Clubs?

Free bet clubs are a good way to get a little long-term value back from the bookmaker if you bet regularly with them. 

Even better, through Matched Betting, you can lock in consistent profits by making use of recurring free bet offers. 

Here’s an example of how you can make profits, week after week, from Midnite’s free bet offer. Below is a screenshot of the offer on Outplayed, which includes thorough but concise instructions telling you exactly how to complete it: 

Here’s a breakdown of the stages when completing the offer:

1) Opt in each week. 

2) Use Outplayed’s fantastic Oddsmatching tool to find suitable qualifying bets.

The filters have been set as follows:

• Minimum odds - Set to 2.0, the minimum qualifying odds for the offer. 
• Timeframe - Set for up to 1 day. It wasn’t essential to set such a short timescale, but it’s important to ensure that bets are placed and settled in the same week, and it’s preferable to place bets on the day of the event, if possible. 
• Rating - A Max. Rating of 97%, since it’s better for account health to avoid very close matches between back and lay odds. 

You can also filter to only show results from your chosen betting exchange/s. There’s a filter that lets you choose from a list of football leagues, which allows you to only select the English Premier League and English Championship, for example. 

3) Click on the calculator icon at the left of your chosen bet.

The Derby v Millwall bet was chosen as it’s a game in the English Championship, which is a higher-profile league than the results above it. 

4) Click on ‘Go to Midnite’ to go to the bookmaker site. For Midnite, the link doesn’t take you straight to the game, but it’s easy to type in one of the team names to be taken to it. 

5) Click on the ‘Derby County 2.45’ odds to add the bet to your betslip and enter the £5 stake.

It’s best to also get the bet on the exchange before placing your bookmaker bet. This allows you to check the availability at the exchange (the amount of money available to cover your lay stake) and to place the exchange bet immediately after you’ve placed the bookmaker bet. 

6) Click on the ‘Go to Matchbook Exchange’ link to be taken to the game on the exchange.

7) Click the 2.54 lay odds (pink) for Derby County. There is £7 available (the amount under the odds), which is enough to cover the £4.82 lay stake. 

8) Place your £5 back bet on Midnite, followed by the £4.82 lay bet on Matchbook. 

9) Once your bets have settled, you’ll have made an overall loss of 17p or 18p, depending on the result. This is fine, as you’ll always make a loss from the qualifying bets. The profit comes from the free bet. 

10) Repeat this process for the other qualifying bets on 4 different events. 

11) After all bets have settled, you’ll receive a £5 free bet. You can then use Oddsmatching with the SnR slider to the right to find a suitable free bet, then back and lay this bet at Midnite and your betting exchange. 

12) Assuming you make an average qualifying loss of 20p on your free bets and £3.50 profit from your £5 free bet, which is a reasonable assumption, you’ll make £2.50 profit overall from the offer. 

Conclusion

Free bet clubs are a great way to get some long-term value from a bookmaker. If you’re a Matched Bettor, you can use them to make consistent profits week after week. 

Bet clubs tend to be weekly affairs, so can be a consistent and reliable source of Matched Betting income, especially if you do them with several bookmakers. 

Almost all free bet clubs involve placing all your bets online, allowing you to complete them from the comfort of your home, or on the move. If you have a local Boyle Sports that you don’t mind venturing out to, they have a nice weekly in-store offer. 

To discover how to lock in profits from weekly bets clubs, Outplayed has everything you need. With Platinum membership, you’ll also have access to all of the worthwhile sportsbook sign-up and reload offers. 

Better still, they have a free trial, which gives you access to all of their sportsbook sign-up offers.