Reduced Juice Betting Sites
The majority of gambling review portals focus on mentioning large bonus offers rather than discussing reduced juice because this is what most visitors are interested in. For whatever reason when it comes to sports betting players, they are far more interested in getting something for free than they are with getting the best value. If you're serious about ever learning to bet sports as something more than just a hobby, you'll want to understand the importance of reduced juice.
Where to Bet with Reduced Juice
The most reputable betting site in the US market www.5dimes.com is the leading provider of reduced juice betting odds. Here you'll find dime lines for NHL hockey (example: Chicago +120 / Ottawa -130, instead the twenty cent line at most sites of Chicago +115 / Ottawa -135). You'll also find half juice for football and basketball point spreads (-105) instead of the standard full juice (-110). This means risk $1.05 to win $1.00 instead of risk $1.10 to win $1.00. 5Dimes also has by far the best odds on baseball, golf, tennis and other sports with the most markets for football prop bets and futures. This is a website where rather than getting bonuses you simply get paid more on each winning bet.
Comparing Reduced Juice to Bonuses
The largest sports betting bonus offer in the industry comes from www.justbet.cx; anyone signing up with the code FREE80 receives an 80% initial deposit bonus up to $400 free (deposit $500 get a $400 bonus). This bonus is issued as free play credits, which is an important distinction. When you wager with free play credits only your winnings are returned (not stake) on a winning bet. For example, when using cash for football betting, to make a $100 bet at odds -110, the wager is $110 to win $100. If this bet wins $210 is added to your account balance (return of $110 stake + addition of the $100 win). When using free play it is 110 Free Play to win $100 cash; so, on a win, just the $100 cash is added to your balance because the stake was a free play which is now used up.
The 80% Justbet bonus offer requires players accepting it to rollover their deposit plus bonus ten-times. So if you deposit $500 and get $400 free your rollover is ($500+$400)*10=$9,000. There is also a term that states the free play can only be wagered on point spreads and moneylines. So you decide with your $400 free you're going to make 10 wagers of $40.00 to win $36.37 (this being the -110 payout on $40 stakes). Now let's say you're a consistent 54.5% winner. If so, on average you'll win $36.37 a total of 5.45 times for $198.22 in winnings. You balance is now $500 deposit + $198.22 in cash = $698.22 and you have $9,000 in rollover to meet.
At Justbet, as is the case with most betting websites, rollover is calculated as the lesser of risk amount or to win amount. In order to clear you're $9,000 in rollover you decide to make 100 bets on -110 odds of risk $99 to win $90. Keeping your same 54.5% win rate, on average 54.5 times you win $90 (+$4,905) and 45.5 times you lose $99.00 for (-$4,504.5). Your $400.50 profit from these bets added to your $698.22 balance gives you a new balance of $1,098.72. You started with $500 so you've profited $598.72 at Justbet.cx and are now free and clear to cash out.
5Dimes Compared
Let's now take a look at what would have happened if you had made the same bets at 5Dimes where the odds are -105 instead of -110. Here the ten bets of $40 would now be risk $40 to win $38.10. At the same 54.5% win rate 5.45 times you win $38.10 (+$207.65) and 4.55 times you lose $40 (-$182.00) for a profit of $25.65. On the 100 bets of $99.00 these would be risk $99 to win $94.29. Once again at a 54.5% win rate 54.5 times you win $94.29 (+5138.81) and 45.5 times you lose $99 (-4504.5) for an additional +$634.31. Add in the $25.65 from earlier and you've profited $659.96.
Proof Reduced Juice Trumps Bonuses
At JustBet and 5Dimes we made the exact same bets and profited $61.24 more via the -105 with no bonus option over the 80% free play bonus with -110 odds. Now keep in mind JustBet.cx offers the largest bonus of all legitimate betting sites with sports betting. When comparing 5Dimes reduced juice to 25% reloads at BetOnline, or the 50% up to $250 free play bonus of Bovada, or pretty much any other bonus offer on the web, 5Dimes comes out on top by much larger margins. The other benefit to reduced juice is your bankroll is never held hostage. When betting with bonuses you're prohibited from making withdrawals until the full rollover is met; betting with reduced juice and no bonus you can cash out at anytime.
The One Exception = Topbet.com
At Topbet.com anyone signing up with the promotion code FREE250 receives a 50% up to $250 bonus (deposit $500 to get $250 free). This is a cash bonus (as opposed to free play bonus) with just a 5-time rollover requirement. A little quirk is that your first $500 worth of bets are considered half coming from cash and other half coming from bonus. For these the half that comes from bonus is not considered part of the rollover. So the effective required rollover is actually 5.5 times. Therefore if you deposit $500 and get $250 free the rollover is ($500+$250)*5.5=$4,125.
Let's say to meet the rollover we decide to make 100 bets of risk $45.38 to win $41.25. At 54.5% win rate, 54.5 times we'll win $41.25 (= +$2,248.13) and 45.5 times we lose $45.38 (= -$2,064.79) for $183.34 profit. We also still have the $250 bonus so we're ahead $183.34+$250=$433.34. At 5dimes these same bets would be $45.38 to win $43.22. Here 54.5 times we win $43.22 (= +$2,355.49) and 45.5 times we lose $45.38 (= -$2,064.79) for +$290.70 total.
TopBet.com is the only exception I know of in sports betting where their bonus comes out better than reduced juice at 5Dimes. The reason is this is a cash bonus (as opposed to free play) and the rollover is rather low at just a 5.5 time effective rate. Also www.topbet.com offers reduced juice (-105 pricing) on NFL point spreads every Friday night from 6PM to 9PM EST. Using this promo and the bonus is a great way to get extra value.
Now keep in mind in all other cases I know of reduced juice at www.5dimes.com is far better than any bonus offer on the web. Hopefully having seen this now all written out, you'll now be well equipped to start looking for value (max winnings) as opposed to just getting free bonus cash. At 5Dimes the bonus is the fact they've cut their bookmaker advantage in half in order to give you a higher payout on each and every winning bet.