Best Free Bets for Irish Customers [2024]
Competition has been fierce among online betting platforms for a long time now. Like in any industry, competition is good for us, the consumer—but never more so than in online betting. Estimates vary, and the true value of the industry is difficult to judge, but some estimates suggest the online betting industry in Ireland is worth around €200 million. There are lots of ways that competitors can set themselves apart, but it’s become completely clear that free bets are the single most attractive feature for new players.
Claim a €30 in Free Bets
New Customers only. Bet €10* & Get €30* in Free Bets. Sign up, deposit between €5* and €10* to your account and bet365 will give you three times that value in Free Bets when you place qualifying bets to the same value and they are settled. Free Bets are paid as Bet Credits. Min odds/bet and payment method exclusions apply. Returns exclude Bet Credits stake. T&Cs, time limits & exclusions apply. Registration Required.
Claim a €30 Free Bet
They do indeed have an offer happening right now, that you can take advantage of. If you sign up at the moment, you'll be able to claim €20 in free bets, when you deposit €10.
Claim €50 in Free Bets
LiveScore Bet is the new betting site from the creators of the live match results site, LiveScore. They offer great odds on racing and football, along with a nice €50 in Free Bets bonus.
Claim a 100% upto €60 Bonus
BetVictor is one of the bigger names out there when it comes to betting, and with good reason.
Claim a €50 Free Bet
Can you bet on your favourite sports here? As such a big company, you'll be expecting BoyleSports to have plenty on offer here. You won't be disappointed, as they have nearly 40 sports on offer. That's a bigger range than pretty much any other site out there, making them a very tempting proposition.
Claim a €20 Free Bet
Of course, you're going to find a huge amount of markets here. There are currently nearly 50 different sports and specials markets, which is impressive when many sites can offer around 30. You're of course going to find hundreds of football markets here, as well as greyhound racing and horse racing. There's also distance horse racing, which is interesting to see.
Claim a €10 Free Bet
Hopa offer an excellent €10 Free Bet betting offer to new customers, aswell as an excellent casino selection.
Claim €30 in Free Bets
William Hill offer an excellent €30 in Free Bets betting offer to new customers, aswell as an excellent casino selection.
Claim €15 in Free Bets
Mr.play offer an excellent €15 in Free Bets to new customers, aswell as an excellent casino selection.
Claim €50 in Free Bets
When it comes to sports, there's plenty to choose from as there's over 30 available on the site. As you'd expect, the big three sports of football, horse racing and greyhounds have the most markets here. You'll find plenty of markets in other popular sports too, such as rugby, tennis and basketball. While the market depth is good, it's worth noting that there isn't quite as much depth in the horse racing markets as we'd like to see.
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Currently, they have 29 different sports covered in their markets. With such a large range, usually be sure to find something that works for you.
Claim a 100% €100 Bonus
Tonybet offer new customers a great €100 bonus to go alongside their excellent sports selection.
Claim a €100 Free Bet
When you do sign up, you'll be able to claim a €100 free bet as a new member. To claim this, all you have to do is sign up, make a deposit of €30, and wager it. Once you've done that, that free bet will be in your account.
Get €15 in Free Bets
Highbet was launched last year in 2021, yet in its first year it has gone from strength to strength. The site is a part of the Time Solutions Ltd family, which is actually a company specialising in space planning and design. They’ve decided to branch out and get into the gambling business which is why Highbet joined the family.
Claim €30 in Free Bets
It's very likely you will, as they have 35 different categories to choose from. All the big sports are covered, from football to horse racing and more. There's golf, cricket, basketball, baseball, and plenty of other big sports with plenty of markets. It is worth noting that they don't have any greyhound markets, so if that's what you're into you won't find them here.
Claim €30 + €2 Free Bet Every Day
LiveScore Bet is the new betting site from the creators of the live match results site, LiveScore. They offer great odds on racing and football, along with a nice €50 in Free Bets bonus.
Claim a €10 Free Bet
Football is the most popular sport here, with just over 1,000 markets available at time of writing. There's also some horse racing and greyhound markets too, so all of the most popular sports are covered. You can find plenty of other markets in top sports like tennis, American football, and golf too.
Claim a €50 Welcome Bonus
Football is their biggest category here, with around 400 markets available at time of writing. It's good to see that there's plenty of markets here, but there aren't any in horse or greyhound racing, two other highly popular sports.
Claim a €10 Free Bet
There's lots of less well known offerings, too. Are you into futsal, MMA or Gaelic hurling? Then you can find just what you're looking for here. There's even 250 different markets in eSports, a sport that's fast becoming a favourite on betting sites.
Claim a 100% upto €60 Bonus
BetVictor is one of the bigger names out there when it comes to betting, and with good reason.
Free bets are pretty much universal to online betting platforms now. What exactly they are is easy to explain. They’re a way for, usually new customers, to get a certain amount of free play on a betting site. When you make an account, and typically after your first deposit, your free bets will come in the form of free spins or bonus funds to use on real bets. Betting platforms make use of these free bets to encourage new bettors to join and make them stay by giving them the chance to win big right off the bat.
As always, terms and conditions apply, and there are caveats to how they function, but whatever kind of online you like to do, distinguishing a good free bet from a bad one must be an essential step in the process.
Today, we’re going to break down everything there is to know about free bets—the various types, precisely how they function, and how to best position yourself to make best use of them.
Read on.
Top 10 Free Bet Offers
| Ranking | Bookmaker | Free Bets; | Claim |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Bet365 | €100 in Bet Credits | Claim |
| 2nd | LivescoreBet | €50 in Free Bets | Claim |
| 3rd | Kwiff | €20 in Free Bets | Claim |
| 4th | Novibet | €50 in Free Bets | Claim |
| 5th | BetVictor | €100 Free Bet Bonus | Claim |
| 6th | 888sport | €30 in Free Bets | Claim |
| 7th | LeoVegas | €30 in Free Bets | Claim |
| 8th | Mr Play | €15 in Free Bets | Claim |
| 9th | BoyleSports | €50 in Free Bets | Claim |
| 10th | Karamba | €10 in Free Bets | Claim |
Varieties of free bet
Firstly, free bets naturally work in many diverse ways. This depends on a few factors. There are around five essential free bet types. A significant, perhaps the most significant, point to mention initially is that you will more or less always have to put some money up before unlocking the free bet.
Having your betting amount matched is the most common form of free bet. Depending on how much you wager, you can get that value matched in free bets.
You can also get free betting credits, like spins on virtual slots.
On rarer occasions, deposit-free free aren’t unheard of. A sure-fire way to hook customers in with such an irresistible offer.
Finally, you can have fixed amounts added to your account through a couple of means.
In certain types of online betting, particular kinds will be more common, but most free bets will be useable on any major sporting event like football or horse racing.
Let’s look into exactly how free bets usually operate.
The ways free bets work
Every platform will use their offers in different ways. The best advice we can give is to comb through terms and conditions before you make any decision. Not only to fully understand what you’re choosing, but make sure you’re getting a bonus that actually works out well for you.
One thing is for sure, when you’re looking into a particular site, the main thing it will be keen to do is display its free bets and welcome offers. That goes to show what a pull they are, so it’s worth being patient enough to find the most advantageous deal.
Once you’ve narrowed it down, a few basic essentials you need to be aware of will inform the rest of your choice. Firstly, most of the offers we are talking about have expiry timelines. Don’t let your free bet expire.
As I said, you will not usually get the free bet for nothing. You will almost always bre required to fund your account with your own money first. Again, be careful of time limits on how long after making your account that you can still get the offer, with or without deposit. There will be no option to claim the offer later if you miss it.
You should have already decided what it is that you want out of your free bet. T character of your own online betting is the only good metric for this—it’s pointless looking for sports free bets if you want to play virtual slots. Check for the amount of bonus plays against however much free funds there are to play with.
Finally, were you thinking it, you definitely won’t be able to just withdraw funds in lieu of using the money to actually make a bet. However you get it, you are going to be required to bet with it.
The ultimate point here is that there a lot of conditions on how these things work. To avoid disappointment, read every platform’s terms and conditions very carefully.
The biggest free bet bonuses:
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SUMMARY
BetVictor is one of the bigger names out there when it comes to betting, and with good reason.
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SUMMARY
LiveScore Bet is the new betting site from the creators of the live match results site, LiveScore. They offer great odds on racing and football, along with a nice €50 in Free Bets bonus.
How to spot the best free bets
Knowing how they function, and how to avoid, disappointment with free bets—next is being able to spot the best deals. As I said, competition has been fierce over the years, and the offers have become better and better. Before you do anything or sign up anywhere, you need to know what your goals are with free bets.
Firstly, the minimum deposit. While they are rare, no-deposit bets are sometimes available and do pop up from time to time. Beyond that, though, the smaller the deposit the better. They’re usually in the region of €10, so look for one in that ballpark.
The next thing you need to know is minimum requirements for wagering, in part calculated by your initial deposit.
The one more or less universal factor of free bets is that they will only allow you to use them on certain odds. For example, exceptionally long odds are typically exclud So, again, if you have an idea in mind for your free bet, make sure it qualifies within the terms of the particular platform.
These free bets won’t normally work for virtual slots and casino games, so be careful—many platforms only allow you to make use of the funds for sporting events.
Though it may go without saying, as I mentioned earlier, a lot platforms to choose from are out there, and naturally there’s a lot of competition to give the best offers. Major platforms will tend to orbit around the same rough postcode with their offers, but your incentives for joining
Let’s consider bonuses in particular, then.
Bonuses
Free bets, as I said, take a number of forms. The bonuses often attached to them are a separate matter. These are being simply another kind of free bet, but they do offer unique advantages over free bets.
When you make an initial deposit, with a betting bonus, your deposit will be boosted by a set value. This means you aren’t just getting free bets, or even funds to make free bets—you’re getting extra money to do whatever you want with.
These bonuses are usually scaled with the value of your initial deposit, too. For X deposit, you will get Y bonus, increasing as you deposit more. Again, it will work differently on each platform.
You still typically can’t simply bypass using the bonus and take it out as money in your pocket. Degrees of limitation on how you can use it will be enforced. If a platform offers such a bonus, they’re unlikely to also promote many free bets as well.
In any case, they’re a fantastic method of boosting your funds when starting out, so keep your eye out for them.
Existing bettors
The big question on this topic is how they keep people hooked on their site when most of them offer no incentive to the loyal, existing customer base. While the best deals are, without doubt, the welcome offers, you should still ensure the site you’re looking at runs regular events, promotions, and other general incentives for existing players.
There should be no limitation of this on the kind of betting you’re doing. Whether you’re playing roulette in an online casino or betting on every detail of a football match, the platform you’re looking at, if it’s competitive, will run periodic promotions, special events and other fun and exciting games with a chance to win more money.
Offers that expire after a specific period of time, whether it’s a world event or just something the platform is running, are what we are talking about here. So, the time constraint does apply here though in a different way.
You should also look into your platform’s loyalty program. If you plan to find one platform to use, you can get serious advantages from these kinds of programs just for doing your regular betting.
Again, I would stress that while continued promotions are really important, they’re never going to hold a candle to the welcome offers. But for the maximum profit from your online betting, you should still be on the look out for ongoing promotions.
The knowledge you need to find the best offers
You pretty much always want to take advantage of these sorts of deals, even if you don’t intend to continue using that site, but that doesn’t mean you should always chase the site that has the seemingly best welcome offer. Especially if you are on the hunt for something long term that you intend to do a lot of betting on.
The Irish gambling industry offers a great deal to its customers beyond the free bets, so finding the best one is going to involve more research than you might think.
That said, first and foremost, it’s worth doing a little bit of maths. Try to figure out exactly how potentially lucrative each offer is—coming up with a numerical value for the highest potential return isn’t a quick way to find the best site, but it’s certainly an important consideration.
Look at a site’s usability and user-friendliness. It is a good rule of thumb that those offering a certain threshold of welcome deals will be more efficient and well built apps and sites. For example, the promotional introductory offer made a handful of the largest providers will be generally in the same area, and the platform will be generally highly user-friendly. This issue of usability also applies to the actual offer. It’s easy to be attracted by an apparently amazing deal, only to find after signing up that it is a highly restricted free bet that can only be used in certain ways.
As is always the advice with online activity, if a deal seems too advantageous to be all its claimed to be, then it probably is. The Irish gambling authorities have issued licenses to between 100-200 online betting sites. While it is illegal to operate a unlicensed betting site, that doesn’t stop people. They may even try to attract customers with huge free bets, only to harvest your data or even steal your funds. Online fraud costs Ireland as much as €10 billion each year—don’t imagine these scammer don’t target punters like you.
When it comes to security, then, your top priority should always be checking the site you’re using is licensed. If it is, then there is no doubt the free bet it offers is legitimate. In other words, just be very careful before you sign up or enter any information into something claiming to be an online betting platform.
Deposit-free bets
The gold mines of free bets—rare, elusive, but potentially highly lucrative. Not to repeat myself, but like the others these are more or less never available to existing customers—not only that, the offer itself might have at time limit.
However, though it may sound fake, they are literally free bets you can use without making any deposit. If you sign up to one betting site or another that offers one, and get a free bet to use without spending a penny. But that’s not to say they don’t come without limitations.
In basically all cases, deposit free bets are what’s called restricted free bets. What this means is that they can only be used on specified events or games. Often, they you’ll just get some free spins on the site’s virtual slots.
However, unrestricted, free, deposit-free cash bets are not unheard of. While these are typically limited time offers, keeping an eye out for them at all times is one of the best pieces of advice we can give. It’s another good reason not to just immediately sign up to every platform to take advantage of their welcome offer—one site’s may well change to something even better.