How Sportsbook Sign-Up Promos Actually Work

The week the offers arrive

The 2026 NFL regular season opens Wednesday, September 9, with Seattle hosting New England, per Fox Sports. Between now and kickoff, the sign-up offer will be close to unavoidable: on broadcast, in your feed, in your inbox, on the sports podcast you like.

In a Cope Compass reel, a written composite narrator, not a real individual, describes his first bet this way: it was free, it was twenty dollars, and he remembers thinking it isn't really gambling if it's their money.

That sentence is the whole product. It's also, as it happens, a documented psychological effect. Researchers at Ireland's Economic and Social Research Institute note that free bet offers "might be treated as 'windfall gains' or 'house money', with which people tend to be less risk averse," citing work going back to Thaler and Johnson in 1990.

So here is what these offers actually are, mechanically, in the words of the regulators and the companies themselves. Not a conspiracy. Not fraud. A disclosed, legal, carefully priced piece of customer acquisition that happens to be very good at turning a curious person into an account holder with a funded balance.

A bonus bet is not twenty dollars

Start with the part most people get wrong.

When you place a $20 cash bet at even odds and it lands, you get $40 back: your $20 stake plus $20 in returns. When you place a $20 bonus bet at even odds and it lands, you typically get $20. The stake is not returned. It was never yours.

That's the standard US structure, and it's why the industry moved from "free bet" to "bonus bet" in the first place. The 2025 Journal of Behavioral Addictions paper states the mechanic directly in its literature review: free bet offers "usually return only winnings, not the stake, and often include play-through requirements (i.e. further bets must be placed before winnings can be withdrawn)."

People do not intuit this. Hing and colleagues surveyed 299 sports bettors and asked them to estimate what a bonus bet promotion would actually cost them to unlock. Nearly three-fifths underestimated. About one-fifth overestimated. Notably, the researchers found no relationship between a person's problem-gambling risk score and how well they understood the terms, which is worth sitting with: this isn't a comprehension failure specific to people in trouble. It's near-universal, per the Gambling Research Exchange Ontario summary of the study_Wheres%20the%20bonus%20in%20bonus%20bets%20Assessing%20sports%20bettors%20comprehension%20of%20their%20true%20cost_Final.pdf).

The same study found something operators presumably already know: when the terms and conditions were displayed directly under the ad, people rated the offer significantly less appealing.

Playthrough is the part that keeps you there

The second mechanism is turnover, also called playthrough, rollover, or a wagering requirement.

The UK Gambling Commission's definition is the cleanest one available: "A wagering requirement is where a customer is required to make wagers totalling a particular value for funds to become withdrawable."

Ohio's regulator writes the same idea into rule. Under Ohio Administrative Code 3775-16-09, effective October 26, 2024, operators may require promotional funds "to be used before withdrawal," but they may not block a patron from accessing their own money. The same rule requires promotion terms to spell out "wagering and redemption requirements, including any limitations."

That is the deal in one sentence: your money stays yours, but the bonus only converts to money you can take out after you have put a defined amount of action through the platform. The requirement is not a trick. It is the reason the promotion works. It buys the operator a guaranteed volume of bets from a brand-new account, during which the ordinary house edge does what the house edge does.

How big can the multiple get? The UK Gambling Commission, explaining why it was intervening, observed that "some licensees currently apply up to 60 times wagering requirements," and capped them at 10 times the incentive amount effective January 19, 2026. The Commission's stated reason was blunt: customers "are unable to estimate the true economic value of an offer," and "very high wagering requirements lead to lower comprehension of how much is needed to bet."

There is no equivalent federal cap in the United States. Terms vary by operator, by state, and by promotion, which is exactly why the number in the headline tells you almost nothing about the number in the terms.

A March 2026 study in the Journal of Gambling Studies by Torrance, Wright, Newall and colleagues put this to the test with UK bettors. Shown a welcome bonus without a worked example, the control group's median estimate of the wagering requirement was £500. The correct figure was £750. When a worked example was shown, the offer was rated significantly less attractive.

Regulators have already ruled on the words

None of this is a Cope Compass theory. It's a compliance history.

Ohio. Rule 3775-16-09(C) states that promotions "described as free or risk-free must not require the patron to incur any loss or risk their own money to use or withdraw winnings." In January 2023, the Ohio Casino Control Commission moved to fine the parent companies of three major sportsbooks $150,000 each over advertising that, among other issues, promoted "free" or "risk-free" bets that in fact required customers to risk their own money. "The sports gaming industry has received multiple reminders of the rules and standards for advertising and promotions, yet continues to disregard Ohio law," executive director Matthew Schuler said at the time, as reported by Cleveland 19 News.

Massachusetts. 205 CMR 256.04(6)(d) forbids describing sports wagering as "free," "cost free" or "free of risk" if the player must incur any loss or risk their own money. Subsection 256.04(5)(c) goes further: if an offer requires you to wager a specific amount of your own funds, that amount must be disclosed "in the same size and style of font as the amount of the complimentary item or promotional credit," and the credit "shall not be described as free."

Connecticut. On July 10, 2025, the state's Department of Consumer Protection announced that DraftKings would voluntarily return more than $3 million to roughly 7,000 Connecticut consumers who took deposit-bonus offers between October 2021 and January 2023. The DCP said the company failed to clearly communicate promotion terms, "including wagering requirements and conditions necessary to obtain promised rewards." The settlement was an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance; the company did not admit liability.

United Kingdom. The Advertising Standards Authority's published guidance is one line long and hard to argue with: "Ambiguous terms like 'risk-free' should also be avoided, unless the customer genuinely cannot lose their own funds."

Ontario. The province went furthest. Under the Registrar's Standards for Internet Gaming, "advertising and marketing materials that communicate gambling inducements, bonuses and credits are prohibited," except on the operator's own site or through direct marketing to players who have actively consented. In Ontario, the promo you're seeing on TV this week would not be legal on TV.

To be precise about what this is and isn't: these are published rules and disclosed regulatory outcomes, not proven fraud. In the Connecticut matter the company did not admit liability. The promotions running this weekend are lawful in the states where they run. The argument here is narrower and, we think, harder to dismiss: the wording drew regulatory attention in multiple jurisdictions because of what people reliably believe when they read it.

It's a model, not a gift

The most honest description of these offers comes from a company filing, not from a critic.

In its annual report on Form 10-K, DraftKings Inc. tells the SEC that a portion of gross revenue is allocated to "new and existing user incentives and promotions," awarded "through loyalty programs, free plays, deposit bonuses, discounts, rebates or other rewards and incentives." Those incentives, the filing says, "are generally used to acquire new users, reactivate prior users and increase monetization from active users." And then the sentence that explains everything:

"We leverage our return-on-investment models that are based on gross profit paybacks, lifetime value, player segmentation and customer and revenue retention to determine appropriate promotional levels."

The scale shows up in state tax law. Colorado once let sportsbooks deduct the entire cost of free bets from their taxable proceeds. HB22-1402, signed in 2022, capped that deduction and stepped it down year by year: 2.25% of handle in FY2024-25, 2.00% in FY2025-26, 1.75% thereafter, per the Legislative Council Staff fiscal note. In 2025 the legislature went further. HB25-1311 winds the deduction down again and eliminates it entirely from July 1, 2026. The fiscal note on the introduced bill estimated the change would add roughly $11.8 million to the state's Sports Betting Fund in FY2025-26 alone.

You do not write tax law about a rounding error.

What the offers do to behavior

The strongest recent evidence is a randomised, pre-registered experiment run by the Economic and Social Research Institute during Euro 2024 and published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions in 2025. Six hundred and twenty-two men under 40 made incentive-compatible betting choices, some with inducements and some without.

Three findings matter here. Inducements increased the amount spent on bets by over 10%. They "almost halved the number of people opting not to bet," which is the acquisition function working exactly as designed. And they made bettors roughly three times more likely to choose a dominated option, a bet that was objectively the worst available choice even after accounting for the inducement. The authors report that people with evidence of problem gambling were disproportionately affected.

Earlier work points the same direction. A randomised controlled study of 171 online gamblers in Frontiers in Psychiatry found the amount wagered was on average twice as high in every inducement condition compared with control, and that extreme spending was concentrated among at-risk gamblers: of 11 extreme values identified, 9 came from at-risk participants.

And in 2026, a field experiment published in Addiction followed 227 Australian bettors over 14 days. Those who opted out of direct marketing placed 23% fewer bets, spent 39% less, and reported 67% fewer short-term harms than those who kept receiving it.

That last one is the practical finding. Turning the messages off is not a symbolic gesture. It's an intervention with an effect size.

Why the sign-up offer is a recovery problem specifically

Gambling disorder is a recognized medical condition, coded F63.0 in the ICD-10 and listed in the DSM-5 as Gambling Disorder, 312.31. Three of its features intersect directly with how a welcome promo is built.

It manufactures a first bet that doesn't feel like one. The "it's their money" frame is the whole reason a person who would never have deposited $20 will place a $20 bet. That's what our reel is about, and it's why we wrote separately about the early big payout and what the research does and doesn't support. The frame lowers the barrier to the first exposure, and the first exposure is where conditioning starts.

Playthrough is structurally identical to chasing. A wagering requirement means the way to make a loss whole is to keep betting. That is a rule of the promotion, but it is also a rehearsal of loss chasing, one of the nine DSM-5 criteria. The product teaches the exact behavior the diagnosis is built around.

The account outlives the offer. The promo expires. The account, the saved payment method, the push notifications, the personalized reactivation offers do not. That's the machinery we've documented in how gambling apps keep you coming back and, for the highest-spending accounts, the VIP host relationship.

If you're already in recovery, the risk isn't that you'll be fooled by the fine print. It's that an offer is a cue, and a cue does not require your agreement to spike a craving. Our piece on why sports betting is addictive covers the mechanism.

What to do this week

Don't do the math. The most common trap is a smart person deciding to calculate whether the offer is "worth it." That calculation is the engagement. If you find yourself modeling expected value against a wagering requirement, you're already inside the funnel. The answer to a promo in recovery is not a better estimate. It's no.

Opt out of direct marketing, on every account, today. This is the step with the cleanest evidence behind it. Unsubscribe from emails, disable push notifications, and revoke SMS consent. The Addiction field experiment measured real reductions in betting and harm from this one change.

Put the barrier in before Wednesday, not after. Block gambling apps and sites at the device and network level, and have someone else hold the passcode. If you have accounts open, our step-by-step guide to stopping sports betting walks through self-exclusion on the major platforms and at the state level.

Name what the offer is, out loud. "This is a priced acquisition bid, and the price was set by a model." It sounds clinical because it is. Naming the mechanism is what separates a cue from a decision.

Have a plan for the fifteen minutes after you see one. You will see one. Cravings crest and fall. The five-minute rule is a place to start.

The offers are legal, disclosed, and about to be everywhere. None of that makes them safe for a brain that has already learned to chase. If a promo has your attention this week, that's information about your environment, not a verdict on your recovery.

You can build a plan with Cope Compass for free: blockers, self-exclusion, meetings, and people who've been where you are. If you're in crisis right now, go to urgent help.

Sources

• Ó Ceallaigh, D., Timmons, S., Robertson, D. A., & Lunn, P. D. (2025). Effects of inducements on sports gambling and decision-errors: An experimental study. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 14(2), 959-971: primary source for the free-bet mechanic (returns only, no stake, play-through), the "house money" framing, and the randomised results, including over 10% more spend, nearly halved abstention, roughly 3x more bad bets, and worse effects among people with problem gambling. Open access. Full PDF read via the Gambling Research Australia repository.
• Ohio Administrative Code 3775-16-09, Promotions and Bonuses (effective October 26, 2024): primary source for the "free or risk-free" standard, the playthrough-before-withdrawal allowance, and the requirement to disclose wagering and redemption terms.
• 205 CMR 256: Sports Wagering Advertising, Massachusetts Gaming Commission: primary source for 256.04(6)(d) and the same-font disclosure requirement in 256.04(5)(c).
• Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection, July 10, 2025 news release: primary source for the $3 million return, roughly 7,000 consumers, the wagering-requirement disclosure allegation, and the Assurance of Voluntary Compliance.
• Cleveland 19 News, January 7, 2023: contemporaneous reporting on the Ohio Casino Control Commission's $150,000 proposed fines and the Schuler quote. We were unable to retrieve the commission's own release.
• UK Gambling Commission, Proposal 1: Ban or limit the use of wagering requirements: primary source for the definition of a wagering requirement, the "up to 60 times" observation, the 10x cap, and the January 19, 2026 commencement date.
• Advertising Standards Authority, Gambling: Free bets and bonuses: primary source for the "risk-free" standard and the significant-conditions requirement.
• Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, Marketing and Advertising: primary source for Standard 2.05 prohibiting public advertising of inducements, bonuses and credits.
• DraftKings Inc., Annual Report on Form 10-K, FY2022 and FY2023: primary source for the promotional-incentive language and the return-on-investment model quote. Cited as a description of standard industry economics, not as an allegation.
• Colorado HB25-1311, Deductions for Net Sports Betting Proceeds and the Legislative Council Staff fiscal note: primary source for the free-bet deduction caps under HB22-1402 (2.25% / 2.00% / 1.75%), the fact that operators could previously deduct all free bets, the elimination of the deduction, and the $11.8 million FY2025-26 revenue estimate on the introduced bill.
• Hing, N., Browne, M., Russell, A. M. T., Greer, N., Thomas, A., Jenkinson, R., & Rockloff, M. (2018). Where's the bonus in bonus bets? Journal of Gambling Studies_Wheres%20the%20bonus%20in%20bonus%20bets%20Assessing%20sports%20bettors%20comprehension%20of%20their%20true%20cost_Final.pdf): GREO research snapshot read in full. Source for the 299-bettor sample, the three-fifths underestimation finding, and the absence of a relationship with PGSI risk status.
• Torrance, J., Wright, S., Newall, P., Crawford, T., Quigley, M., & Dymond, S. (2026). (Mis)Comprehension and (Mistaken) Attractiveness of Financial Gambling Inducements among UK Bettors. Journal of Gambling Studies: source for the £500 versus £750 estimate and the worked-example effect. Abstract retrieved via Europe PMC. Full text paywalled.
• Challet-Bouju, G., et al. (2020). Impact of Wagering Inducements on the Gambling Behaviors, Cognitions, and Emotions of Online Gamblers: A Randomized Controlled Study. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, 593789: source for the doubling of money wagered and the concentration of extreme spending among at-risk gamblers.
• Rockloff, M., et al. (2026). Direct gambling marketing, direct harm: A randomised experiment. Addiction, 121(7), 1907-1919: source for the 23% / 39% / 67% reductions among bettors who opted out of direct marketing.
• Fox Sports, When does the 2026 NFL season start?: source for the September 9, 2026 opener.
• American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. Gambling Disorder, 312.31. ICD-10 code F63.0.