How to Convert Bonus Bets to Cash in Australia
Key takeaways
A bonus bet is a promotional stake. If it wins you keep the profit, not the stake, which is why it is worth less than the number attached to it.
There are two ways to convert one: lay the same outcome on Betfair, or back the opposite outcome with a second bookmaker. Most guides only cover the first.
80% is the floor you should accept. 90% and above is available if you are looking across enough of the market. Be patient, if you don't see an opportunity good enough, wait a few hours/days for more to come. Just make sure your bonus bet doesn't expire.
You do not have to do any of this maths yourself. The Bonus Bet Converter ranks live opportunities by conversion rate and gives you both stakes. The maths below is so you can check it.
Longer odds on the bonus leg convert better, which is the opposite of the instinct most punters have. On the exchange route the gap between the bookmaker's price and Betfair's matters just as much.
Converting a bonus bet to cash means placing the promotional bet with your bookmaker and covering the same event elsewhere, so you end up with real money regardless of the result.
Two things make Australia different from everywhere else this gets written about. Our bonus bets are stake-not-returned, which changes the arithmetic. And with more than twenty licensed bookmakers competing here, covering against another bookmaker is often better than covering on the exchange.
What is a bonus bet?
A bonus bet is a promotional credit from a bookmaker that you can place as a bet but cannot withdraw as cash. If it wins, you receive the profit portion only. If it loses, you lose nothing of your own. It is a marketing instrument, not money in your account.
They arrive attached to conditions: sign up and place a qualifying bet, deposit an amount, lose a bet, or place a certain turnover in a week. The bookmaker's purpose is to get you betting and keep you betting, and the promotional balance is designed to feel like money without behaving like it.
The distinction people miss is that the face value is not the value. A $50 bonus bet is not $50, and understanding why is the whole subject.
How do bonus bets work in Australia?
Australian bonus bets are stake-not-returned, meaning the promotional stake is consumed when you place the bet. Win at $4.00 with a $50 bonus bet and you receive $150, being the profit, rather than the $200 a $50 cash bet would return.
Compare the two directly on the same bet:
Cash bet | Bonus bet | |
|---|---|---|
Stake | $50 | $50 (promotional) |
Odds | $4.00 | $4.00 |
Return if it wins | $200.00 | $150.00 |
Your cost if it loses | $50 | $0 |
You give up $50 of winnings in return for risking nothing. That is a fair swap, but it does mean a $50 bonus bet is worth less than $50 to you, and it is why the sums below are not the same as they would be for a normal bet.
Why is the stake not returned on an Australian bonus bet?
Because Australian bookmakers structure promotions that way almost universally, unlike the UK and US markets where free bets often return the stake. Bookmakers keep the stake because it halves the cost of the promotion while leaving the headline number intact.
The practical consequence is that overseas instructions are wrong here. A UK guide will tell you to cover the full stake of your free bet. Follow that with an Australian stake-not-returned bonus and you will cover far too much, finish with an unbalanced position, and end up exposed to the result.
Every formula on this page has the stake-not-returned adjustment already built in.
How do you convert a bonus bet into cash?
There are two routes, and they are equally valid. You can lay the same outcome on Betfair, or you can back the opposite outcome with a second bookmaker using your own cash. Both leave you with the same amount whichever way the event goes. Which one returns more depends on the prices in front of you, so it is worth pricing both.
Route one: lay on Betfair
Place the bonus bet with your bookmaker, then lay that same selection on the exchange.
Lay stake = ((back odds − 1) × bonus stake) ÷ (lay odds − commission)A $50 bonus bet backed at $8.00, laid at $8.10 with 5% commission:
Lay stake = ((8.00 − 1) × 50) ÷ (8.10 − 0.05) = 350 ÷ 8.05 = $43.48Outcome | Bookmaker | Betfair | Net |
|---|---|---|---|
Selection wins | +$350.00 | −$308.70 | +$41.30 |
Selection loses | $0.00 | +$41.30 | +$41.30 |
$41.30 from a $50 bonus, an 82.6% conversion.
Route two: back the opposite outcome with a second bookmaker
On a two-way market, instead of laying on the exchange you simply back the other side with cash at whichever bookmaker is paying the best price on it.
Cash stake = ((back odds − 1) × bonus stake) ÷ opposite oddsSame $50 bonus bet at $8.00, with the best available price on the opposite outcome at $1.14:
Cash stake = ((8.00 − 1) × 50) ÷ 1.14 = 350 ÷ 1.14 = $307.02Outcome | Bonus bookmaker | Second bookmaker | Net |
|---|---|---|---|
Selection wins | +$350.00 | −$307.02 | +$42.98 |
Selection loses | $0.00 | +$42.98 | +$42.98 |
$42.98, an 86.0% conversion, from the same bonus on the same market. In this case the difference is commission: Betfair takes 5% of your winnings and a second bookmaker takes nothing. Change the lay price to $7.70 and the exchange returns 86.9%, winning instead, which is why you price both.
The Bonus Bet Converter scans both routes at once across Australian bookmakers and Betfair, and shows you which one converts better on each market. That comparison is the point. Doing it manually means checking the exchange and twenty bookmakers on every market you are considering.
Do you actually need to do this maths?
No. Everything above is here so you can check the numbers, not so you have to produce them. The actual workflow is: open the Bonus Bet Converter, enter your bonus amount, and read the top row.
The page ranks every live opportunity by conversion rate, highest first. Each row shows you the bonus bet and which bookmaker to place it with, the hedge bet and where, both stakes already calculated, and the dollar figure you finish with. You are not picking odds, working out a lay stake, or deciding between the exchange and a second bookmaker. That has been done across the whole market, continuously.
So a real session looks like this:
Open the page and set your bonus amount to whatever the bookmaker gave you.
Look at the top few rows. They are the best conversions available anywhere right now.
Pick one you are comfortable with, using the judgement calls below.
Place both bets at the stakes shown, before the prices move.
What is left for you is the part that needs a person rather than a calculator: deciding you are happy with the amount of cash tied up, checking the market is not one that voids easily, and getting both legs on quickly. Everything else on this page is background, and it is worth reading once so you understand what the tool is doing on your behalf.
Which route converts better?
Neither wins outright, and that is why it is worth checking both every time. The second-bookmaker route wins whenever the two prices you are combining sit inside roughly a 1% margin. Betfair wins whenever it is laying at or below the bookmaker's price, which happens often enough that writing the exchange off is a mistake.
The reason is that they fail in different ways. Betfair's cost is fixed at 5% commission and you cannot shop around it, because Betfair is effectively the only exchange in Australia. The second-bookmaker route has no fixed cost, but it depends entirely on finding a good price on the other side, and a poor one will convert worse than the exchange would have.
The exchange works differently, and this is where a lot of guides get it wrong. What matters is not just the odds, it is the gap between the bookmaker's price and Betfair's lay price. Most of the time Betfair lays a bit higher than the bookmaker backs, which costs you. But bookmakers regularly price a selection more generously than the exchange, and when Betfair lays below the bookmaker's price, that gap pays you and it pays you quickly.
Conversion on a $50 bonus, by back odds and the gap between them:
Bonus leg odds | Lay +0.30 | Lay +0.10 | Matched | Lay −0.10 | Lay −0.30 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
$5.00 | 72.4% | 75.2% | 76.8% | 78.4% | 81.7% |
$6.00 | 76.0% | 78.5% | 79.8% | 81.2% | 84.1% |
$8.00 | 80.6% | 82.6% | 83.6% | 84.7% | 86.9% |
$10.00 | 83.4% | 85.1% | 85.9% | 86.8% | 88.6% |
$15.00 | 87.2% | 88.4% | 89.0% | 89.6% | 90.8% |
Read the middle column as the ordinary case and the right two as what a favourable divergence buys you. At $6.00 a matched price returns 79.8%, but a lay price just one cent lower gets you to 80%, and a twenty cent divergence gets you to 82.6%. So the exchange is not capped in the way it first appears. It is capped by the gap, and the gap moves.
Both routes come down to the same thing: you need to see enough of the market to find the moment when one bookmaker is out of step with everyone else. The Odds Screen is doing that lookup continuously.
What conversion rate should you expect from a bonus bet?
Treat 80% as the floor rather than the goal. Anything materially below it means you have taken short odds, accepted a poor cover price, or used the exchange where a second bookmaker was paying better. Conversions of 90% and above are available on any given day if you are looking across enough of the market.
Odds on the bonus leg do almost all the work, and the relationship is not intuitive. Longer converts better because the profit portion, which is all you ever collect, is a larger share of the total return. At $2.50 you are collecting $75 from a $200 position. At $10.00 you are collecting $450 from a $500 position.
What separates a 70% conversion from a 90% one:
Odds on the bonus leg. Longer is better on both routes, and below about $5.00 you will struggle to reach 80% however you cover it.
Route selection. Checking only one route costs you several points on most markets, and which one wins changes market to market.
Cover price quality. On the second-bookmaker route, this decides whether you get 90% or 75%. The best price across twenty bookmakers beats the best across three, every time.
Timing. Australian markets tighten in the day or two before a fixture.
The one figure to be sceptical of is anything near 100%. That implies the two prices you are combining make a sub-100% book, which is an arbitrage in its own right and does occur, but it is not the normal case and should not be treated as the expected result.
How much cash do you need to convert a bonus bet?
Considerably more than the bonus is worth, on either route. Converting a $50 bonus at $8.00 requires about $308 available, whether that is Betfair liability or a cash stake with a second bookmaker. The two routes need almost identical capital.
This catches people out more than anything else on this page. The money is not at risk in the sense that you get it back when the market settles, but it has to be there first, and it is tied up until the event resolves.
Bonus leg odds | Betfair liability | Second bookmaker stake |
|---|---|---|
$5.00 | $162.38 | $160.00 |
$7.50 | $284.11 | $281.67 |
$10.00 | $407.46 | $405.00 |
$15.00 | $655.81 | $653.33 |
Since longer odds convert better, and longer odds need more cover, working capital is the real constraint on how quickly you can work through promotions. Not the size of the bonuses. A $50 bonus converting at 93% needs about $650 in position to do it.
One practical difference: the exchange route needs one funded Betfair account, while the second-bookmaker route needs cash spread across several bookmaker accounts. The second route also exposes another bookmaker account to the betting patterns that lead to restriction.
Which markets convert bonus bets best?
Any two-way market where you can get a long price on one side while the other side is still keenly priced. The sport matters far less than that combination, and it is rarer than it sounds, which is the whole reason a scanner is useful.
The trap is assuming the answer is the headline fixtures. A closely matched NRL game prices both sides near $1.90, which caps your conversion in the seventies no matter how well you cover. A one-sided game gives you a long price on the outsider, but the short favourite you would cover with is usually where bookmakers take the most out, so the two prices together are poor. Neither one works.
What you are actually looking for is a two-way market where a long price sits opposite a heavily backed short one that several bookmakers are competing on. Those exist in far greater numbers than the fixture list suggests, and they are not where most people look.
What to check before committing a bonus:
Is it a genuine two-way market? Two outcomes, mutually exclusive, no third result. A three-way market like soccer with the draw needs two cover bets, and the arithmetic stops being a single formula.
How tight is the pair? Add the implied probabilities of your bonus leg odds and the best opposite price. Under about 101% and the second-bookmaker route will beat the exchange. At or below 100% you have found something better than a conversion.
Available liquidity or limits. On Betfair, check enough is on offer at the lay price. With a second bookmaker, check they will accept a $300 or $400 stake on a short-priced side, because some will not.
Void risk. See below.
Why market liquidity matters more than the conversion rate
Stick to markets with real money in them: head to head (also called moneyline), line and spread markets, and totals. These are what ordinary punters bet, they carry deep liquidity, and they price tightly. Thin markets like individual player props can show a tempting conversion figure and cost you far more than the difference.
There are two reasons, and the second is the one most guides miss.
Execution. A thin market has a wide gap between the two prices you are combining, limited money available at the price shown, and a higher chance of being voided by a late withdrawal. The conversion you calculate and the conversion you actually get are different numbers.
Detection. This is the bigger one. Bookmakers watch for accounts that only ever bet unusual markets, and a bonus bet placed on an obscure player prop at long odds is a very loud signal. Someone converting promotions looks quite different from an ordinary punter, and the fastest way to look different is to bet markets ordinary punters do not touch. A bonus bet on a totals line in a Friday night NRL game looks like a punter having a go. The same bonus on a third-choice player's disposal count does not.
Restriction is coming for every account eventually. Choosing liquid markets is the cheapest way to push that further out, and it costs you very little conversion to do it.
Avoid futures markets, individual player markets and competitions nobody prices seriously. The theoretical conversion looks excellent, the executable conversion is poor, and the account cost is real.
Can you cash out or withdraw a bonus bet?
No. A bonus bet cannot be withdrawn, transferred to your cash balance, or cashed out at its face value. Using a bookmaker's cash-out feature on a bonus bet, where it is permitted at all, typically returns considerably less than the bet is worth if you cover it properly.
The related questions people ask, answered plainly:
Are bonus bets real money? No. They are a promotional balance that becomes real money only through winnings.
Can you withdraw bonus bet winnings? Yes, once the bonus bet has won, the profit is ordinary cash and withdraws normally. Some operators attach turnover requirements, so read the specific terms.
Can you split a bonus bet? Usually not. Most Australian bookmakers require the whole bonus to be used on a single bet, which is why choosing the odds carefully matters so much.
Can you get a bonus bet from a bonus bet? No. Promotions almost universally exclude bets placed with promotional funds.
Do bonus bets expire, and what happens if one is voided?
Most Australian bonus bets expire within 7 to 30 days of being credited, and an expired bonus bet is simply gone. If a bonus bet is voided, whether through a postponed event, a scratched runner or a market settled as no result, the bonus is usually lost entirely rather than returned.
The voiding rule is the one that costs real money, because only one side disappears. Your bonus bet is wiped, your cover bet is still running, and now you have $300 riding on a game you never had an opinion about.
The second-bookmaker route adds a wrinkle here worth knowing: two bookmakers can apply different rules to the same abandoned or postponed match. One voids, the other settles. Betfair's rules are at least consistent with themselves.
How to avoid it:
Bet well-established markets. Head-to-heads on the AFL, NRL and A-League get voided rarely.
Avoid individual player markets, where a late withdrawal voids everything.
Avoid anything weather-dependent close to the event.
On the second-bookmaker route, check both operators' rules on abandoned matches before you place.
Diarise the expiry the day the bonus lands.
Are bonus bets worth it?
For a punter who covers them properly, yes. Converting at 80% and often well above turns a promotional balance into real money with the result of the game removed. For a punter who simply places them as bets, they are worth their expected value, which is to say sometimes a lot and usually nothing, with a great deal of variance in between.
The honest caveat is supply. There is a finite number of licensed Australian bookmakers, each running a finite number of promotions, and the accounts that convert bonus bets systematically get restricted. This is a real but limited source of value, not an income.
Where it fits: bonus bet conversion is the easiest place to start because the outcome is known in advance, and it is the first thing to run out. It leads naturally into matched betting as a broader version of the same idea, and then into positive EV betting when the promotions dry up.
What should you do next?
Get the cash in position before your next bonus lands. That means either a funded Betfair account or spare balance across a couple of bookmakers, with three to four times your typical bonus size available. Nothing works without that.
Then the process itself is short:
Open the Bonus Bet Converter and set your bonus amount.
Work down from the top row until you find one in a liquid market you are comfortable with.
Place both bets at the stakes shown, quickly, before the prices move.
Confirm both legs are actually on before you walk away. This is the step people skip.
Note the expiry date and the void terms the day a bonus arrives, not the day it is due.
That is the whole thing, and it takes about two minutes once you have done it a few times. The first one will take twenty, and that is normal.
Read the rest of this page once so you know what the numbers mean and can tell when something looks wrong. Then you should not need to think about the arithmetic again.
Promotions are designed to increase how much you bet. Converting them is a way of taking the value without taking the intended behaviour, which only holds if you are tracking what you are actually up.
Gamble responsibly
What's gambling really costing you?
Betting is built so that most people lose more than they win over time. Nothing on this page changes that. The methods described here are about extracting value from promotions and pricing errors, not about winning bets, and they do not make gambling safe.
18+ only. It is illegal for anyone under 18 to open a betting account in Australia.
Set deposit and time limits before you start, not after. Every licensed Australian bookmaker is required to offer them.
Never chase losses. If you are betting to recover money, stop.
Free, confidential support is available 24 hours a day from Gambling Help Online on 1800 858 858 or at gamblinghelponline.org.au.
To block yourself from every licensed Australian wagering provider and all Australian gambling advertising, register with BetStop, the National Self-Exclusion Register, at betstop.gov.au.
BetBank is an analytics and education platform. We are not a bookmaker, we do not accept bets, and nothing on this site is financial advice.
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