Sorry for this little space of the Intrawebs becoming sportsbook bonus central of late. Blame it on the fine folks at Mansion offering ridiculously +EV promotions.
I've gotten a lot of requests for info on other decent sportsbooks to hedge the Mansion bet at, as far as reputable books that offer good bonuses, speedy and painless cashouts, etc.
Below are some of the better ones, based on personal play over the last few years. One thing to note, and this applies to all of the books below, is to pay very careful attention to the terms for signup bonuses for sportsbooks. Nearly all of them require you to wager 3x-5x your deposit + bonus before you can cashout, which can add up to a lot of sportsbetting. They're different than poker bonuses and casino bonuses, where you can usually grind out the requirements at. That doesn't mean that they aren't +EV (as they are), and I'll follow this with a post telling you exactly how to cash in on assorted sportsbook bonuses, but just be aware that the WR for sportsbetting bonuses can be high, and often requires thousands of dollars in bets before you clear them.
1) Pinnacle: You absolutely can't beat their lines, as they consistently have the best lines in the business, day in and day out. They don't ask for ID on cashout and process most withdrawals within a few hours (although they do give you just one free withdrawal per month, with additional ones at a nominal charge). They offer a 10% signup cash bonus, up to $500, with reasonable terms.
2) LinesMaker: This is part of the SportingBet plc sportsbook family, and they offer some really nice lines from time to time, as well as a 20% up to $400 cash signup bonus. You can also get am easy free $40 for downloading and playing a few hands of blackjack in their casino, as well. On top of all that, they offer some decent $10 completely free bets throughout the football/baseball season.
3) SkyBook: Solid book with solid lines, plus they're offering a deal until September 10th where you get a 100% up to $250 free bet bonus on all deposits. (Note that free bet bonuses are slightly different than cash bonuses, as you don't get the original free bet you stake back if you win, only the winnings from the free bet.)
4) CRIS: One of the biggest and best sportsbooks, with fast withdrawals. They're currently offering a signup bonus of 20% up to $1,000 free bet.
5) CanBet: This one doesn't get much press but it's a solid book with some nice lines and very speedy, painless cashouts. Currently offer a 20% up to $300 cash bonus for new signups and some nice reloads for existing accounts.
6) 2) BetJamaica: Good lines and a 20% up to $500 cash signup bonus. No ID required for cashing out and speedy processing of withdrawals, usually with 24 hours.
7) BetWWTS: One of the biggest books out there, good lines, reasonably fast cashouts, and are offering a 20% up to $500 cash signup bonus.
8) VIP: Big book, good lines, reasonably fast cashouts and are offering a 20% up to $200 cash signup bonus, as well as a 10% up to $50 free futures bet, and a 10% up to $50 horseracing bet.
9) Bowmans: Another nice book with solid lines and quick, painless cashouts. Currently offering a 20% up to $500 cash signup bonus.
10) Bodog: Some decent lines and a bottomless 10% cash bonus on all deposits.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Monday, September 04, 2006
The Wacky World of Sportsbetting
If you were waiting to make your decision on hedging the Mansion free bet on the Steelers (like I was), ha. Now we're rooting mightily for Charlie Batch (or Jeff George some other schlub off the street to power the Steelers to at least a 5 point victory. Or for Willie Parker to get 73 carries and rush for 340 yards and 6 TDs.
Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger had an emergency appendectomy Sunday, and their backup QB Charlie Batch isn't exactly awe-inspiring, as evidenced by the line moving like crazy. The Mansion line is now at pick 'em (or pk, or pick), which means that there's no point spread built into the line now, and you're simply picking the Steelers to win, if you still haven't locked in the free bet on the Mansion side. (It's technically still a point spread bet, it's just one in which the point spread is set to 0, which is displayed as "pk", etc.)
Pinnacle has it at +1 Dolphins, but the most you could move the line is to +2.5, nowhere near what you need to hedge the Mansion free bet if you locked it in earlier at -5 or -4.5 Steelers. When books start to post their lines for the game, it'll likely be in the pick/+1 territory, so hedging is pretty much no longer an option if you've already locked in the bet.
If you haven't locked it in yet on the Mansion side, congrats, as they just put the promo back on the site, and you can take it at Steelers pk and hedge to your heart's content, when other books start posting their lines for the game.
Can't say I'm really happy at all with letting the bet ride with the Steelers -4.5 at this point, as their QB situation is pretty damn dreadful, but it is a free bet, and they play the games for a reason.
Dude, Steve Irwin got killed by a stingray?
Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger had an emergency appendectomy Sunday, and their backup QB Charlie Batch isn't exactly awe-inspiring, as evidenced by the line moving like crazy. The Mansion line is now at pick 'em (or pk, or pick), which means that there's no point spread built into the line now, and you're simply picking the Steelers to win, if you still haven't locked in the free bet on the Mansion side. (It's technically still a point spread bet, it's just one in which the point spread is set to 0, which is displayed as "pk", etc.)
Pinnacle has it at +1 Dolphins, but the most you could move the line is to +2.5, nowhere near what you need to hedge the Mansion free bet if you locked it in earlier at -5 or -4.5 Steelers. When books start to post their lines for the game, it'll likely be in the pick/+1 territory, so hedging is pretty much no longer an option if you've already locked in the bet.
If you haven't locked it in yet on the Mansion side, congrats, as they just put the promo back on the site, and you can take it at Steelers pk and hedge to your heart's content, when other books start posting their lines for the game.
Can't say I'm really happy at all with letting the bet ride with the Steelers -4.5 at this point, as their QB situation is pretty damn dreadful, but it is a free bet, and they play the games for a reason.
Dude, Steve Irwin got killed by a stingray?
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Bless You, Gods of Football
I've been trying to not get too excited about Longhorn football this year (unproven teenage QB, tough early game vs. Ohio State, we got our championship last year, yada yada yada) but I have to say they looked pretty damn good yesterday. Yes, indeed, it was versus North Texas, but Colt looked pretty damn comfortable, much to the relief of Longhorn fans everywhere.
I don't know why I get such pleasure at seeing CU suffer woe after woe, but for whatever reason I giggle when things go wrong for them. Nice work, Buffaloes, in losing to Division I-AA Montana State in your opener. You guys have really got that listing, sordid ship turned around up there.
I've actually played a good bit of teh poker the last few days, throwing some bucks into PokerStars to play satellites into some WCOOP events. 0-4 so far in satellite endeavors, but I've been running pretty well at the $10/20 HORSE tables. I can't say the games are as generally off-the-hook as some reports suggest, but they're pretty juicy all the same. I don't think your average online poker monkey is patient enough to play mixed games well, even if they're otherwise a solid player. Far too often in those games people seem to fall back on amped up aggression, which actually isn't the worst way to play, but fairly exploitable in the RSE portion of the HORSE rotation. The games are kind of swingy, though, and obviously pretty frustrating at times, due to the nature of them wacky mixed games that involve seven cards.
Been slacking a bit on housely work, but we were due for a little slacking, as the last few weeks have been pretty crazy. We unpacked a few more boxes yesterday, wandered around bustling, booming downtown Lockhart, watched some TV, etc. I did manage to get around to getting the wireless router set up and hooked up the other desktops, which was a bit of a pain in the ass. Hooked up everything, in exactly the same configuration that it had been before the move, with the same equipment, but nada, none of the machines could acquire a network address, no IP assigned, etc. I stare at everything and deduce that, indeed, things are correctly hooked up. Reset the router and cable modem and monkey with the router configuration. Still no workee. Drag out the old router, hook everything up, still no workee.
As a last resort I power everything down, unplug everything, plug everything back in, and power back up. Boom, it works. My tricknological skillz are mad.
I don't know why I get such pleasure at seeing CU suffer woe after woe, but for whatever reason I giggle when things go wrong for them. Nice work, Buffaloes, in losing to Division I-AA Montana State in your opener. You guys have really got that listing, sordid ship turned around up there.
I've actually played a good bit of teh poker the last few days, throwing some bucks into PokerStars to play satellites into some WCOOP events. 0-4 so far in satellite endeavors, but I've been running pretty well at the $10/20 HORSE tables. I can't say the games are as generally off-the-hook as some reports suggest, but they're pretty juicy all the same. I don't think your average online poker monkey is patient enough to play mixed games well, even if they're otherwise a solid player. Far too often in those games people seem to fall back on amped up aggression, which actually isn't the worst way to play, but fairly exploitable in the RSE portion of the HORSE rotation. The games are kind of swingy, though, and obviously pretty frustrating at times, due to the nature of them wacky mixed games that involve seven cards.
Been slacking a bit on housely work, but we were due for a little slacking, as the last few weeks have been pretty crazy. We unpacked a few more boxes yesterday, wandered around bustling, booming downtown Lockhart, watched some TV, etc. I did manage to get around to getting the wireless router set up and hooked up the other desktops, which was a bit of a pain in the ass. Hooked up everything, in exactly the same configuration that it had been before the move, with the same equipment, but nada, none of the machines could acquire a network address, no IP assigned, etc. I stare at everything and deduce that, indeed, things are correctly hooked up. Reset the router and cable modem and monkey with the router configuration. Still no workee. Drag out the old router, hook everything up, still no workee.
As a last resort I power everything down, unplug everything, plug everything back in, and power back up. Boom, it works. My tricknological skillz are mad.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Moved to the Country but Not Eating Lots of Peaches
One nice thing about joining the ranks of the commuters is that I think I'm definitely going to appreciate the perks of telecommuting on Mondays/Fridays more (as if I needed more reasons to appreciate and/or enjoy that.) 'Tis definitely nice to leisurely drink some coffee and stumble over to the computer to clock in, as opposed to spending 45 minutes in the car, just for the pleasure of entering the soul-sucking environs of HperMegaGlobalCorp.
All in all, though, the commute isn't too horrible. That was the wild card in buying new house, as far as whether we could stand the commute without going nutso. So far it hasn't been so bad, and at least you're pretty much steadily moving the whole time (it's about a 30 mile drive ito Austin) instead of being gridlocked and moving approximateky seven feet every twelve minutes. It'd definitely be nice to own a teleportation device, don't get me wrong, but it's not eye-gouging-out bad.
Still surrounded by boxes but hopefully I'll make a decent dent in those today, and we've got a three day weekend to make more progress. We're liking the house a lot so far, even in it's chaotic and unrenovated state. It's just really nice to have more room, pretty much everywhere, bumping up from 1250 sq. ft. to a little over 2000 sq. ft. It's your typical '50s ranch style house so it doesn't look that much bigger and imposing from the outside, but it's like every room grew 5-6 feet and sprouted extra closets, which is very nice.
It's also really, really quiet here. The Austin house was on the back end of a cul de sac, so it seemed pretty quiet with little traffic, but it was still in the city, with the distant hum of 183 usually barely audible. Here, though, it's ultra, utlra quiet, as we're in town but it's a small town, and we're on a pretty lightly trafficked street with huge lots. Which is nice, and will be especially nice when we get the backyard rocking with a deck and water pond and what-not.
This week has pretty much been a blur, as I've been painting at Austin house most nights, trying to finish things up there, and still moving some stuff over to the new house. I'm hoping to knock out most of the major stuff at Austin house in 2-3 weeks (including a bathroom remodel, joy), just so I can mentally pat myself on the back and not feel like I'm juggling work at two houses on top of my normal monkey routine.
Amen to the sports gods for bringing us sweet, sweet football back. Sweet Jebus that was a long, dry spell.
All in all, though, the commute isn't too horrible. That was the wild card in buying new house, as far as whether we could stand the commute without going nutso. So far it hasn't been so bad, and at least you're pretty much steadily moving the whole time (it's about a 30 mile drive ito Austin) instead of being gridlocked and moving approximateky seven feet every twelve minutes. It'd definitely be nice to own a teleportation device, don't get me wrong, but it's not eye-gouging-out bad.
Still surrounded by boxes but hopefully I'll make a decent dent in those today, and we've got a three day weekend to make more progress. We're liking the house a lot so far, even in it's chaotic and unrenovated state. It's just really nice to have more room, pretty much everywhere, bumping up from 1250 sq. ft. to a little over 2000 sq. ft. It's your typical '50s ranch style house so it doesn't look that much bigger and imposing from the outside, but it's like every room grew 5-6 feet and sprouted extra closets, which is very nice.
It's also really, really quiet here. The Austin house was on the back end of a cul de sac, so it seemed pretty quiet with little traffic, but it was still in the city, with the distant hum of 183 usually barely audible. Here, though, it's ultra, utlra quiet, as we're in town but it's a small town, and we're on a pretty lightly trafficked street with huge lots. Which is nice, and will be especially nice when we get the backyard rocking with a deck and water pond and what-not.
This week has pretty much been a blur, as I've been painting at Austin house most nights, trying to finish things up there, and still moving some stuff over to the new house. I'm hoping to knock out most of the major stuff at Austin house in 2-3 weeks (including a bathroom remodel, joy), just so I can mentally pat myself on the back and not feel like I'm juggling work at two houses on top of my normal monkey routine.
Amen to the sports gods for bringing us sweet, sweet football back. Sweet Jebus that was a long, dry spell.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)