"Bet $5, get $200" promos: what they're actually worth

A "bet $5, get $200 in bonus bets" promo is worth roughly $150 once you convert the bonus bets to cash, if the $200 is guaranteed no matter how your first bet turns out. If the $200 only shows up when that first bet wins, it's worth closer to $75 to $135, because you don't always collect it. Either way, it's real value for a $5 risk — just not the $200 printed on the ad.

How the promo works

Sportsbooks including FanDuel, DraftKings, and BetMGM have all run versions of this offer for new customers: deposit, place a first cash wager of $5 or more on anything — a side, a total, even a player prop — and receive $200 in bonus bets. The bonus bets usually arrive split into smaller pieces rather than one $200 slip. FanDuel's own description of its offer pays the $200 only if the qualifying $5 bet wins; promo trackers have also reported other books running a version that pays the $200 regardless of outcome, but terms change by state and by promo period, so read your own book's current terms page to see which structure you actually have before you bet. The two structures look identical in an ad ("bet $5, get $200") and are worth very different amounts, which is the whole reason it's worth checking.

Both structures share the same catch: it's $200 in bonus bets, not $200 in cash. One thing a bet-and-get doesn't carry that a deposit match does: there's no playthrough requirement to clear first. The bonus bets are credited off a single $5 wager, not off wagering a multiple of a deposit, so none of their value gets eaten by rollover vig the way a deposit match's can.

Why $200 in bonus bets isn't $200

A bonus bet pays only its winnings if it wins; the stake is never returned, and the bet is worth nothing if it loses. Placed straight, a $25 bonus bet at a coin-flip price (-110) wins about $22.73 half the time and nothing the other half — an uncertain outcome, not found money. Hedging it turns that uncertain payout into a smaller, certain one: you take the bonus bet on one side and a cash bet on the other side at a different book, sized so you profit the same amount either way. Done well, that locks in roughly 70 to 80% of face value, the range we've measured across odds and hedge prices.

Take the guaranteed version of the promo first, since it's the simpler case: the $200 arrives no matter what your $5 bet does. Say the eight $25 bonus bets convert at 75% on average once hedged — a reasonable middle of that 70-80% range. That's $150 in locked profit. The $5 qualifying bet adds a little of its own: at a typical -110 price, a $5 bet's own expected value is about -$0.23 (5 × (1 − 0.5 × 1.909), the same vig cost any -110 bet carries). Add the two pieces and the whole promo is worth about $149.77 — call it $150 — not $200. The missing $50 is the gap between a bonus bet's face value and what hedging actually recovers from it.

When the $200 only pays if your first bet wins

The conditional version is worth less, and by more than you'd guess, because you only collect the $200 some of the time. Here's the arithmetic for a $5 bet at -110 (close to a 50/50 proposition once you remove the vig):

• If it wins (about 50% of the time): you keep roughly $4.55 in winnings on the $5 bet, plus $200 in bonus bets worth about $150 once converted. Total: about $154.55.
• If it loses (the other 50%): you're out the $5 stake, and there's no bonus.

Expected value: 0.50 × $154.55 + 0.50 × (−$5) ≈ $74.77 — about half of what the guaranteed version is worth, because a coin-flip qualifier only delivers the $200 on roughly half your attempts.

That half-of-face-value result isn't a coincidence; it comes straight from the win probability. The expected value of a conditional bonus is roughly (win probability) × (converted bonus value), on top of the qualifying bet's own small EV. So the way to raise it is to raise your win probability on the $5 bet. Say instead you pick a heavy favorite priced at fair odds of roughly 90% to win (illustrative numbers, not a specific book's line):

• If it wins (about 90% of the time): about $0.56 in winnings on the $5, plus $150 in converted bonus value. Total: about $150.56.
• If it loses (the other 10%): you're out $5.

Expected value: 0.90 × $150.56 + 0.10 × (−$5) ≈ $135.00 — much closer to the guaranteed-version number, just by choosing a qualifier you're more likely to win. The $5 stake is small enough that giving up a little payout on the favorite barely costs anything, while the extra chance of actually unlocking the $200 is worth a lot. If your book's version of this promo is conditional on winning, that's the one lever worth pulling.

If the $200 is unconditional, this doesn't matter: the bonus arrives either way, so the $5 bet is just $5 of risk and its outcome barely changes the total. Bet whatever you'd bet anyway.

How to actually get the value out

Once the bonus bets land, hedging them at a different book is what turns the uncertain payout into the cash numbers above — betting them straight and hoping they win leaves the outcome to chance instead of locking it in. A no-sweat offer works a little differently here: because the loss itself returns a bonus bet, the original wager can be hedged too, before you even know whether you'll get one. Picking bonus-bet legs at longer odds improves the conversion ceiling, which is the same math behind why a good conversion rate runs 70 to 80% rather than near 100%. If you'd rather not hedge each piece separately, resist combining several of them into one parlay: it only raises the average value up to about three or four legs before the compounding vig gives it back. Bonus bets also expire fast, commonly within a week of being issued, so don't let them sit unused — check your book's current terms page for the exact window and whether the $200 requires a win, two of the five terms worth checking on any promo, since both details vary by book, state, and promo period.

This is a new-customer offer, usable once per person per book. That one-time nature is also why it doesn't turn into a repeatable matched-betting system the way UK free bets do: hedge it once and there's no weekly reload sitting behind it.

Betting is for adults 21+ where legal, with money you can afford to lose.