Best Football Betting Offers & Free Bets In The UK
With football being the most popular and also the national sport in the UK, it’s not a surprise to see bookmakers promote football betting offers and free bets on a regular basis. We’ve cherry picked some of the best sign up offers and existing customer promotions for football bettors below.
Recommended Football Betting Sign up Offers
Best Football Promotions For Existing Customers
- Winning Accumulator boost of up to 100% on Soccer, Tennis & US Sports
- Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1
- Champions League, Europa League, Europa Conference League, International tournaments, tennis & US Sports
£5
UK Gambling Commission
31/12/2026
The new 100% Acca Boost means can now double your winnings on accumulators across a range of sports and competitions with bet365! The Soccer, Tennis and Multi-Sport Acca Boosts have been combined into a fantastic new 100% Acca Boost, giving you the chance to combine selections from your favourite sports and double your winnings on qualifying accumulators with bet365. Place an accumulator of 2 or more selections on qualifying markets across any main Soccer and Tennis competitions worldwide, as well as all the major US Sports leagues and more. If your bet is successful, an additional 2.5-100% will be added to your winnings. The percentage amount is dependent on the number of selections in your bet. Additional winnings are paid as cash and added to your withdrawable balance. Bets placed with Bet Credits do not qualify for this boost. New & eligible customers only. Minimum odds, bet restrictions and T&Cs apply. This boost applies to winnings on accumulators of 2 or more selections placed on any combination of qualifying sports, placed from 12:00 UK Time on 6th August 2024. For more information about all offers please visit the bet365 website. Registration required.
https://www.bet365.com
Hillside (Media) Group Limited – Denise Coates (founder, 50.01% shareholding)
2000
Stoke-on-Trent, UK
Types of football new customer offers
matched Deposit Bonus
A matched deposit bonus is where the bookmaker will give you bonus funds in proportion to the amount of your first deposit, up to a certain threshold. They will normally match your initial deposit amount by 100%, but some of the less rewarding bookmakers will give you 50%.
This is also known as:
- First deposit bonus
- Matched bonus
- 100% bonus match
- New customer bonus
If you’re interested in reading about the pros and cons of bonus offers, how they work, and how we rate them, check the main betting offers page.
What To Look For In A Good Football Bonus
- Firstly, the initial deposit shouldn’t need to be too high – between £20 and £50 is a safe amount for both beginners and more advanced bettors.
- Secondly, the odds requirement for the qualifying bet should also not be too high – between 1.20 and 2.00 is ideal. Anything higher makes it more likely to lose your initial deposit.
- Thirdly, the rollover requirement should be no higher than 4x. Expecting football bettors to have to turnover 8x their £50 or £100 bonus is really high and makes it likely they’ll lose the bonus funds before being able to withdraw any.
Bonus Requirements To Check
Bonus offers usually come with some requirements in order to stop football bettors taking the money and running!
Requirements include:
- Rollover requirements.
As mentioned, bookmakers require you to play through (also known as turnover or rollover) your bonus funds. Otherwise you could just signup, place a bet, then get the bonus and withdraw it. That would be too easy, so bookmakers want you to place a certain number of bets with both your own money and the bonus money before being able to withdraw it. - Betting market restrictions
Bookmakers will often restrict certain betting markets from counting towards claiming the bonus or the rollover requirements. Football bonuses might be only available to use on the common betting markets like Fulltime Result, Over/Under 2.5 Goals, or Correct Score. - Minimum Odds
Both the qualifying bets from the initial deposit, and then the bets placed using the football bonus will need to be placed on selections with minimum odds requirements. Your selection will need to equal or be above the stipulated odds. It prevents customers from placing “easy” low odds bets and then withdrawing the bonus. Odds will likely be at least 1.40 and above for most soccer bonus offers. - Time Sensitive
In order to restrict their losses, bookmakers will make sure customers are slightly rushed to work their way through their bonus rollover. The more chance of a customer making a mistake and rushing, the less the bookie has to pay out. Activating a football bonus offer during a period with few football fixtures is not a good idea. You need to be able to maximise your chances of withdrawing the bonus.
Free bets
Free bets are the most common type of football betting offer for new customers. They’re given to new customers who sign up, verify their account, make a deposit, and place a bet. They are usually available on the betslip to be used instead of normal betting funds.
The “stake” part of the free bet is not included in the winnings. This is often called “Stake Not Included” or “Stake Not Returned” (SNR).
We’ve covered the meaning of free bets and their pros and cons on our main betting offers page.
Types of football betting promotions for existing customers
Loyalty schemes and reward points
Bookies offer various form of loyalty schemes and regular promotions for their most dedicated of customers.
Reward Points
Punters that regularly bet on football are given rewards points. These points get built up in a rewards balance, that are often converted to free bets once they have reached a required threshold.
Free Bet Club
Other forms of loyalty schemes include regularly free bets each week, usually a small amount, such as £5 or £10. These are rewarded to football bettors for their continued depositing and turnover of betting funds.
Sky Bet, for example, rewards punters with a weekly £5 free bet as part of their “Free Bet Club”, for the players who place at least £25 in sports bets over the course of a week.
Enhancements For Leagues, Tournaments And Specific Matches
Bookmakers boost the odds on various different aspects of the game, with match winners, scorers, and tournament winners being the most popular.
Match Enhancements
Enhanced prices are nothing new when it comes to online betting, as high street bookmakers have been offering boosted odds and enhancements for decades before online betting was established.
Enhancements are usually focused around the big matches of the week, especially top of the table clashes and local rivalries. Fixtures like Manchester United vs Liverpool or the El Clasico fixture of Barcelona vs Real Madrid will often have big enhancements to increase betting activity on the event.
Quiet days of the week are another opportunity for enhanced prices, to tempt players into placing a bet when they otherwise might not have bothered.
Monday night Premier League football is a good example, where a fixture like Crystal Palace vs Newcastle United might have gone unnoticed, but an enhancement such as “Zaha to score and Palace to win” boosted from 10.0 (9/1) to 20.0 (19/1) might capture customer’s attention.
Tournament Enhancements
These are popular with events like the world cup. Bookmakers will play on the emotions of fans who value their country’s chance of winning more favourably than they probably should. Bets like “England To Win The World Cup” or Harry Kane to win the golden boot will often get their odds enhanced by anything from 30% – 60%.
Team Outright Betting Promotions
This is a type of offer you don’t see too often, but when it appears it can be very lucrative. Bookmakers have not only offered enhancements on backing a team to win the league, qualify for the champions league or avoid relegation, but they can also offer regular incentives along the way.
A popular promotion has been to back a team to win the Premier League, and receive a free bet each time your chosen team wins a league game.
This kind of promotion is rated very highly at OnTheBallBets.
By backing a team who has a realistic chance of winning the league, not only are you putting yourself in a favourable position to win the outright bet, but by receiving a free £5 each time your chosen team wins, the value you can extract from those free bets would be worth more than the outright bet itself.
Best football betting offers for Major Sporting Events
Offers for football can sometimes run all year long, some, however, are specific to a particular competition or event – such as a cup competition or international tournament like the World Cup.
Here are the football competitions that we found betting offers for:
Best football betting offers for beginners
Free bets tend to be the best offers for beginner users to claim.
Best offers for novice football bettors include:
We’ve chosen Virgin Bet as the most beginner friendly betting offer for football.
- They allow you to join with just £10, which activates a £20 free bet.
- There are no wagering requirements – the free bet can be used like a token.
- There’s also no minimum odds requirements for the free bet – you can bet on anything you want at whatever low odds you wish.
Best football betting offers for advanced bettors
Offers to suit the more advanced football betting experts are chosen both due to the higher amount of the offer available, the complexity of the offer, and the suitability of the bookmaker for more advanced users.
More experienced football bettors will benefit from more betting markets, more live in-play markets and won’t be put off by wagering requirements on a bonus.
The best free bets and bonuses for experienced football bettors are:
FAQS
Can you claim a free bet and existing customer offer?
Yes you can, but not at the same time.
Bookmaker terms and conditions will usually stipulate that qualifying bets placed on a selection that has been enhanced or is the subject of another ongoing promotion will not count towards unlocking your free bet or the turnover of your bonus.
For example using a £5 free bet to back an accumulator will likely not count towards that bet being protected with acca insurance – as you didn’t use actual money to place the bet.
Why are best odds guaranteed not offered in football?
Horse racing is an example of a pari-mutuel betting system, where starting prices for the horses will vary massively depending on how many people have backed the horse. Bookmakers will balance their books depending on which horses start the race, and as only one horse can win the race, this can be done relatively easy.
With football, however, odds are fixed as there is not a guaranteed “win” market – you have two teams that could win and also the possibility of the draw. With so many variables at play like player injuries, formation changes, weather changes, it would be too hard for bookies to give you a better price than you backed several hours earlier and still keep their books balanced.
What are wagering requirements for football bonus sites?
Typical bonus wagering requirements will be to turnover your bonus between two times and ten times. The better bonus offerings will not have a high wagering requirement, such as between one and four times. This would mean a bonus of £50 would need between £50 and £200 worth of bets to be placed before being unlocked. Large turnover requirements, like four to ten times are generally not advisable as they would likely result in a loss of the football bonus before you have chance to withdraw it.
