Players shouldn’t make the mistake of trying out all of the no deposit bankrolls available at online poker rooms and then thinking they’ve reached the end of the line. The fact of the matter is that free bankrolls are a popular promotion in several genres of the online gambling industry, so poker represents only a small fraction of the total value you can unearth from free and no deposit offers.
Let’s talk a bit more about some other segments of the market and what sort of free bankrolls are typically available for each.
Sports Betting
Sports betting sites frequently offer free bankroll promotions, but they work a bit differently than the poker bankrolls you’ve become accustomed to. For sports betting sites, bankrolls tend to be tied to individual events and come in the form of no-risk bets.
How does a no-risk bet work? It’s simple – for most promotions you basically just place the qualifying bet according to the terms and if you win, you collect. If you lose, the book refunds you. These promotions usually do require a deposit, but the chance to see a no-risk return on your money generally makes it worth the trouble,
Online Lottery
In the past few years we’ve seen a real explosion of places to get lottery tickets online. More and more lotteries are moving online directly, and for those that aren’t online you can often find courier services that will do a purchase on your behalf.
Some of these sites will offer free or discounted tickets in exchange for signing up for their service, but we have yet to find a pure free bankroll offer for online lotto. Still, if you play regularly, a small discount just means more tickets for your dollar, so it may be an opportunity worth pursuing for steady players.
Online Bingo
Bingo bankrolls operate in a very similar fashion to online poker bankrolls – the room provides you with some restricted funds you can use to buy cards, and you generally get to keep all of your winnings. While terms may vary slightly from the above, players familiar with poker bankrolls should have no trouble transitioning to the world of free bingo offers.
In terms of ubiquity, bingo bankrolls are about as common as poker bankrolls. Most of the major operators offer a no deposit bingo bankroll or something very close to it – for example, bet365 doesn’t have a no deposit bonus but is offering a bonus of $25 on a deposit of $5 – still an excellent value even though a token deposit is required.