If you’ve used this site for a while, you’ll know how we look at tipsters. When a tipster posts a screenshot of last month’s profit, the screenshot doesn’t tell you much on its own. You want the strike rate. You want the average price, how many bets actually went in, and how ugly the worst losing run got. Only then does that profit figure start to mean anything.

I’d argue welcome offers deserve the same treatment, and most punters never give it to them. The banner number is a profit screenshot by another name. It doesn’t matter whether you’re eyeing up a UK sportsbook or reading about a site built for a completely different market, like MrBit online in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Either way, the bit worth reading is the terms. Same scepticism applies.

Quick but important aside. If you bet from Great Britain, the only offers that should be on your radar come from operators licensed by the Gambling Commission. MrBit’s in here as an example of a site that plays by a different rulebook (the British wagering cap doesn’t apply to it, for a start). On offers like that, the terms are all you’ve got to go on.

Wagering: the number that actually costs you

Wagering is just a fancy word for “how much do I have to bet before they let me withdraw”. If a bonus is 10x, you’re putting ten times the bonus through the system first. It’s a bit like a tipster telling you the results only make sense after 500 bets. Fair enough, maybe, but you’d want to know that before paying up.

British punters got a break on this one. Since 19 January 2026, the Gambling Commission won’t let the operators it licenses go above 10x, and its reasoning was fairly blunt: big multiples confused people and kept them gambling harder than they’d meant to. Outside Britain, that cap doesn’t apply, so it’s the first number I’d look for on any offer from somewhere else.

Then do the sum. It takes about thirty seconds. Say you’ve got a £20 bonus at 10x and you play it through on slots paying back 96 percent. That’s £200 staked, and four percent of £200 is £8, roughly what you should expect to lose getting there. So the £20 is really worth about £12 on average. At 20x it’s £400 staked and about £16 lost on average, so the bonus is worth roughly £4.

Minimum odds and the prices you’d never normally take

Sports offers nearly always come with minimum odds on qualifying bets. It’s the line people skip. It decides which of your bets count towards the offer, so it’s worth a look.

If a tipster you follow suddenly started sending out much higher prices, you’d ask what had changed. Ask the same question here. Say you normally back favourites at around 1/2 (1.50), and the offer only counts bets at evens (2.00) or bigger. To qualify, you’d be betting on selections you wouldn’t otherwise touch, and those are the ones more likely to lose.

Casino weighting, in plain English

Casino bonuses have their own little trap: not every pound counts. The Gambling Commission actually spells this out with an example I like. Take a £100 bonus with 10x wagering and play it on roulette weighted at 30 percent, and each £1 you bet only knocks 30p off what you owe. Slots normally count at 100 percent. Blackjack, roulette and live tables usually count for less, and sometimes for nothing.

The fix is boring, but it works. Find the weighting table before you accept. No table in the terms? Ask support, and screenshot the reply.

Jackpots and bonus money don’t always mix

Here’s where people get caught. Loads of sites either ban progressive jackpot games for bonus play or have them count for next to nothing. The reason is simple: one big win on bonus money would cost the operator far more than the promotion was meant to.

So if an offer seems to be pointing you at the jackpot games, find out a couple of things first. Can bonus funds be used there at all? And if you do land something, is there a cap on what you can cash out from a bonus win? If the cap is £100, that’s all you’d see from a £10,000 jackpot landed on bonus money.

Caps, deadlines and the sprint problem

Last two. A maximum cashout limit restricts how much of your bonus winnings can ever leave the account, and some offers fix it at something like £100 no matter what the balance says. Then there’s the clock. Seven days to clear £200 of wagering works out at about £30 a day, which is more than a lot of people would normally stake.

I’d skip a tipster who wanted me staking that much every day, and I’d skip the offer for the same reason.

Judge it like a service you might pay for

So that’s the checklist, more or less. Turnover, which bets or games count, the deadline, the cap. Five minutes of reading, tops. Run the numbers from earlier on two offers side by side, and the bigger banner doesn’t always come out on top.

One last rule, and it’s the same one I’d give anyone about to subscribe to a tipster. Set your budget first. If the terms would have you staking more than you planned, close the tab. You’ll see another offer next week anyway.

18+. Please gamble responsibly.