This page contains a list of new player deposit bonuses that are +EV (positive expected value). The idea behind +EV bonuses is that you can theoretically clear them without losing money. Expected value is a concept that explains what you can expect to win or lose over the long term in any gambling situation.
It is important to remember that EV is not a guarantee of your results. The EV of any casino bonus is merely a reflection of what you could expect to happen over many trials. Since you can only get new player bonuses one time, there is no way to guarantee how much money you will make or lose with any specific bonus.
But from a mathematical viewpoint, these bonuses are good deals. Most new player bonuses are losing propositions over the long term. The reason most bonuses are bad deals is that you have to wager a lot of money to release the bonus. In most cases, the house advantage ends up costing you more money than what the bonus is worth.
I will be analyzing the EV of these bonuses assuming that you are clearing them with blackjack with a 0.65% house advantage. Speaking of which, not all casino bonuses allow blackjack to be used in clearing them. Your results will vary if you use other games to clear these bonuses. Blackjack is usually your best bet.
Note: All EV calculations are based on a $100 deposit. The EV will go up or down (but always remain positive) based on the size of your initial deposit.
Note 2: All of the following bonuses allow you to use blackjack to clear them. I did not include slots bonuses because those are almost always –EV.
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How I Calculated These Expected Values
There’s a detailed post here that explains how to calculate the EV of any casino bonus. But for the short version, what I did was look at the total wagering requirements of each bonus and multiply that by the house advantage of blackjack. This final number reveals how much bonus money you can expect to have left after clearing the bonus.
Assumptions
I made two assumptions in calculating these expected values. First, I assumed you are making a $100 deposit. I had to do this because the wagering requirements are always a multiple of your initial deposit amount.
Second, I assumed that you will be playing blackjack and achieving a house advantage of 0.65%. That number is based on the average house advantage a blackjack player experiences when using proper blackjack strategy.
The size of your deposit has no bearing on how the EV plays out. Bigger deposits will get you bigger net numbers, but the percentages remain the same. Likewise with smaller deposits.
My blackjack advantage assumption is a little shakier. The house advantage you see in blackjack changes from one casino to the next based on the rules of that particular game. Sometimes, the exact house advantage isn’t always clear online. However, I did as much research as I could to get you a pretty close number.
In the end, these EV numbers are pretty close. I won’t say they are exact, but I am confident that they are close enough for our purposes. Small, tenth-of-a-percent changes in the house advantage won’t drastically change the EV of any one bonus.
Read the Terms and Conditions
Seriously. Read the terms and conditions of every bonus before you get it. I checked the terms of all the casinos listed on this page and they look good. However, I still recommend reading them for yourself. Make sure they work with your style of play and that nothing has changed since the last time I updated this list.
For example, I was checking another set of US-friendly casinos for +EV blackjack bonuses. One casino looked promising until I saw hidden inside its terms and conditions was a clause that said you can only wager $6.50 or less per hand when clearing their bonuses. That’s obviously a no-go for many casino players.
Also note that none of the above casino bonuses are cashable. This means that you cannot withdraw the bonus money – you can only use it to continue playing in the casino. Although +EV bonuses are still advantageous (they give you more chances to win real money), they aren’t quite as attractive as +EV cashable bonuses.
The days of getting +EV cashable bonuses are long gone. Years ago, people used to be able to play blackjack, clear bonuses and end up with big profits almost every time. Casinos caught on and have since changed their terms and conditions.