In Australia, bookmakers are most likely to offer one of two types of deposit bonuses to new customers: matched deposit bonuses and matched bet bonuses.
Matched deposit bonuses
This is the type of bonus offered by TAB that we exploited earlier. It's also the most common type of bonus offered by Australian bookmakers.
With a matched deposit bonus, the bookmaker will match an amount of your initial deposit up to a certain amount in bonus bets.
For example, a bookmaker may offer a 100% matched deposit bonus up to $500. This means that if you deposit $500, you'll receive an additional $500 in bonus bets from the bookmaker.
Matched bet bonuses
This type of bonuses is different from a matched deposit bonus in that the bookmaker will match the amount of your first bet rather than your deposit.
This means that to earn our bonus bet, we must first place a qualifying bet with our own money.
If the bookmaker offers a 100% matched bet bonus up to $500, we must first place a bet of $500 with our own money to receive the $500 in bonus bets from the bookmaker.
To place the qualifying bet, we should follow the same principles we used when placing our initial bets with TAB earlier in the course. However, since we're using our own (real) money for this bet, we look at the SR (stake returned) column.
After placing the qualifying bet, the bookmaker will award us the bonus bets, which we can then be converted to real money using the same matched betting techniques we've learned so far.
A heads up about bet match bonuses...
If a bookmaker offers to generously match your first bet, be cautious. If your qualifying bet wins at the bookmaker it will result in a large portion of your bankroll being tied up at the bookmaker.