After the funds have arrived in your account, you can start directly with the activation bet that will unlock the bonus. For this you have to choose a bet that has a minimum odds of 1,50. In addition, you have to bet the entire deposit amount once. In my case, this is 15 euros, which I deposited via PayPal.
Since I am not yet very familiar with the sports betting segment, I let my sponsor advise me on which bet I should place first. I finally chose the match Hamburger SV vs. Bayern Munich in the first Bundesliga. To do this, click on the “Football” tab on the left of the website, then “1st Bundesliga”, then “Hamburger SV vs Bayern Munich”. Now there are several betting options available.
Bet365 activation bet: we play an over-under bet – this is how it works
I chose a bet where you “only” have to predict the number of goals (over/under a certain value). There are two possibilities, either you bet on “more than x goals” or also “less than x goals”. My godfather (I have no idea about football) assumed that there will be more than 3.5 goals in the match, which was associated with a betting odds of 2.0. If you have clicked on the selection, you can also see your betting slip directly in the upper right corner, where everything is summarized again. In the free field you now enter the amount you want to bet.
In my case 15 euros. Do not forget, if you bet less than your first deposit amount, you do not activate the bonus. The bet will be played anyway! That would be an unnecessary risk. Finally, just click on “Place bet” and you're done. I have successfully placed my first bet! Now it's just a matter of waiting and hoping.
After the bet has been settled bet365 will inform you that the bonus has been activated.
After the match is over and thus the bet is settled, you will find a message in your account “Your bonus is ready for betting” from bet365. You will also receive this message again by email. It will tell you that you have claimed the bonus and it is now ready for betting. In order to withdraw it, you have to place your deposit and bonus three times. Once this goal is reached, bet365 kindly reminds you again that you can now withdraw. But until then, there is still a long way to go.
Activation bet lost? Get up, knock off the dust & move on!
If I had won this bet, I would now be able to start with a total credit of €30. Unfortunately, on the day of my bet, HSV decided to play some real soccer after all, and so we were totally off the mark with our over 3.5 goals. My betting sponsor has already apologized to me several times because of this, although I assume that if I had taken any tip myself, I would have had just as much of a 50:50 chance of winning or not. Basically, it's not so bad that I lost the bet, my betting sponsor explained to me.
Actually not bad at all: The bonus absorbs the loss!
Because you can see relatively quickly why a bonus is always useful for a beginner. The bookmaker gives me, so to speak, again the amount of the deposit as bonus credit and I'm not standing there now with zero euros credit. At the same time, this minimum balance does not make it much easier to get to a total turnover value of 90 €. This is the total turnover that occurs when I make a deposit of €15.
Pro tip: Put lost bets out of your mind!
Sooner or later every one of you loses a bet with a relatively high stake. My betting godfather gave me a tip for this, which I would like to share with you at this point. Because also he loses occasionally and if he loses, then go equal times three or four-digit stakes flöten. He told me that it is important to mentally close a lost bet immediately. I.e., you must not think about the fact that you have lost a bet for an eternity. Because that could tempt you to play an extremely risky bet, because you think you absolutely have to recover the lost balance. This rarely works out, says my betting mentor, and in the end the entire balance is lost.
“Betting for me is a hobby that I use to add excitement to games!”
The most important thing about betting is that when we lose a bet, we approach it professionally: Everyone falls down once in a while. After that, you get back up, pat the dust off and keep running. It's the same with betting. A lost bet is lost and is erased from memory. At this point, however, I would like to point out once again: in life, everything should be enjoyed in moderation. This also applies to sports betting. To keep the fun of this hobby for a long time, you should always bet only amounts that you are willing to lose.
After all, I am not a professional gambler who makes a living from betting, but I bet to increase the excitement of sporting events. And it is exactly this gambling principle or this type of player that I want to introduce to you here. As long as the same applies to you, you should proceed as described and never get angry about a lost bet. After all, the excitement of the current sports broadcast has been increased, even if you lost the bet in the end.
In the next part of our betting guide, we will finally start with our first eSports bets and explain how to bet in a tournament!
