William Hill is a name known all over the UK, by bettors and non-bettors alike. In many ways the traditionalist’s choice, this most recognisable of bookmakers has nevertheless managed to adapt to the demands of the 21st century. This brand have found a way to walk a clever line: it has remained a bookie of choice for those who continue to prefer betting in a brick and mortar shop, while developing an online operation that compares well with the vast majority of newer bookmakers. For bettors old and new, the name William Hill is synonymous with quality, and their ability to move with the times promises interesting things from them in the years to come.
The William Hill free bet offer is relatively simple compared to some of the deals on offer from bookmakers, but manages to offer plenty of value to new customers: by signing up and betting £10, you’ll get £30 in the form of 3 x £10 bonus bets. That’s certainly one of the highest bonus amounts we’ve seen without a bunch of caveats attached, which reflects very well on William Hill’s online service. The one small argument is in the idea that these are William Hill free bets, no deposit necessary. They’re not, as you have had to stake your own funds to get them – “bonus bets” is our preferred term.
Terminology disagreements aside, let’s move onto looking at the restrictions on the offer – which, thankfully, are few and far between. When you initially sign up, you will need to input the correct bonus code and make a £10 qualifying bet on an outcome with odds of at least 1/2 (or 1.50 if we’re speaking decimal). After that, you should see the bonus bets in your account more or less instantly. You can place those at any odds, with the only real limitation being that each £10 bet must be placed in full. In other words, they can’t be broken down into, for example, 4 x £2.50 smaller bets.
While there is a time limit to using the bonus bets as set out in the William Hill free bet rules, this restriction shouldn’t cause too much concern: you’ll have a full 30 days to use all three bonus bets. This compares favourably with bookmakers who insist that you use the bets within a week, or even just a few days. The longer timespan allows you to wait for a major sporting event on the horizon if you so choose, rather than needing to place the bonus bets for the sake of getting them placed quickly.
For more comparisons of bonus reviews like this one, check out our Betvictor free bet and Betway free bet guides for all the latest offers!
The £30 in bonus bets is easy to achieve provided you stick to the William Hill free bet terms and conditions, and in truth, this isn’t hard to do. As we have noted above, you merely need to input the correct code and make your deposit by credit or debit card. With your deposit made, you simply have to bet on a Sportsbook market at odds of 1/2 (1.50) or longer, and you’re all done: you should then see the bonus bets appear in your account. If you find your William Hill free bet is not showing, contact the bookmaker online; provided you abided by the rules, the customer support agent should be able to quickly manually add the bets to your account then and there.
Unlike many other bookmakers, William Hill will allow you to use the early cash-out feature on your bonus bets. This means you won’t have to deal with the nervous process of waiting for a game, race, or other type of event to finish; you can decide to cash out while the going is good, or abandon a lost cause, if you prefer. Very few bonus bets can be cashed out, so kudos to William Hill for bucking the trend.
Encouragingly, William Hill’s free bet offer is not subject to any wagering restrictions. While the terms and conditions go to great pains to stress that you can’t withdraw your free bets, you can withdraw any winnings from them as soon as they have been credited to your account. Again, this compares favourably with a number of bookmakers out there who may ask you to re-bet your winnings as much as five times over before withdrawing. One other point to note: you won’t be able to use a William Hill “free” bet acca with their accumulator insurance offer, nor can you combine the bonus bets with any other offers
We’ve covered the key points above, but there are other terms and conditions you’ll need to know about if you intend to use this offer; we at bettingtips.net strongly recommend that you read them in full on the William Hill website before you make your first deposit. As this kind of information is subject to change, a quick skim through the rules at the time you are going through the offer is a necessary step if you wish to avoid any irritating clauses or subclauses that may catch you out.
It’s natural to be a little bit skeptical about so-called free bets. After all, would bookmakers just offer you the chance to make several bets without having to put up your own money as a stake? In truth, there are a few reasons that it makes sense for them to do this, but the most important is the simplest: people like free things. There is no better way to attract customers than to offer them the thing they want for free. You won’t see a William Hill free bet code for existing customers, because these bets are designed to attract new players.
However, these “free” bets are not necessarily all they first seem, so let’s look deeper into what is really on offer from the plethora of bookmakers who offer “free” bets…
Bookmakers are like any other business – they’ll throw a little hyperbole your way to build your interest. Unfortunately, this does mean that the word “free” is doing a lot of work when it comes to the “free” bets they are offering – and by “doing a lot of work” we mean, well, not being entirely accurate. As you’ll have noticed, when you sign up for William Hill’s free bets offer, you need to put up £10 of your own money first. Only once you’ve risked that on a qualifying bet will you get your “free” bets. Technically, that makes them more “bonus bets” – nothing you’ve had to spend your own money to obtain can really be considered free.
Genuine free bets are incredibly rare. They do exist, but you’re not going to find them as part of any sign-up offer. When you think about it, that makes sense – if this bookmaker offered you William Hill free bets, no deposit, and just let you walk away with the winnings, why would anyone ever make a deposit?
Different bookmakers have different rules regarding their bonus bet offers. These rules govern their policies on everything from how much you need to deposit and bet to qualify for the offer, to how long you have to use your bonus bets. When you’ve been to a few bookmakers, checked bettingtips.net for offers and used a few of the best, you may start to think you know how these things work, but don’t let that trick you into thinking you can skip the terms and conditions – you can’t. Ever.
Some bookmakers will insist you need to meet “wagering requirements” before you’re allowed to withdraw a penny of your bonus bet winnings. In practice, this can mean that if you win £30, you will need to bet £90 before you’re allowed to handle any of those winnings. Fortunately, there are no wagering requirements with this William Hill free bet offer: everything you win is yours to keep. This definitely makes it a strong contender to the Betstars free bet bonus.
As we said above, everything you win is yours. However, if you have bet online before, you’ll be familiar with the mathematics of online betting. If you make a conventional £10 bet at odds of 2/1 (3.00), and it wins, you will get £30 – that’s £20, plus your stake back. If you place a bonus £10 bet on the same odds, you will get back £20.
Your stake is not returned as you effectively have a bet to the value of £10, but you don’t have £10 in real money. For the same reason, you can’t just withdraw the £10 bonus bet either; you’ll need to wager it, and win, to turn it into real money.
William Hill have been around long enough to know what works in the betting industry, and have enough customers to be pretty generous with William Hill “free” bet offers. It’s no surprise, then, that their bonus bet sign-up offer is one of the best, if not the best on the market. Other bookmakers might offer bigger free betting tokens for the same deposit, but they tend to be loaded with caveats, such as playthrough requirements, that mean the offer ends up being worth less overall.
By offering £30 in bonus bets for a deposit of just £10, William Hill outstrip a few of the other big names in the market. If there was to be one small criticism, it’s in how the bonus is split. Some bookmakers allow you to split the bonus balance as you see fit; so rather than the £30 being 3 x £10 bets, you could split it into 1 x £20 and 1 x £10. When new users who are 18 years of age or older make a minimum deposit of £10 stake on a sportsbook with odds of 1/2 (1.5) or higher (excluding virtual markets), they will be receiving a £30 bonus starting from 00:01 on October 18, 2022. There are further terms and conditions that apply. William Hill haven’t allowed this function – it’s 3 x £10 whether that’s your preference or not – which is mildly inconvenient, but nevertheless a small criticism that is easily overcome. You can’t use your William Hill “free” bet in-store, but that’s standard across all bookmakers, so this is an undeniably attractive sign up offer.
A good sign-up offer will get customers to sign up with a bookmaker, but to make them stay takes a lot more than just a flashy starter. The main course, to continue this metaphor, needs to be satisfying enough to keep people interested. As you might expect from one of the most established names in the game, William Hill don’t miss out on this front.
William Hill have used their savvy understanding of their customer base in order to create a seemingly endless run of offers designed to keep existing customers interested. For example, while it’s not a literal William Hill free bet, existing customers will be delighted to see that if they back a horse on the Flat that wins by two lengths or more, they will get a 15% winnings boost in the form of a bonus bet. Furthermore, bettors will also be happy to see the presence of the much-loved ‘BOG’ on William Hill’s site; for those unfamiliar, this means Best Odds Guaranteed; if you make a bet on an event, and the odds on your bet get longer after it’s been placed, William Hill will adjust accordingly and pay out at the longer odds if the bet wins.
In addition, William Hill offer odds boosts that allow punters to get a little extra value on their bets. Odds boosts are fairly standard, but William Hill extend the concept further, with their limited daily Flash Odds. At noon each day, they’ll provide longer odds for a selected event, but you’ll have to be quick: the Flash Odds are only available until 12:15.
With these dynamic offers, their embrace of essentials such as a live streaming service, and a great mobile app, William Hill has proven themselves capable of adapting to the trends that modern bettors demand. These innovations, combined with an incredibly impressive sportsbook that covers sports from the obvious (football, rugby, horse racing) to the extremely niche (handball, pool, GAA), mean William Hill have a role to play in any betting experience.
If you haven’t signed up to William Hill before, there’s never been a better time to give this notable bookie a try. The sign-up really does stand head and shoulders above the rest for its value to the customer, and there’s an impressively broad sportsbook and range of further offers to keep things interesting when your account is established – what more could you possibly need? If you’re still looking for more bonus offers, make sure to have a read of our Betdaq free bet and Betfred free bet guides.
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