How the numbers on this site are worked out
This page describes the method rather than the machinery. It is here because a tool that puts a dollar figure next to a sportsbook promotion should be willing to say where that figure comes from, and because the parts that are genuinely ours are not the parts worth hiding.
The five steps behind every figure
1. Read the promotion as the book wrote it
Every promotion starts as the sportsbook's own published terms. What triggers it, what it pays, in what form, how long you have, and what counts as a qualifying bet. The terms decide the arithmetic, so the terms are read first and recorded rather than summarised from an advert.
2. Work out what form the money arrives in
A promotion that pays cash and a promotion that pays a bonus bet are not worth the same thing, because a bonus bet does not return its own stake. A sweat free bet and a qualifying bet behave differently again. Each type is priced as its own shape rather than converted into a single generic bonus.
3. Find the second bet that covers the other outcome
The method is to place the promotion at one book and cover the opposite outcome somewhere else, sized so that both results pay about the same. That is the whole idea, and it is why nothing here predicts who wins. Prices are compared across the books and exchanges you have told us you can use.
4. Price the vig on both sides, not one
A sportsbook's margin is built into the price on both outcomes, and an exchange charges in a different way again. Commission and per contract fees are priced in before a figure is shown, so the odds you are quoted are the odds after the cut rather than the ones on the screen. Skipping this is the single most common way a promotion is made to look better than it is.
5. Rank what is worth your time
More promotions are usually available than anyone wants to do at once, so they are ordered. The inputs are the sort you would expect: what it is estimated to be worth, how much of your money it ties up and for how long, and how fiddly it is to complete. The ordering is tuneable in your settings, and the exact weighting is the part that stays ours.
What a figure on this site actually means
It is an estimate, and it is priced at a moment
Every figure is calculated from live odds at the moment you look at it. Odds move. A promotion priced at one number when the page loaded can be worth a different number by the time you have placed the first leg, which is why the second leg is re-checked rather than assumed.
It is pre-tax
No figure anywhere on this site is adjusted for tax. What you owe depends on where you live and on the rest of your return, and a number that guessed at it would be wrong for almost everybody.
It is what you keep, after our fee
Where a promotion has been unlocked, the figure shown is after the fee for unlocking it. The fee is fixed when you pay and is never recalculated afterwards, so a promotion that goes better than estimated does not cost you more.
It is not a guarantee
Covering both outcomes removes the question of who wins. It does not remove voided bets, terms applied inconsistently, a line that moves between your two legs, or a mistake at the keyboard. Those are real and they are yours, not the model's.
What is checked before a promotion is published
The terms are confirmed against the source
A promotion carries a record of where its terms came from and whether they have been confirmed. A promotion nobody has confirmed is not treated the same as one that has been.
State eligibility
Sportsbook promotions differ by state, and several are not offered at all in some of them. You only see what is offered where you are.
There is a real cover available
A promotion is only useful if the other outcome can actually be covered at a sane price, in a market with enough liquidity behind it. Where a book or exchange reports how much is available, that is checked against what your cover would need.
Age and legality
21+, everywhere on this site, with no exceptions made for states that set a lower number. Gambling involves risk and none of this removes it.
What is not on this page
The exact weighting behind the ordering, the odds sources and which market each one is trusted for, and the commercial numbers behind pricing are not published here. That is the part that took the work, and describing the method does not require handing over the implementation. Everything above is a description of what the product does, and you can check most of it yourself against any promotion on the site.
If you want to run the arithmetic by hand, the calculators are free and need no account. Learn explains the vocabulary, About covers who runs this and how it makes money, and the FAQ answers most of the rest. Anything still unanswered goes to support@promonyx.com. 21+. Gambling involves risk.