When online sports gambling started in the US they were offering $500-$1000 of free bets to sign up. Very tempting to sign up, even though I don't gamble anymore than about once a decade, but I decided whoever did that offer was probably smarter than me about who would win out in the end.

I've been around the block long enough to know you never take an 'easy profit' deal from someone who is in the business of making money from them while in their own domain.

I'm in Canada where the promotions aren't quite as aggressive, but I've collected in the ballpark of $10k over the past three years through these free bet sportsbook promotions as well as collecting daily bonuses from this new wave of "sweepstakes" online casinos.

To make the "free" money and not ruin your life, You must have the discipline to look at things from a purely numbers perspective. It has to be mechanical and not emotional. If some action is +EV, and bet sizing is correct relative to variance, then you should perform the action. Never chase losses with a -EV bet.

The terrible thing about gambling is that there is no limit to how much you can lose, and you can also lose way more money than you actually have. It's a dangerous game.

It was actually free money assuming you had the resolve to stop once you claimed the bonus (presumably most people didnt). As long as you were laying the other side of your bet on an exchange you could extract the full value of your free bets risk free.

I collected a few grand back then, however those sort of promotions are now illegal where I live.

> while in their own domain

There's a certain poker quip which I like to use and apply to other contexts, such as active investing: "If you look around the table can't tell which player is the sucker, you're the sucker."

In other words, beware entering into a game where the rules ensure somebody will be victimized. This is especially true when many of the existing denizens spend much much more time and effort and finagling than you'll ever want to match.

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." -- W.O.P.R, War Games (1983)

“… you never take an 'easy profit' deal from someone who is in the business of making money from them while in their own domain…”

Laura ingalls wilder said it best, in Farmer Boy:

“never bet your money on another man’s game”

It was truly a wild time. All the books desperate for action in this new online gambling world (US). I went from book to book, took "advantage" of their promos, never collected a dime. When I was up, I bet more. Hit zero? Go to the next book. Their lines were better anyway ;)