The $250 offer from ESPN BET ends at 11:59 pm ET on Dec. 31, 2023
The biggest sportsbook launch of the year has arrived — ESPN BET went live at about 3:45 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
You can use ESPN BET promo code ACTNEWS to unlock $250 in bonus bets after betting $1 or more on any game.
Here’s everything you need to know about the ESPN BET promo, app, state availability and more.
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How do I sign up for ESPN BET?
The ESPN BET app is buried in the app store if you search “ESPN BET”, so make sure to scroll down to find it. Or you can head straight to ESPNBET.com. From there, sign up for a new account and enter promo code ACTNEWS.
If you already had a PENN account that transferred over, sign up with the same email. Use promo code ACTNEWS while signing up, then you’ll be prompted to login again, and your $250 in bonus bets offer will be active. Then make a $1 or more wager to unlock those bonus bets.
What’s the ESPN BET promo code?
The ESPN BET promo code ACTNEWS unlocks $250 in bonus bets after a $1 or more wager on anything. There’s no minimum bet amount, or minimum odds requirement. And you’ll get the bonus bets whether or not your first bet wins or loses.
The bonus bets will be split into five, $50 bonus bets, and can’t be split down any further than that. You’ll get $200 when your first bet settles, and then another $50 in the next 24-48 hours.
Bonus bets at ESPN BET will work like any other sportsbook. You keep the profits from those wagers, but not the bonus bet itself. So say you bet $100 in bonus bets on Bengals moneyline at +170 against the Ravens on Thursday Night Football.
- If the Bengals win, you profit $170 in cash ($100 x 1.7)
- If the Bengals lose, your bonus bets just go away.
Our Darren Rovell polled users on Twitter and the biggest reason they’d switch sportsbooks was for the promotion.
What about the deposit match?
There’s another type of offer on the ESPN BET platform — a 100% deposit match, up to $1,000. Whatever you deposit, you’ll get matched 100% in “Eligible Cashback.” But it’s not bonus bets.
Eligible Cashback will turn into real cash as you wager on the platform, unlocking 5% at a time.
We did a deeper dive on how this offer works.
Here’s an example. Say you deposit $1,000 and get the $1,000 match.
- You place a $100 bet on the Ravens -4.5 against the Bengals on Thursday Night Football, and you’ll get $5 cash in your account from this cashback balance (because 5% of $100 is $5).
- You place a $200 bet on the Bills -6.5 against the Jets. Regardless of the result, you get $10 in cash into your account (because 5% of $200 is $10).
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The kicker is that you must unlock your Eligible Cashback in the first 30 days, or else you forfeit whatever you haven’t hit the wagering requirement for. So if you deposited $1,000 and made $10,000 worth of bets, you’ll still get $500 cash, but the remaining $500 will never turn into cash. You do keep whatever you had unlocked.
There’s also a minimum odds requirement of -200 — so any wager like -300 or -400 won’t unlock any cashback. Only wagers like -110, +150, etc., will.
Where is ESPN BET available?
ESPN BET is live in 17 states where PENN Entertainment holds licenses already — Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
If you’re not in a state where ESPN BET operates, you can still sign up and bet while you’re in a legal state — just use all your real information, including your real, home address (not your parents’ address, or your AirBNB’s address).
Massachusetts was one of the only states to raise questions, but gaming regulators said they won’t stand in the way of the Nov. 14 launch.
ESPN BET is unlikely to launch in any already-legal sports betting states anytime soon. In New York for example, the number of licenses is capped right now, so there’s not a clear path forward. In Connecticut, there are only three sportsbook licenses, currently held by DraftKings, FanDuel and Rush Street (though they’re set to abandon that one).
What does the ESPN BET app look like?
PENN bought theScore in 2021, which had operated its sportsbook product in the U.S. for several years before shutting down in June 2022 to put all its effort toward operating in Canada, where it was founded. ESPN BET will use that same tech stack at theScore, with different branding. And Penn/ESPN opted to change the color scheme a bit.
The UX of the app is strong, but the available markets don’t differ that much from what’s available across the country. And the pricing is slightly worse than some competitors — NBA props for example are -115 on both sides, which isn’t uncommon. But to stand out, ESPN BET will have to offer things that bettors can’t get anywhere else.
We’ll be doing more detailed price testing on ESPN BET over the next few weeks.
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When did ESPN BET launch?
ESPN BET went live at 3 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Nov. 14 — just in time for some major events taking place across the ESPN family of networks.
ESPN carries plenty of college basketball, NBA and NHL action throughout the week, and will have Eagles-Chiefs on Monday Night Football in Week 11.
Penn Entertainment agreed to license the ESPN brand for three years at $1.5 billion this summer, and launched on Nov. 14.
How will ESPN BET be integrated into broadcasts and other channels?
Although ESPN has already begun displaying odds from the PENN product on TV and throughout its digital sites, we could get our first big taste during the first major NFL game on ESPN — Monday Night Football next week (Nov. 20) between the Chiefs and Eagles. Kansas City is a 2.5-point favorite, with the total at 48. Philly closed as a 1.5-point favorite during last year’s Super Bowl.
As part of ESPN BET launch, the network’s flagship betting-only show “Daily Wager” was rebranded to ESPN BET Live on Friday, Nov. 10.
ESPN did put out guidance this week saying that anyone who covers sports or a specific team for the network or digital properties cannot bet on those teams or use inside information when wagering.