Promo Recommender
The Promo Recommender ranks the sportsbook promotions available in your location by expected value, and tells you which one to work first given your current bankroll.
What it does
The Promo Recommender looks at every active promotion in your location, removes the books you already have accounts with, and ranks what remains by the expected cash value you can extract from each one. The top card is highlighted as the recommended promotion — the one where the math says to start.
This is a sequencing tool, not a conversion tool. It tells you the order in which to work your promotions; the actual matched bet that extracts the value is built in the Promo Converter.
Setup
The Promo Recommender reads the profile you built when you first signed up — the setup questions SmartStake asks right after registration:
- Location — your physical location determines which promotions are legally available to you. Different states and provinces have different books and offers.
- Books you already have — promotions are sign-up offers for new accounts. Marking books you have already opened removes those promos from the list, and also means those books are available to you as hedge books, which improves the matched-bet odds on your remaining promotions.
- Bankroll — how much cash you have on hand. The recommender uses this to flag promos whose required stake exceeds what you can currently cover, so you are not pointed at a promotion you cannot act on right now.
If you skipped that setup, the Promo Recommender prompts you to finish it before it can rank anything. Once your profile is in place, your bankroll, open books count, and location appear as editable chips at the top of the recommendation list, so you can update them at any time without re-running setup.
How the ranking works
Each promotion has a type — No Sweat Bet, Deposit Match, or Bet and Get — and each type carries a different conversion rate. The recommender multiplies the promotion's face value by the expected conversion rate for its type to produce an expected value figure, which is the realistic cash return after hedging. Promotions are then sorted from highest to lowest expected value, with one exception: if your bankroll is below the minimum required to hedge a given promo, that card is dimmed and moved down the list until your bankroll grows enough to cover it.
The required bankroll threshold is based on the promo's maximum bet size or face value — specifically, the recommendation requires your bankroll to be at least three times the promotion's size before surfacing it as actionable.
Within the same expected-value tier, promos are also sorted by difficulty (easy before medium before hard) and a secondary difficulty ranking, so the fastest and simplest conversions appear first.
Build bankroll from easier promos first
If several promos are locked behind a bankroll requirement, start with the smaller, easier ones the list has already surfaced. The cash you extract from those unlocks the larger promos further down.
Reading a promo card
Each card in the list shows the sportsbook name, promotion name, and expected value. Expand a card to see the full detail panel:
- Expected Value — the projected cash return after conversion.
- Promotion Value — the face value of the offer as stated by the book.
- Promo Type — No Sweat Bet, Deposit Match, or Bet and Get.
- Time to complete — the estimated number of days to finish the promotion.
- Difficulty — easy, medium, or hard, based on the wagering requirements and number of steps involved.
- Expiry — the number of days before the offer expires, when the book provides one.
- Qualifying Wager — the initial stake required to trigger the promotion, when applicable.
- Minimum Odds — the lowest odds at which the qualifying or free bet must be placed, when applicable.
- Max Bet Size — a cap on the free bet or bonus amount, when the book enforces one.
- Rollover — the total wagering amount you must complete before withdrawing, expressed as a dollar figure, when applicable.
Acting on a recommendation
Click Get Started on the highlighted card. SmartStake marks the promotion as in progress and opens the step-by-step promo guide for that specific offer, which walks you through the qualifying bet and the hedge. Once you have completed a promotion and opened that account, go back to the Promo Recommender — it will automatically remove that book from the list and surface the next best opportunity.
Premium access
Some promotions are only visible to Premium subscribers. On a free account, a small set of books is available without a subscription; the rest appear locked. Upgrading unlocks the full list for your location.
When you have finished all promos
Once you have converted every available promotion in your location, the Promo Recommender shows a completion screen and suggests moving on to Arbitrage Finder. The accounts you opened to collect promotions become your hedge-book network, which puts you in a strong position to capture arbitrage opportunities across the widest possible spread of books.
For a running log of which promos you have started, completed, or skipped, see the Promotions Tracker.
- Odds, prices, expected value, conversion rates, and profit figures shown are estimates based on the last data we retrieved. They can change at any time — confirm the current price at the book before you bet, as odds may move and entry errors can occur.
- Sportsbook promotions are typically available to new customers only and are subject to each operator’s terms, conditions, and eligibility requirements.