The promotion is back for now, but only as a shell of itself.
DraftKings' early win promotion for the NFL has returned for Thursday Night Football between the Dolphins and Bengals, but moving forward, the promotion won't run on Sundays — in its same form, at least.
Action Network reported last week that the promotion cost the sportsbook $75 million over the NFL season's first two weeks. DraftKings discontinued the promotion for Sundays as a result.
The promotion allows bettors to cash their moneyline wagers if the team they bet on goes up by seven points at any time in the game. That means a mere touchdown and extra point to open a game cashes that team's ML wagers.
That promotion is specific for Thursday Night Football. Before DraftKings canceled the promotion, Sundays required the team you'd bet on to go up by 10 points.
The moneyline cashes normally, too, if the team you wager on wins but your team never goes up the requisite amount of points. Opt-in is required and the promo only applies to straight, moneyline bets.
It's unclear if the promotion will return as normal on Sundays.
For the first two weeks of the season, every game was eligible for an up 10, early win promotion.
Last week, the sportsbook ran a heavily targeted early win promotion that only allowed you to bet on one game, and only one team. Bettors in New York only had the option to bet the Giants to go up by eight points, for instance. Bettors in Colorado only had the option to roll with the Broncos.
Max wagers were as high as $500 for VIP accounts and those with Diamond status at the sportsbook. Most accounts had a max bet per game of $50 or $100, but maximum wagers ranged everywhere in between, depending on how much you normally bet with the book.
Action Network has made picks for each game that has been eligible. Had you tailed our picks as a $500 max bettor, you'd be up $5,250 in net profit overall.
A $100 bettor, meanwhile, would be up a profit of $1,050 for $3,000 risked. That's an ROI of 35%.
For Thursday, the value lies with the Dolphins moneyline at a clip of +170.
The general principle for this promotion has been to bet on underdogs. The worse a team was, the more positive expected value this promotion provides.
And in addition, road underdogs have really been the way to roll since 2019. Since then, if you had dropped $100 on every road underdog's moneyline, you'd be up about $3,500.
While only 36.5% of your bets would have won, since you're only betting underdogs, you're making a 7% ROI.
And this season, betting the moneyline on road underdogs has returned a solid $516 for a 22% ROI.
This principle jibes with the spread, too. Since 2019, road underdogs have been 265-205-12 against the spread (ATS) for a 56.4% win rate.
A $100 per game bettor would be up over $4,200 for an 8% ROI.
This season, road underdogs are 15-8 ATS and went 7-1 last week.
