What is retention?

When using our calculators or software you will regularly come across fields for 'Retention' or 'Retention Rate'. This refers to your expected profit from any bonus bets that you earn.

For example, if you have a $100 bonus bet and you expect to turn it into $75 cash by backing & laying, your  expected retention rate is 75%. This is because you will 'retained' 75% of the bonus bet value.

Expected retention of bonus bets is important to know because it will influence which bets we place with our own cash. For example...

If a bookie is offering a 25% profit boost on a market, paid in bonus bets, and the best option is a match of 3.10/3.30 we could use the extra profit calculator and set it up like this:

In this situation we are assuming that any bonus bets we receive will be converted at 80%. If that is the case we can lock-in $1.45 profit. Therefore, this bet has a positive expected value.

However, if you only expect to convert the bonus bets at a rate of 60% things change.

With a 60% retention rate this bet now has a negative expected value and should be avoided.

The retention rate that you can achieve will vary depending on your level of experience, your available bankroll, and the bookie you are dealing with. Try to be as realistic as possible when setting it. If you set it too high, and then fail to convert at that rate, you could end up placing -EV bets.