Diamond Sportsbook International (DSI) is a popular online betting site servicing the North American market. Their origins date back to 1998 where from San Jose, Costa Rica their founders, known only as Dino and Stretch, launched DSI as one of the internet’s first online betting sites. Success during their early years was massive. However, after a fall out between ownership and management, in 2003, DSI made the decision to partner with the world’s largest bookmaker and become a BetCRIS skin. Today you’ll find their website www.2betdsi.com quite similar to the website of CRIS’s flagship brand bookmaker.com. The major differences between the two are occasional unique lines and different teaser odds and betting limits.
When using DSI as an online betting out, you can rest assured your balance is safe and secure and that you’ll always be treated fairly. The company they are backed by (CRIS) has been in business since 1985 and is by far the world’s largest and most trusted gambling company. While both Bookmaker.com and 2BetDSI are similar sites, around 10% of the time their lines differ from one another. Keeping an account at both sites will allow you to line shop them together for better odds while double-dipping bonus offers. In this article I’ll cover DSI bonus and promotion offers, their wagering options, and then conclude with +EV betting tips relevant to Diamond Sports.
Diamond Sportsbook Bonus Offers
Diamond Sportsbook welcomes new players with a 20% initial deposit match. To be eligible you’ll need to fund your account with $100 or more, and then contact live support to request the bonus. The maximum sign-up bonus is $500, and all bonuses are issued instantly as free play credits requiring a five time rollover on the deposit amount. While this might not be the most competitive bonus on the net, you can count on several similar reload bonuses throughout the year, such as the start of NFL, NBA, and MLB seasons as well as for the Super Bowl, NBA Championship and World Series. If you’re a frequent bettor you can also get reload bonuses and cash back, via their BetPoints reward scheme covered below.
Diamond Sportsbook BetPoints Loyalty Program
DSI offers a three tier loyalty rewards scheme called BetPoints. How this works is each dollar you wager earns a certain number of BetPoints. For sports betting points are earned at a rate of 1 point per dollar for straight bets, 2 points per dollar for parlays, and 1.5 points per dollar for teasers, if bets and reverse bets. These points are redeemable at 2betdsi.com for cash, gift cards, sweepstakes entries, frequent flyer miles, free payouts, handicapping service subscriptions and DSI gear such as hats, t-shirts, jackets etc. As you earn points you’ll progress through the different tier levels of their loyalty scheme which have benefits as follows.
Gold Reward Level – 0 to 29,999 BetPoints
As a Gold level VIP you’ll earn a 10% free play bonus on each deposit of $300.00 or more. Also you’ll receive 1 free entry to a weekly VIP Blackjack Tournament, 1 free entry to DSI’s $1000 Weekly Invitational Poker Tournament, and one free ACH payout per 30 days period.
Platinum Reward Level – 30,000 to 299,999 BetPoints
To reach the Platinum VIP level you need to earn 30,000 bet points in a 12 month period. This is a onetime requirement that once met, your account will always be Platinum or higher. As a Platinum VIP you’ll earn all the same benefits as a Gold Member, but also will have all deposit fees reimbursed, get an additional free ACH payout per 30 day period (2 per month) and get 10% more value than Gold when shopping in the BetPoints store.
Diamond Reward Level – 300,000+ BetPoints
To reach Diamond VIP level you’ll need to earn 300,000 BetPoints in a 12 month period. Once again, this is a onetime requirement where once met your account will always be at the Diamond Level. As a Diamond VIP you’ll earn a 15% free play bonus on all deposits $300 or more, have all deposit fees reimbursed, and get 1 FREE entry to a weekly VIP Blackjack Tournament, and 1 Free entry to DSI’s $1000 Weekly Invitational Poker Tournament. You’ll also get 1 free payout per week via any method of your choice, 24/7 dedicated concierge service with special toll free number, and your BetPoints have 10% more value than Gold when shopping in the BetPoints store.
To give a glimpse at the value of this rewards program, the most popular option for redeeming points is the BetPoints for cash option. The lowest amount of points required to redeem cash is 500 BetPoints which gets a Gold VIP $2.25, a Platinum VIP $2.50 and a Diamond VIP $2.75. The better value however is to save your BetPoints up and then purchase larger amounts of cash at a better rate. For example a Platinum VIP can purchase $195.00 for 30,000 BetPoints, where a Diamond can purchase $715 for 90,000 points. Having done the math, at the top level if all your bets were made at standard -110 odds on straight wager, this loyalty program gives you an effective line of -109 on all your bets, saving you about 10% on vig. The math I used to calculate this only took into account the value of redeeming BetPoints for cash. The free payouts, free entries to tournaments, and reload bonuses make the effective odds far better than -109.
Diamond Sportsbook Promotions
At DSI reload bonuses and their BetPoints program are the highlight of their promotional offers. Here you won’t find extravagant promotions such as Bodog and Sportsbook offer. Instead you’ll find a sharp old school bookmaker willing to take any bet and never ban a player for winning too much. Now all this is not to say DSI doesn’t have promotions, as they do have a few. Perhaps their most famous promotion is their $50,000 bracket contest held each year for March Madness. During this time of the year clients deposits are given a special reload bonus and for each $100 they deposit they’re awarded a free bracket entry. This contest pays the top 5,000 finishers, with the later prizes being BetPoints and the top 3 prizes $10,000, $5,000 and $2,500 cash. To see a list of current promotions visit www.2betdsi.com.
Diamond Sportsbook Wagering Options
At DSI the sports coverage is massive. Here you’ll find the ability to wager point spreads, moneylines, totals, halfs and quarter/periods, propositions, futures, parlays, teasers, if bets, reverse bets, alternative lines and much more. The sports covered include football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, tennis, golf, boxing/MMA, motor racing, handball, volleyball, and Spain’s futsal sport. There is also a select number of entertainment and political wagering options and a fully integrated bingo room, poker site, and online casino accessible from the same player account.
Here are some of the betting intricacies of Diamond Sportsbook that can be used to find +EV bets.
3 Team Six Point Teasers
Diamond Sportsbook offers three team six point NFL teasers at +180, which is far better than the +160 bookmaker.com offers on the same. Also unlike 5Dimes and Pinnacle, which tend to shade their lines in such as way teasers are not as profitable, DSI uses standard lines on their teaser betting menu. If you’re not aware at just how exploitable this is from a +EV betting standpoint I strong suggest you read our articles on teaser betting.
Half Point Buys
As is the case with many online betting sites, DSI offers bettors the opportunity to purchase one of more half points on basketball and football point spreads for 10 cents each. For example if the line on the Los Angeles Lakers is -7 -110, you’d have the opportunity to choose this line or Lakers -6.5 -120, Lakers -6 -130, Lakers -5.5 -140 etc. The only exception to this is no half points can be purchased on or off the 3 in NFL. What’s unique here is the 7 in NFL football. Here buying two-half points through the 7 at ten cents each (meaning all +6.5 -110 taken to +7.5 -130, and all -7.5 -110 taken to -6.5 -130) is the best blind bet in football. To learn why, read our article on buying half points.
Early Lines
DSI is one of the first sites to post lines on major sports leagues such as NFL, NBA, college football and basketball, MLB and NHL. Serious sports bettors know that when lines first come out they are rough, and as bets come in the lines are adjusted to the point where big money no longer has a preferred side. If you’re talented enough to cap lines in advanced, you can find some huge value betting early lines at DSI.
NFL Props
DSI is one of the few sites offering prop bets for every NFL game. The catch here is other than the big games, such as Sunday night, Monday night, and playoff games these props don’t open up for betting till an hour or two before game time. Here you’ll find props on team to score first, first score touchdown or FG/Safety, team to score first wins, 3 unanswered scores, score in last 2 minutes of 1st half, score in first 6.5 minutes of the game, defensive or special team touchdowns, total sacks, and a dozens of others for each and every NFL game. For tips on how to beat these props refer to our section on NFL Prop Betting.
Choosing 2BetDSI or Bookmaker.com
I’ve been asked several times via private message on sports forums if it is better to have an account at Bookmaker.com or at DSI, considering both sites are so similar. This is a tough question to answer as really for the purpose of finding unique lines, the 10% of the time they differ, and to double dip on bonuses you’ll likely want to have an account at both. If however, for some odd reason you need to choose only one of these sites, we’d give DSI the nod for players betting $1,000 per game or less for the purpose of better teaser odds. Again though, in our opinion both www.bookmaker.com and www.2betdsi.com are must have accounts for any North American sports bettor. No matter what sites you use to wager this betting season, everyone here at OnlineGambling.co wishes you the best of luck.