Bonus offers by online casinos give players the opportunity to play more games and try new ones, without risking their own funds. However, before accepting such offers, make sure you are familiar with all of their terms and conditions.
No new online casino player should overlook the fact that bonuses come with practical conditions such as minimum wagering requirements and/or validity time periods.
Bonuses
Bonuses are often used by online casinos as marketing tools to entice new players as well as keep current ones, where free spins, bonus sums or loyalty credits are offered as incentives. Players must read the terms and conditions regarding such promotions to ensure that they are managing mutually beneficial deals with additional wagering requirements and/or expiration dates factored in.
The most common bonus in casinos is also a deposit match, which doubles your money in the casino from the start. Game-specific and payment-method bonuses, familiar to players of non-casino games and casinos too, are also available. Often, these bonuses require higher wagering requirements than a deposit bonus, and move you faster towards your expected loss by virtue of tying your funds only to that game.
Games offered
Casinos offer bonuses – freed spins or a deposit bonus – to players for signing up, or for consistently playing and maintaining loyalty, so you can see why it’s a huge advantage signing up for these offers. With the right bonuses, you’re giving yourself the best possible chances of winning. Although sometimes you’re bound to lose, luck should still favour you more often. The key to utilising such bonuses and promotions is to first assess the bonus offers on multiple sites, figure out which is best for you, and then to always check the terms and conditions thoroughly.
Bonuses may be given as extra money, additional free-play rounds or points in a loyalty programme. They may also be attached to restrictions and playthrough requirements, or be limited to certain types of games – for example, some contribute differently in terms of ‘weightings’ to playthrough requirements, and some do not.
While casino promotions can definitely be a nice perk and add to the enjoyment of your bricks and mortar or online gambling experience, such promotions do not promise you a win, and the house advantage on every single game still needs to be taken very seriously.
Minimum payout percentages
Looking to get into the online casino world from the comfort of your own home? Great! That is where you start to unravel the mystery of casino bonuses. Although they can be a great way to start your gambling experience, they can be difficult for some players to fully comprehend and actually cash out on. This page will outline all of the bonus types available in online casinos, as well as all of the rules they come with so that you can be sure to get the most for your money.
One such factor is minimum payout percentages, better known as the playthrough requirement. This refers to how much of winnings you must put back into your account using the bonus money to meet the playthrough requirement before you’ll have access to your winnings. Usually, it will depend on the game and site that they have applied it to; especially if tied to a specific game. In addition, their terms will often dictate which games will count towards the wagering limit and confine this deal to a finite period of time – the lower your playthrough requirement, the better the deal!
Wagering requirements
Bonuses for online casinos allow you to play any casino games for free or cheap but each bonus carries over a set of requirements that you need to clear through before you can actually withdraw your winnings – these requirements are multipliers or percentages of your bonus amount and the online casinos have different requirements for their bonuses, and not all types of games contribute the same (for instance, blackjack usually contributes only 10%) towards meeting the requirements.
Players have to know this and plan the meeting of these requirements to see it through successfully. Bonuses usually have an expiry date, and it’s preferred to use the funds quickly lest they expire. It is also of utmost importance to create separate accounts for deposits and bonuses, so you would know what is spent and whether you’re not overstepping the limits and putting limits to your winnings.
Legality
Demanding more of a punter – mainly adhering to particular games or amounts – in order to obtain free games and bonuses is also no guarantee of a win. It’s simple mathematics: despite what you may want to think or believe, no casino bonus is ever a gift. Any gambling ‘Welcome’ bonus worth considering will be obtainable with a couple of minutes’ research. Almost all casinos offer bonuses, usually in the form of free spins, matched deposit offers or cashback deals – but they all have mandatory requirements to qualify for the offer. However, if applied correctly, such opportunities can enhance the experience of the gambling process – and provide some much-needed relief against the exasperation of chasing those annoying lose streaks.
There are wagering requirements, expiration dates, and restrictions on specific games that, regardless of the players, casino owners see as necessary to protect their customers from inadvertently granting them ‘edge’ – an unfair advantage that would result in the customer making too many ‘free’ bets and running out of money to risk. A casino can get complaints and legal issues for excluding from an offer the low-edge-to-house games such as blackjack; these exclusions can make or break an offer, but most players accept them as making the offer worthwhile.