What is a Casino Bonus?
You can say that a casino bonus is a gift (in form of cash or other perks) that the casino offers to its clients in order to boost their loyalty and devotion. The trick is that accepting a reward obliges you to meet certain conditions in the casino’s favor. These conditions are known as “wagering requirements”.
If you see that you won’t be able to fulfill wagering requirements, you can simply opt out of the offer. No one will block your account or punish you in any other way. The worst thing that can happen to you is that you won’t be allowed to cash out your earnings because you haven’t met the requirements.
Before registering with an online casino, it’s a good practice to check out what bonuses and promotions this operator offers. Our advice is to choose games that allow you to play your favorite games for free.
How Do Casino Bonuses Work?
Casino bonuses are a highly effective tool for attracting players to gambling websites. Casinos offer a huge selection of bonuses. It’s not surprising that novice gamblers struggle to wrap their heads over the whole bonus thing! In this article, we’ll try to break it down for you in plain English!
The money your earn with bonuses is rightfully yours. There is a “but”, though. You can’t just go and release your winnings from the system. To do that, you first need to spend some of your hard-earned money. This is a way of “thanking” the casino for the bonus which is, after all, not free at all.
Now you might be asking yourself: Should I use free cash prizes or steer clear of them? Maybe it’s way better to spend my own money on bets? At least, this way I won’t own anything to the casino. Our goal is to help you answer these challenging questions.
How Do I Get a Bonus?
Well, the easiest way to receive a bonus is to simply register a new account with a casino. Gambling sites tend to be very generous with their new clients, so be sure to use that to your advantage. Most of the time, newbies get a welcome bonus. We haven’t seen a casino that wouldn’t offer this type of gift to its clients! It’s a great way to encourage gamblers, pique their interest, and keep their expectations high.
Some casinos only allow one household to participate in their bonus promotions. If you try to use smart tools to cheat the casino, your account might get suspended. If you ask us, the risk is not worth it!
The History of Online Casino Bonuses
The sign-up (welcome) bonus was originally introduced to encourage new players and give them an opportunity to try out the games without much risk. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, welcome bonuses were bigger than today. Why? Because online gambling was a young industry with fewer players and less competition. In addition to welcome bonuses, there are bonuses on deposits. The player makes a deposit and gets a bonus that equals or even exceeds the deposited amount. However, in the recent years casinos had to introduce wagering requirements because of bonus hunters.
Who are bonus hunters? Those are people who got bonuses, withdrew them from the system, and left without making any bets. Plus, there were those who used fraudulent tricks trying to get more money in bonuses. As a result of such abusive behavior, casinos were suffering big losses and had to change the terms on which they provided bonuses to their clients.
As the industry expanded, industry awareness and visibility increased, more and more players entered the market, and more online casinos appeared. As expected, this leads to an increase in the ability for online casino players to switch from casino to casino, take bonuses and leave with profit. A situation that, unfortunately, meant that online casinos could no longer support the concept of a welcome bonus on their current terms. It also increased the number of “bonus abuses”, fraudulent activities of online casino players trying to get more than the bonus established by the rules using a variety of cheating methods.
Types of Bonuses
Now let’s break down a simple classification of casino bonuses. Bonuses come with different perks and wagering requirements. As a player, you must know this information in order to avoid frustration and regret.
Registration Casino Bonuses
When you register at the casino, you can count on three different types of bonuses: no deposit bonus, deposit bonus and sticky bonus.
As you might already know, a welcome bonus comes with wagering requirements, or the total amount of bets the player must place before being able to withdraw winnings. Not all games are good for fulfilling wagering requirements though. It’s the casino that determines the list of eligible games. Nowadays, the biggest challenge for beginning players has to do with the Bonus Terms (T&C). The problem is that many players accept bonuses without reading the terms. This results in multiple complaints and disputes between players and casinos.
Before accepting any type of bonus, it’s crucial that you read the conditions on which the bonus is provided to you. Here we are talking about wagering requirements which are very difficult to fulfill. Somethimes, the casino’s Terms and Conditions say nothing about bonuses. But this does not mean that bonuses are free! It’s your responsibility as a player to search the casino website for the section with wagering requirements and read them carefully.
No Deposit Bonuses
As you can guess from its name, a no deposit bonus is a free cash gift (or free spins) to receive which you don’t need to credit your account. No deposit bonus is a small amount of money the casino gives to its newly registered users. Usually it’s somewhere between 5 and 20 dollars.
At the same time, no deposit bonuses come with very tough wagering requirements. For example, you might need to bet your bonus 10, 20 or even 30 times before you’re finally allowed to cash it out from the system. Before accepting this gift, you should think twice!
Deposit Bonuses
If you make a deposit to your casino account for the first time, you get some extra money added to it. This is a bonus for a first deposit. While come websites offer a 50% bonus, other increase it to a whopping 300% of your deposit amount. How much money you’ll get also depends on the size of your deposit. If, say, you credit $20 to your account and the bonus is 50%, you’ll get an extra $10. Some casinos also offer bonuses on the 2nd and subsequent deposits. Not bad, huh?
To protect themselves from going bust, casinos tend to set maximum bonus limits. For example, your reward can’t exceed $250, regardless of your actual deposit.
Sticky Bonuses
Unlike a regular deposit bonus, a sticky bonus cannot be withdrawn from the online casino. This is why it’s called “sticky”! Still, sticky bonuses are very beneficial for the player because they increase your initial bankroll and improve your chances.
Individual Bonuses
This is a fairly common promotion method used by online casinos. Sometimes, the casino management decides to encourage specific players with individual casino bonuses. Usually those are high rollers who spend huge amounts of money on bets. An individual bonus is the casino’s way to thank the player for their loyalty. However, the rules apply even here. The player needs to spend the bonus on the casino website before they can withdraw the winnings.
Free Spin Bonus
This time, instead of cash prizes, the casino gives its players a chance to earn it themselves during free spins. The number of free spins usually varies from 5 to 20. Since free spins are accompanied by high multipliers, you have all chances to make quite a profit! While some casinos give out free spins completely for free, others provide them on certain conditions, i.e. you’ll have to bet a certain amount of money before collecting your winnings.
Cashback Bonuses
Some casinos pay back a percentage of the money the player spent on gambling games. This is called a cashback bonus. It can vary depending on the day of the week. For example, on weekends and holidays, some casino operators have a 25% cashback on amounts up to $ 500. A cashback bonus may apply to all the games on the casino website or limited range of games picked by the administration.
Cashback bonus acts as an insurance against losses. If you gambled away your entire bankroll, the casino deposits a cash compensation to your account.
This way, you get some of your lost money back and can continue playing. In some cases, the casino can give you a bonus credit, i.e. the possibility to continue gambling without making a new deposit to your account.
The amount of cash depends on how much funds you’ve lost on the gambling website. Although less beneficial for the player than other types of rewards, cashback bonuses are a great way to support a player during a losing streak and encourage them to move forward.
Loyalty Bonuses And Programs
Every respectable online casino must have a loyalty program to attract clients, make them feel welcome, and moivate them to spend more on the gambling site. The loyalty program can include all kinds of benefits and incentives. For example, the player can collect points and then exchange them for prizes, tournament tickets, and even cash rewards.
The loyalty program usually has several levels, from newbies to VIPs. The more you play, the higher is your loyalty status. This system is equally beneficial for both players and casino owners.
There is no doubt that casinos value their long-term clients and pamper them with lucrative bonuses. However, loyalty bonuses are usually very hard to obtain. To become a part of the casino’s loyalty program, you need to stick with the casino for a long period of time or spend significant amounts of money on its games. In rare cases, you get entitled to a loyalty bonus after playing for just a few weeks or months.
Loyalty bonuses can take a variety of forms. Some casinos hold competitions, giving their loyal clients a chance to win trips abroad, cars, valuable cash prizes, and other mind-boggling rewards. Also, established clientele can benefit from bigger bonuses in specific games and lower withdrawal limits.
Unlike other types of bonuses, loyalty perks vary greatly from casino to casino. Each gaming website has a totally unique VIP program.
VIP Services
For its long-time customers, a casino offers a plethora of additional benefits and privileges, such as:
- personal manager in the support service;
- faster-than-usual money withdrawals;
- unique offers, bonuses, etc.
For any trusted casino, such incentives are a very important tool for building long-term relationships with customers and encouraging them to spend more money on the website. With its clever system of benefits, a casino creates a friendly and motivating environment for its clients.
Main Reasons Why Casinos Offer Bonuses
If you’re thinking that bonuses are only beneficial for gamblers, you’re deeply mistaken. In reality, a casino is just a business and its bonuses are nothing more than marketing tricks. Casinos give out free cash prizes and other perks in order to spur gamblers to leave more money on the website. It’s not uncommon that while fulfilling wagering requirements you end up spending more money than you’ve won with the help of the bonus!
By being generous with bonuses, a casino pursues multiple purposes. First, it attracts new clients. Second, it builds the loyalty of its established clientele. Third, it cultivates the sense of exclusiveness. For some gamblers, bonuses are a sign of belonging to the prestigious casino community. Finally, the casino uses free rewards to encourage its long-term gamblers to invite their family, friends, and coworkers to join the website.
No deposit casino bonuses are a carefully thought-out marketing move that helps online casinos attract new players.
Their main purpose is to promote the casino brand and collect the player’s contact information (email, phone number). The casino needs these data for marketing purposes.
Bonus Terms
It’s true that each gambling site has its own bonus terms. At the same time, casinos follow some common principles in developing their bonus conditions. We have done the most difficult part of the job and outlined the things you should consider before accepting a gift.
- In some casinos, wagering requirements depend on how much you’ve earned using the bonus. Let’s take an example. Your bonus comes with x30 wager. You used it to make $60. This means you need to wager $1800 before you’re allowed to cash out your money.
- Each bonus can be only used in a limited number of games.
- Don’t try any technological tricks to get the same bonus twice. Otherwise, you risk having serious legal problems.
- Some cash rewards come with maximum withdrawal limits. It means that you won’t be allowed to release your winnings if they exceed the specified amount.
Bonuses: Take or Turn Down?
We’d like to give you a direct answer but we can’t because each offer is different. You need to analyze each bonus on a case to case basis. What conditions does it come with? Will you be able to fulfill them without depleting your bankroll?
If wagering requirements seem fair to you, accepting a bonus won’t do you any harm. If, however, the playthrough conditions are too harsh, we recommend that you turn down the bonus or even switch to another casino with milder wagering requirements.
One good strategy is to compare the bonus with your potential profits. To calculate your potential earnings, you need to multiply your bet by the house edge applied in the game you’re going to play. Our advice is to find a gambling website that offers a cash gift for games with a low house edge. In most cases, such a bonus will be worth accepting.
We have worked hard to make a useful list of online casinos with no deposit casino bonuses. Keep in mind that many casino bonuses are only available for players from specific countries. Other factors we took into account include the rating of online casinos and the size of their no deposit bonus casino.
How To Use No Deposit Casino Bonuses
Most casinos follow the “one bonus for one player” rule. Since casino bonuses are free, gaming websites are unwilling to give more than one bonus of the same type to the same player. If, after fulfilling wagering requirements, you decide to withdraw your winnings, the casino will ask you for your ID copy to verify your identity. So be careful when registering an account. If you register your account under a made-up name, you won’t be able to release your funds.
When it comes to personal data, online casinos have zero tolerance to any inconsistencies and inaccuracies. If you’re playing for real money and hope to withdraw your winnings one day, you must submit your real name during registration. This is also true for other registration data.
When you get a free no deposit bonus casino to your account, you should think about it as a loan. This means you will have to pay the bonus back to the casino. Only then will you be allowed to withdraw your money. No deposit bonuses have rather high wagering requirements. Some online casinos ask you to wager up to x100 the bonus value on slot machines! For example, if you received a $10 bonus, then you’ll have to make 1,000 spins worth $1 each. Please note that not all casino games are eligible for fulfilling wagering requirements. Plus, wagering requirements are not a fixed set of rules and can vary for different casino games. For example, blackjack is usually not available for fulfilling wagering requirements, and even if it is, only 5% of your bet is counted towards the wagering amount. This way, you’ll have to spend 20 times more than in slots.
As for the free spin bonuses (probably one of the best online casino bonuses in casino promotions) in slot games, the winnings obtained with their help, as a rule, are summed up. When you complete the game, you will have to bet the total sum of winnings.
Here is another rule concerning the maximum betting amount. If the casino has the maximum bet size in games with bonuses, try not to exceed it. Otherwise, the casino will may not allow you to withdraw your winnings. Keep in mind that this is not the only trick used online gambling sites, so before accepting any bonuses, be sure to carefully read the terms and conditions on the casino’s website.
The last rule relates to mobile online casinos. You need to make a deposit before requesting a cash-out bonus. For a mobile casino, this is a way to make you can be trusted. Be careful though as an online casino may cheat by making you play after the deposit confirmation. Do not be lazy to clarify this issue with the casino administration via online chat or email. Be sure to save your correspondence with the casino just in case.
FAQ on Casino Bonuses
What are online casino bonuses?
Casino bonus is money credited to the player’s account for no particular reason or for performing a certain action or meeting a certain requirement. For example, you can get a bonus for registering an account, making a deposit, inviting a friend, etc. The player is free to use their bonus money on casino games. By accepting a bonus, you undertake the obligation to meet the terms tied to it. You can’t withdraw your bonus money from the system whenever you want. To be able to do that, you first need to fulfill wagering requirements. By the way, bonuses can take the form of cash prizes and free spins.
What is a casino welcome bonus?
For any online casino, a welcome bonus is an effective way to encourage newly registered clients. Welcome bonuses fall into deposit and no-deposit ones. To receive a no-deposit reward, you simply need to sign up with the gambling website. The essential condition for receiving a deposit reward is crediting money to your casino account.
You get a no-deposit bonus right upon registration. Usually, its amount varies from 5 to 15 dollars. You can spend this cash prize on wagers on the casino website.
As for a deposit bonus, you get it on your first deposit. Some casinos give money prizes on three to six first deposits which is really great. A deposit bonus is a percent value and depends on the amount of your deposit. The bad news is that deposits bonuses have upper limits. For example, “100% bonus up to $300” means that you’ll get a cash prize that equals to your deposit amount but no more than $300.
Deposit bonuses always come with wagering requirements. To avoid problems, be sure to take in the bonus terms before accepting a cash reward from the casino.
What are No Deposit Bonuses?
To benefit from a no deposit bonus, you don’t have to add money to your account. It’s a free bonus that the casino gives to all new players. Most of the time, the size of a deposit doesn’t exceed $5-10. Anyway, it’s a good starting point!
What is a deposit bonus?
Deposit bonus is a cash addition to a deposit made by the player to their casino account. Most of the time, casinos give out cash prizes on the first three to six deposits. Some casinos reward players for each deposit but this is a rare thing. A deposit bonus is expressed as a percent of the deposit amount. However, there is a cap on how much bonus money you can get.
Modern online casinos pay extra 100% to 300% of the deposit amount. However, most casinos refuse to pay more than $300-400. However, there are sites where deposit bonuses reach a staggering $1000! Beginning players should keep in mind that bonuses have wagering requirements attached to them. Before saying “yes” to the free money, be sure to find out on what terms the casino is providing it to you.
How do casino bonuses work?
Casinos use bonuses as a powerful promotion tool. First of all, free cash prizes attract new clients to a casino. Also, they encourage the existing clients to spend more money on wagers and keep making new deposits. On top of that, bonuses cultivate loyalty among players. Reliable casinos act fair by making wagering requirements clearly known to players.
If your selected casino offers a “300% bonus up to $1000”, the casino is willing to give you three times your deposit but no more than $1000. Many gamblers lose their heads upon seeing such big numbers. Don’t be one of them. Don’t accept the bonus unless you’ve read the wagering requirements attached to it. In other words, you must find out how much money you need to spend on wagers and what games are eligible for fulfilling wagering requirements. Remember that if you fail to meet the requirements, the casino won’t let you cash out your bonus.
What does wager mean in gambling?
Wager is the total of bets the player must make to earn the right to withdraw a bonus from the casino system. Let’s take an example. Suppose, you credit $200 to your casino account and get a 100% bonus that comes with x25 wager. To be able to withdraw this money from the system, you need to spend $5,000 (25x200) in bets on the gambling site. Usually, the casino specifies what games are valid for fulfilling the wager and how fast you must do that.
It’s not uncommon that the casino allows to fulfill the wagering requirement only on a limited number of slots. The lower the wager, the easier it will be to release the bonus. We recommend to avoid bonuses that come with a x50 wager or higher. Releasing such a cash prize is very hard, and you’re likely to regret accepting it in the first place. Make the rule of reading the wagering requirements unless you want to end up trapped.
What does a 10x wagering requirement mean?
A x10 wager means that the player must wager 10 times his current balance before being able to withdraw the bonus from the system. For example, you credit your account with $10 and receive a 100% on it (which is another $10). If the bonus comes with x10 wager, you must spend $20x10=200$ on gambling games.
Can I withdraw winnings that I made using a free bonus?
Yes, you can do that but it may be quite a challenge. Among online casinos, the common practice is to attach certain terms (aka “wagering requirements”) to no-deposit bonuses. A wager is a multiplier that shows how many times you need to wager your bonus before you can cash it out. The ugly thing is that the wager can be as high as 50-60 or even 100. Let’s say, you got $10 as a no deposit bonus, spent it on gambling games, and made some money. To be able to withdraw your winnings, you may need to wager 500, 600 or even 1000 dollars on gambling games.
Now let’s talk about free spins. If you get free spins for registration or as a part of any other promotion, the winnings you make during such free spins are subject to wagering requirements. If, however, you trigger free spins during the game, it’s different. The money you make during these spins are 100% yours, and you can do whatever you like with it – whether cash it out, or spend it on more bets.
Are there casino bonuses for mobile devices?
Today, most online casinos have mobile versions, which means that players can register and gamble on any mobile device they like. At the same time, casinos do not distinguish between mobile players and those using their desktop. This means you’ll get your no deposit bonus no matter which device you’re using.
Where can I find real-time casino bonus?
Many casino bonuses are only meant for slot machines and table games. If the casino has such limitations, it must include them into its terms and conditions (or a separate Wagering Requirements section). However, some casinos offer real-time bonuses, especially when they have a large selection of live games available. Stay tuned for casinos that advertise real-time bonuses.
What are casino bonus codes?
Bonus codes are a unique set of symbols that “unlock” specific bonuses when used in specific online casinos. Before making a deposit, the player enters the code thus choosing the bonus. Bonus codes can be exclusive or available to all players. They can be used to unlock unique bonuses or to receive a free bonus or other incentive in-game bonus.
Do I need to read bonus terms and conditions?
Yes! This document is extremely important as it contains all the information you need to know in order to enjoy a positive casino experience. Terms and conditions determine your rights and obligations as a player, as well as what is not allowed when using this bonus. You must read the bonus terms as well as the general terms and conditions in order to fully know what to expect from a particular online casino and their bonus programs.
