Online Casino Bonuses

The welcome bonus is the primary bonus type players get at practically every online casino today. What’s more, a casino is hardly worth joining if it doesn’t have a welcome bonus.

A welcome bonus can come in many shapes and forms, but it always works the same — it offers a prize for signing up and depositing for the first time. In most cases, a player’s deposit bonus gets matched to the deposited amount. Often, players will get an additional dozen or so free spins as well.

The best part about this type of internet casino bonuses is that they are almost always higher value and incredibly beneficial for every casino player.

Players could get a single big bonus that provides enough money for longer plays or even get a series of deposit bonuses, each lasting for a while.

Take a look at an example claiming most welcome bonuses:

• Visit the official website of the casino.
• Click on the bonus or the Join/Register button (read its requirements and terms and conditions).
• Complete the registration and verification procedures by inputting all the required data.
• Once finished, the deposit page opens to offer the bonus.
• Make the required deposit.
• Once the deposited money appears in the account, claim the bonus, and start using it.

Today, numerous bonuses are game-specific — be it a single game, an entire library of a particular provider, or just a few games the casino has chosen.

With these bonuses, players always have to use the funds or free spins/chips given in specific games.

The most common type of game-specific bonus is the free spin offers. These offers exclusively work on slots, and often they only work on specific slot games.

In other, albeit rare cases, players get free chips that work only on table games like baccarat and blackjack. In other cases, such chips would be available in live dealer games, but such bonuses are rare and often exclusive to live dealer casinos.

Also, these bonuses usually come with requirements like a specific deposit, just like with welcome bonuses and most other bonuses from a wide range of trusted online gambling sites.

The smallest group of bonuses are the no deposit bonuses. These promotions effectively require players to deposit nothing. The only requirement is to join the casino, and that’s it.

These bonuses sound like the best ones of all, but unfortunately, no online casino is ready just to hand out cash, so they impose conditions like:

• Higher wagering requirements
• Limits to win amounts

In most cases, these bonuses will either give players free chips or free money to use on real money games. But these amounts will likely be small, for instance, $20 or 25 free spins for a specific game.

Bonus codes are often an important part of the casino bonus experience. Many casinos will offer them to affiliates for promotional purposes. They don’t change anything about the actual bonus but are just there, creating an incentive for others to get more players to the casino or get referrals and rewards in the process.

These codes are a common sight in casinos, so players need to:

• Check that they are included within the bonus description.
• Check the terms for additional information.
• Contact customer support in case of a promo bonus code but no code found in the description or terms. Some casinos hand out codes like this.

If you can’t find a code, then the casino doesn’t use them, which is also common.

When players come across a bonus code, they should do the following:

• Visit their account.
• Get to the Cashier section.
• Go on to make a deposit.
• Input the code in the bonus code field.
• Complete the deposit.
• Wait for the money to arrive.
• Complete the bonus claiming procedure.

Start playing games and using the bonus funds.

A significant majority of the bonuses are deposit bonuses/matched bonuses. For these offers, the main thing to grasp is the percentage match. It tells the percentage of the player’s deposit the casino will end up matching.

So, for instance:

• If the offer is a 400% bonus, the player gets 400% free on their deposit. In other words, if by depositing $100, players get an additional $400 for free and consequently get a total of $500 for gambling.
• If the offer is a 100% bonus and the player deposits $100, they get an additional $100 for a total of $200.

Every bonus has a size, or in other words, how much players can get from it. This size is most notably connected to the deposit/matched bonuses we just covered, and it’s connected to the percentage the casino gives.

In other words, the bonus represents a specific matched percentage for up to a particular amount. That amount is the bonus size, or, in other words, the maximum amount up to which the casino will award money for free.

To understand how this works, consider these examples:

• A casino offers a 100% deposit bonus of up to $300. This means that a player can get $300 in bonus funds, so it makes sense to deposit only up to $300. In this scenario, a player gets a total of $600 for gambling, $300 of which is their deposit, while the other $300 comes from the casino.
• Let’s consider a different example with a much bigger offer, as these bonuses are common. A 200% bonus up to $2,500. In this bonus, a player can get as much as $2,500 in bonuses. So, by depositing, for instance, $300, a player will get an additional $600. The maximum amount you should deposit here is $1,250, as 200% of that is $2,500.

It might sound a bit confusing, but it’s nothing a calculator won’t solve for you.

As we already mentioned, reading the T&Cs is incredibly important, and we can’t stress that enough. The terms showcase important details like the wagering requirements, maximum winnings (if any), the bonus expiry date, when the bonus becomes void, and so much more.

Many players avoid reading these terms due to their length, like all T&Cs, which can often result in them losing the bonus and consequently arguing with the customer support over it. So instead, do the smart thing and read the bonus terms to avoid such issues.

Contrary to popular belief, most bonus T&Cs are not that boring — players can read them in a few minutes. Plus, doing that with other bonuses will help players notice the patterns, leading to a newfound understanding of every additional bonus. Reading the T&Cs is extremely important when it comes to bonuses because players benefit from them the most.

We’ve mentioned the wagering requirements several times now, but how do they work? In short, wagering requirements tell players how many times to gamble their bonus funds to get the ability to withdraw their winnings.

These requirements are also called rollovers or playthrough requirements, and they are typically within the 20x to 60x range. The industry average is around 30x.

These 30x wagering requirements mean that players need to wager the bonus funds 30 times before withdrawing.

Here’s how this looks:

• $300 in bonus funds with the wagering requirement of 30x leads to a wagering amount of 30 x $300 = $9,000 in total.
• $500 in bonus funds with the wagering requirement of 25x leads to a wagering amount of 25 x $500 = $12,500.

The numbers might seem like a lot, but it’s actually quite optimal. Players will typically get at least 95% of the money they’ve invested back, thus completing the requirements easily.

Also, the requirements are necessary for two reasons:

• They prevent players from simply claiming the bonus and immediately cashing out.
• They allow casinos not to lose all of their funds on bonuses.

However, sometimes these requirements might be unfair. Avoid the bonus if:

• The wagering requirement is more than 50x.
• The wagering requirement is high, and it pertains to both the deposited amount and the bonus funds, not just the latter.

Let’s take a closer look at a few more details:

• Free spins — If the bonus contains free spins, players get to use them on slots. They essentially let players spin the reels for free, and whatever they win from these, they get to keep. In most cases, the free spins are void of wagering requirements, but there is a maximum win amount. If there are wagering requirements, they are usually small.
• Game restrictions — Whenever there are wagering requirements, there are likely game restrictions as well. They show which games users can play to meet the requirements and how much of the gambled amount will go towards meeting them. In most cases, only slot games contribute 100% toward the requirements, unless the bonus is for table games, where only the table games will contribute 100%. It’s best to check the bonus terms to learn the game restrictions.

Limited time windows — As we already mentioned briefly, most bonuses come with expiry dates. In other words, the limited time window represents the number of days to use the bonus before it expires. With most bonus funds, the expiry time is 30 days, while for free spins, it’s typically a day or up to seven days if the number of free spins is larger.