“Sign up and get a 100% Welcome Bonus up to $1000 and 100 Free Spins!”
It’s a common greeting to be found from a gambling operator and one that works on many levels yet poses many questions. This is what this guide will be looking into, casino bonuses. What casino bonuses are, how they work, and a full review on each of the most popular promotions made available to players like you online.
There are two types of casino bonus out there. You have the kind that is there to reward players for their commitment to the casino. Then you have the type that is there as pure bait to get players into the casino in the first place.
The latter is a reality to which many succumb. Many of the biggest casino bonuses online are reserved for the casino’s Welcome Bonus. Like the example opening this guide, the mouth will salivate, the eyes widen, and the player is entranced, willing to sign up for this promised return.
But despite the bait of advertisement, there is good that can come of these promotions. So, let’s highlight some of the types of bonuses available and what you are able to get hold of.
When discussing the different types of bonuses there are, and this point of the guide, we are looking at how the promotions are packaged.
The most commonly seen promotional bonus is the Welcome Bonus. Every casino online has this offer because they all want your business and will go to the lengths of offering free money and Free Spins to get you. These bonuses are the biggest you will find offered by an operator, it’s the bait, it’s the dazzle and glamor all package up, and it’s the promise of success. These are reserved for new players only. They are a total one-off, if you miss them, you miss out.
The deposit bonus is the most commonly provided promotion when it comes to packaged goods within the casino’s ongoing promotions. These are for all existing members to claim and are a package unto themselves and can be the basis of the Welcome Bonus. They are essentially your money bonuses. You will deposit money to fuel your time in the casino, and the casino will return a percentage on top of what you paid. The percentage can vary from 25% to 500%.
What follows is the most popular reward that gets picked by players and that is the Free Spins bonus. Now, this is both a package and a reward. Free Spins can be part of the promotion of a Welcome Bonus, for example, or they can be the promotion themselves. We will look at this reward in closer detail further in this guide.
The no deposit bonus is perhaps the most sought-after offer going because of its rarity and because of the reward’s lack of red tape. Again, this can be both a bonus package and type of reward and will be discussed in detail further into this guide.
The Loyalty Programme is something that is a service of the casino, more so than being a promotion. The same is said of the VIP Clubs that can appear across numerous platforms online.
They are there as a means of continuous reward upon those that are willing to stay with the operator and use their services. They can be a service which are instantly attainable through the right of membership, however, some VIP clubs are invitation only. The return in rewards from these services are somewhat similar. Players can be gifted bespoke rewards, cash back offers, access to live VIP events, and 5-star holiday flights and board.
Within the world of Free Spins, players can obtain several ‘free games’ that predominately for the use of slot machines. These bonuses can, however, be used on games like scratchcards and digital bingo. Free Spins are offered either as part of a promotional package i.e., the Welcome Bonus, Game of the Week or as their own kind of basic promotion.
How they work is very simple. Usually requiring a deposit to be made first in order to claim them or gifted through a loyalty scheme for free. The Free Spins are free games and when receiving them, the eligible game or menu of games will automatically load. Free Spin play through a different gaming interface. There will be a slight difference to how the game is normally portrayed as in the Free Spin mode, you will have a Free Spin countdown. Once your spins are over, the game will revert to its normal look, giving you the choice to play on with any won credit or to exit the game and do as you wish with any of the money you may have won.
The number of spins available is something that changes from promotion to promotion, casino to casino. they can be as few as 5 or as high in number as 500.
To learn more about this casino bonus, please continue to our Free Spins guide.
The No Deposit Bonus is a rare sight to see within any promotion page. If you have heard of but not see this offer, it’s not a myth. The scarcity of this bonus is so because it simply has more favourable terms for the player than it does for the casino. Now, this bonus can both be a reward of cash credit or Free Spins. What you get is down to the promotion at the time and the casino you find it in.
The claiming of this bonus works as it sounds. There is no requirement to pay beforehand like every other bonus out there, with the exception of loyalty rewards. The no deposit bonus can be received in a different way, even as a form of Welcome Bonus that is gifted just for registering.
Its use is pretty simple should you land one. If at the time the no deposit bonus is a set of Free Spins, they will mostly not exceed the amount of 50 Free Spins. Just as we mentioned above, in the Free Spins section, upon activating the offer, the eligible game will automatically load for you to play on.
With cash credit, again they will most likely not exceed the value of $25. Once activated, the gaming options are loaded for you to pick from and play.
These are low valued bonuses because they are 100% free. The casino has it all to lose by giving you these offers, hence adding to their rarity.
To learn more about this casino bonus, please continue to our No Deposit Bonuses guide.
Reading the small print is admittedly boring and very few will take the time to do so. Yet it must be brought to the attention of players that by not reading the terms and conditions (T&Cs) of a bonus, they may very well not be able to withdraw any of the money they have won.
The terms are there for a reason – to protect the casino.
Remember, casinos are part of a financial market, they are a business. Businesses do not want to make losses. So, if they are giving you something for free, you really need to question just how free these promotions are.
First, every casino has their own set of rules, and each bonus has their own unique set of terms. Do not assume that Free Spins in one casino, are going to be the same throughout all the casinos online.
There are some basic T&Cs that appear as common practice.
If there is an offer to claim there is a price that activates the offer unless there is an exemption.
When it comes to the type of game played, there are also rules for this because certain games come with a certain set of odds on winning. Casinos, for example, wouldn’t want to give you cash credit that can be wagered on games with a 50/50 chance, otherwise, they could lose a lot of money very quickly.
There is a timeframe from which bonuses can and must be claimed from the moment you activate them. There is also a timeframe by which bonuses must be settled when it comes to the wagering requirement.
Now, the wagering requirement is the most important of bonus terms.
Note: EVERY promotional offer has this term, there is no escaping it, unless the T&Cs exempt it i.e., a non-wagering bonus.
The wagering requirement sets the rules by which money won from the bonus can be withdrawn. This is always at an extra cost, a cost that is a multiplication against the sum of the bonus they received and sometimes of the deposit paid as well.
The value the multiplication is made by varies. It can be 10x or anything up to 75x. The average is often 35x.
So, let us look at an example of how this works. If you were to deposit $100 and in return you get another $100, you have a total of $200. Now, the wagering rules may ask you to pay 35x this full total should you want to withdraw the winnings made from your $200 bankroll. 35x $200 = $7000. This amount must be deposited and played through to withdraw whatever value has originally been won.
Now, it is important to remember that ALL bonuses are optional. There is no obligation to use them and there is no obligation to settle them i.e., wagering requirements, as they all come with expiry dates where they all become void if not settled.
There are many types of reward out there, each with their own rules. Some will be financially beneficial, whilst others not so.
Remember that success in gambling is 100% luck. The use of promotions doesn’t change your chances of winning. They provide a risk-free opportunity, sometimes with a cost involved, sometimes without.