Casino Bonuses: How they work and what’s in it for you
Anyone who has ever played at an online casino will have come across the words ‘bonus’, ‘casino bonus’, ‘free spins’, ‘deposit bonus’ or other variations of these.
But what is a casino bonus, how does it work, why do casinos give them out, are they worth your while, what are wagering requirements and above all: what’s in it for you when it comes to bonuses?
What is a casino bonus?
A casino bonus is a reward given out by casinos to players. At the most basic level, they’re given out for two reasons: as a reward for doing something you’ve already done or as a dangled carrot for something the casino wants you to do.
An example of the former would be a casino rewarding a player who has been very active over the past month. If you’ve wagered 100 CAD/USD over the past month, the casino may give you a 5 CAD/USD bonus at the end of the month as a reward for your loyalty.
An example of the latter would be the casino offering 50% more to play with should you make a deposit the next week. So, when you deposit 100 CAD/USD, you’ll actually have 150 CAD/USD in your account immediately or shortly after making that deposit.
Types of bonuses
Here’s a very quick lowdown of the most common types of casino bonuses you might receive.
Deposit Bonus- Extra money to play with when you make a deposit. A typical example would be ‘50% up to 100 CAD/USD’. The 50% relates to what they’re giving you; in this case it’s 50 cents for every dollar deposited. The ‘up to’ means the maximum amount you can get as a bonus, in this case 100 CAD/USD. Basic maths tells you that to get the maximum amount you’d need to deposit 200 CAD/USD. Even if you deposited 500 CAD/USD, you’d still only get 100 CAD/USD.
Welcome Bonus- When a player signs up, the casino will always give you a welcome bonus. The most common form of welcome bonus is a particularly generous deposit bonus, as per above. Over the last few years, casinos have offered generous bonuses not just on a customer’s first deposit but their first three or four. The welcome bonus may extend to several parts. Beyond the deposit bonus, you might also get 50 free spins on a particular slot and 10 CAD/USD to use however you like in their Live Casino.
Free Spins- Spins paid for in advance by the casino for you to use on a particular slot or a choice of slots but very rarely, on any slot. Not to be confused with in-game free spins, which is the most common form of slot bonus feature awarded on the slot itself.
BET X, Get X- The casino may have taken note that whereas a player loves their slots, they’re yet to visit their Live Casino. So, they may offer a bonus where if they wager 10 CAD/USD on any Live Casino game, they’ll get a bonus for the same amount to use in Live Casino, whether their original 10 CAD/USD wagered won or lost.
Cashback bonus– Players get a percentage of what they lost over a certain period paid back to them. For example, a player who lost 500 CAD/USD in a month may get 50 CAD/USD given back to them to use as a bonus.
Wagering Requirements
What are they?
Now to the elephant in the room. Are casinos really happy to give away millions of bucks and millions more free spins to their players every year as bonuses?
Not quite. That’s because the vast majority of bonuses carry something called wagering requirements. They’re a way of the casino protecting itself.
Imagine if you got 100 CAD/USD as a deposit bonus. What’s to stop you from taking that money (plus your original deposit) and just withdrawing it all?
Or worse still for the casino: what’s to stop you taking 10 CAD/USD of your money, putting it on number 17 on Roulette, winning, and withdrawing your deposit, bonus money and those 350 CAD/USD in winnings?
The answer in both cases is wagering requirements. Without them any casino offering bonuses would quickly go bankrupt as players would claim bonuses and just take the money and run.
Wagering requirements are the casino’s way of saying: “We’re giving you something here but for this to be fair, you’re going to have to beat the casino before you can withdraw that money’.
Meeting wagering requirements
The problem is you don’t just need to beat the casino once or twice, you need to beat it 15, 30, sometimes 70 times!
Say the wagering requirements are 35x on a 100 CAD/USD 50 CAD/USD deposit bonus. Before being able to withdraw your bonus, you’d need to play through the bonus (and winnings) 35x. In monetary terms, you’d need to place 1,750 CAD/USD before you could withdraw.
And there’s more.
Some casino games are easier to win at than others. Playing basic strategy blackjack or red or black on roulette gives you just under a 50% chance of winning. But your odds of winning on certain slots or Keno, are much lower.
So, the casino may exclude certain (fairer) casino games from the list of those you can play to meet the wagering requirements or state that playing some games (e.g., Blackjack) contributes less to meeting those wagering requirements than others.
Another thing to be aware of: with some deposit bonuses, the wagering requirements apply both to the bonus itself (and winnings) as discussed, but also to the actual deposit. Meaning you’re leaving your own money hostage to the wagering requirements, as well, not just the bonus.
Winnings generated from free spins work the same way.
Overall conclusion: being able to withdraw the bonus and winnings from it is easier said than done; in most cases players won’t be able to do so.
That’s where the exact amount of the wagering requirements is so important. Wagering requirements of say 20x are manageable, but if it’s 50x or greater, it’s near-on impossible.
What’s in it for you
The above section may suggest casino bonuses are all doom and gloom.
Whereas it’s important to make players aware of the pitfalls of them and challenge of actually getting bonus money and winnings from them out of the casino and into your own pocket, there are certainly upsides to them.
Play more– Forgetting about wagering requirements for a minute, bonus money gives you the chance to play more casino games for real money, as opposed to free play mode. Whether that means more of your favourites or experimenting new ones you might not normally have played with using your own money.
Improve your game– Let’s say you’re all about Blackjack. Using all that extra bonus money will help you perfect your game so that when you play for (non-bonus) money, you’re better prepared to beat the house.
No deposit bonuses really are freebies- As we started by saying, with some casino bonuses you don’t need to do anything at all to get them. A 10 CAD/USD no deposit bonus or 10 free spins for being a loyal customer really are a gift in exchange for… you not doing anything! So, you might as well use them!
Cashback softens the blow- If you’ve received a cashback bonus, it’s because you’ve had a bad month. But being given some of that money back means that at worst you can carry on playing without depositing more, at best you may actually win some of your money back.
Wagering requirements hard, not impossible, to turn over– Like it says on the tin. Players have withdrawn millions of bucks over the years in bonus money and winnings from it. It just takes some luck and a strategy of how to do it. For example: working out which games are your best bet to win on. Again: that’s where the exact number (20x, 35x) is so important. The lower, the better.
Conclusion
Players should pick and choose which bonuses to take. The genuine freebies like free spins and cashback have no downside to them.
Others like deposit bonuses, do.
In general, it’s a bad idea to commit your own deposited money to wagering requirements because you may never see it again. Also ask yourself: would I normally make a deposit of 300 CAD/USD if it didn’t lead to a big bonus? If the answer is no, then don’t do it.
However, if the wagering requirements were freakishly low, say 2x, then it may be worth it.
Read the terms and conditions very carefully before committing to receiving any bonus where you need to actually do something to get it and weigh up the pros and cons of claiming it.
