One of the primary things we look at before we open an account at any of the new casinos is what they offer as welcome bonuses. And as you probably know, they appear in any way you might imagine. But why do casinos offer bonuses, and what makes a bonus good?
What is a bonus?
If you’re new to playing at online casinos, you might not be familiar with the concept of a welcome bonus. Typically, it means that the casino will offer you some sort of incentive for signing up and creating a new account with them and making a deposit. Most commonly the types of bonuses you’ll find are either casino bonus, cash or free spins, or a combination of the three. Another type of bonus is the cashback offer, which gives you a little bit of cash back if you lose money. Additionally, some casinos will also offer bonuses in the shape of giveaway items or even paid vacations.
Free Spins vs Cash Bonuses
Do you prefer games of random chance or do you like to have more control over what you win and lose? A ”100 free spins” bonus is a perfectly acceptable bonus for most players, but if you’re a pro card shark who likes to clean up at the poker, blackjack or baccarat tables, you probably couldn’t care less about free spins.
As it happens, the casinos don’t exactly let you choose what bonus you want. Take it or leave it is the name of the game. So as an online casino player, it’s up to you to search the web and find a casino that suits your playing style. Other than that, one option could be to use up your free spins and try to convert them into cash that you can then put on the card tables or use in the live casino
So how do you know if a bonus is good?
There are several factors to consider before you decide if a bonus is really as good as the casino’s advertising makes it sound. To get 400 free spins without any wagering requirements, or a 500% deposit bonus sounds totally fantastic… but before you wet your pants in excitement, it’s usually a good idea to have a quick look at the bonus terms. Here are some examples we’ve seen that might dull the excitement a little:
- There’s a limit on how much you can earn for your free spins. Sometimes it’s as low as £50.
- The wagering requirement can be as high as 90-100 times the bonus amount.
- You might have a very short time frame to qualify for the bonus. The worst we’ve seen so far: 1 hour!
- There could be wagering requirements on BOTH the bonus and your actual deposit.
All of these are things which significantly diminish the value of the bonus and might be a bit of a buzz-kill.
If we reverse the list above, you have a good list of criteria for what actually makes a good bonus. In other words:
- No limits to how much you can win.
- A wagering requirement of less than 35x.
- At least 30 days to fulfill the terms of the bonus.
- Wagering requirements on only the bonus itself and the winnings from free spins.
- Low deposit requirements or no deposit requirements.
- An option to opt out of the bonus completely. Many players don’t want to deal with wagering requirements and fulfilling certain criteria, and they just want to play and enjoy the games
Conclusion
Nu that we’re on the topic of wagering requirements, there’s something going on right now in the online casino world. More and more casinos are completely eliminating the wagering requirements on their bonuses. This is something we here at www.bestcasino.com have been waiting for a long time.
We’re totally okay that we might not be able to withdraw the bonus cash – we do get to keep all the profits that we earn. So if you’re received wagerfree bonus of £100 and you’ve won £1,000, then you have £1100 cash-in-hand, ready to withdraw.
THAT’S what we call a good bonus!
