If you are looking for an online casino, you will find numerous bonus offers. In some cases, breathtakingly high sums are promised. However, not every bonus offer is attractive and recommendable. It is particularly important to know the bonus conditions in advance. You can only benefit from a good offer if you are optimally prepared for a casino bonus. Sometimes, however, it can also make sense to completely forego a bonus, including a high welcome bonus. If the bonus conditions are not attractive or contain unpleasant disadvantages, you will fare better if you voluntarily waive the supposed bonus advantage.
Do reputable online casinos even offer a bonus?
Almost all online casinos have at least one new customer bonus in their program. Often there are also various bonus offers for existing customers. It is a rare exception for a casino to offer no bonus at all. The difference between reputable and less serious providers can be found elsewhere: Serious casinos enable their customers to voluntarily forego a bonus. This regulation mainly affects the welcome bonus. Bonus offers for existing customers usually have to be activated with a bonus code or another active promotion anyway. With every bonus offer, it makes sense to look very carefully. There are lucrative offers on the market, both for new customers and for existing customers. But it is not recommended to take every bonus.
Should you accept a welcome bonus?
There is no general answer to this question, as it always depends on the bonus conditions and your own ambitions. However, it should always be a fair and serious bonus offer. You can't just sit back and trust that every bonus is a gift. If a welcome bonus has extremely high wagering requirements or unfair payout rules, you should voluntarily refrain. For the typical fun player, a fair bonus offer is a great thing. If you just want to have fun, you can often increase your budget significantly with a lucrative welcome bonus. If, on the other hand, you play more strategically and with long-term goals, it may make sense to forego a fair welcome bonus. It is important that you find out how the welcome bonus will be activated before registering. If you want to take advantage of the bonus, you need to know the rules. But even if you want to forego the bonus, it is important to know what exactly you have to do.
Wagering requirements - what do you have to consider?
The wagering requirement is in the bonus terms and conditions that exist in a reputable online casino for every bonus offer, possibly also as part of the terms and conditions. The wagering requirement tells the customer that the bonus and possibly also the deposited amount must be converted x times. Winnings can only be paid out if the wagering requirement has been met.
Which wagering requirements are good, which are bad?
It is common for not all games to be rated 100 percent. This is mainly due to the fact that the odds of the various casino games are very different. For example, table games such as roulette, blackjack or baccarat can have a payout ratio of over 98 percent. That is why the turnover with table games is often only partially assessed. Sometimes entire game categories are excluded or reduced. However, it can also happen that individual games are excluded.
Bonus conditions in which there are prohibited games are particularly ugly. Even a single round in one of the forbidden games can then lead to the bonus being completely deleted at the end. If the rules are clearly and transparently documented, it is not a dubious procedure. But bonus conditions are more customer-friendly, as they do not immediately compensate for every small mistake by deleting the bonus. An important factor, for example, is that there is usually a bonus period that starts with the activation of the bonus. Many casinos have generous bonus deadlines, but sometimes you only have a few days or hours (especially with free spins!) To reach the sales target. The sales target is specified with the sales requirement. With this bonus rule, it is important to pay particular attention.
It is relatively difficult to specify a lower limit for the cheapest minimum wagering, as there are many other factors that can make bonus terms more or less attractive. But in general it can be said that a 25-fold turnover of the bonus or the deposited amount is an attractive requirement. Sometimes this turnover is also divided between the bonus and the deposited amount. A significantly higher turnover target can still be attractive if the other bonus conditions are designed in a customer-friendly manner.
Attention with bonus deposit!
The wagering requirement indicates how often the deposited amount and the bonus must be converted. Sometimes only the bonus amount has to be wagered x times, sometimes only the deposit amount. However, many casinos have a wagering requirement that applies to both the bonus and the deposit amount. For example, if it is stipulated that the deposit amount and the bonus must be converted 30 times, it is not enough to only convert the deposit amount or the bonus 30 times. Both credits must be played through 30 times.
If the wagering requirement only concerns the deposit amount, the matter is clear. The situation can be slightly different if the turnover target states that the bonus must be played through x times. Sometimes there is a further clause in the bonus conditions with such wagering requirements, which stipulates that the real money amount is always used first. Here, too, the following applies: You should look very carefully in order to understand in detail what turnover you have to achieve in order to achieve a bonus profit. To evaluate the quality of a bonus offer, you should compare the total sales. The bottom line is that the turnover target is twice as demanding if you not only have to wager the deposited amount, but also the bonus x times.
Special case: Casino bonus (almost) no deposit
The no deposit bonus is probably the most popular casino bonus. The reason is obvious: if you get a bonus without making a deposit, you have no risk at all. However, it is worth paying attention to the details, especially with a free bonus. It is not uncommon for the no deposit bonus to end up being linked to a deposit. A popular trick: First the bonus is credited without a deposit, but somewhere in the bonus conditions or in the terms and conditions it says that a deposit must be made before the first withdrawal. But it can still be an attractive and fair offer, because before you make your first deposit you already know whether you have made a bonus winnings or not. Another option may be to set the minimum withdrawal amount so high that it is practically impossible to overcome this hurdle with the no deposit bonus. Even with a successful use of the bonus without a deposit, a deposit is necessary in the end in order to be able to make a withdrawal at all.
There are also providers, for example Sunmaker Casino, who offer a new customer bonus that is almost free. At SlotV Casino, new customers can unlock a bonus of 15 euros with a deposit of 1 euro. This is a lucrative offer that is at least as good as an attractive no deposit bonus. Anyway, you should realize that most free bonus offers come with small bonus amounts. In practice, it does not happen that a casino, for example, offers a € 1,000 no deposit bonus. A typical free bonus in an online casino is 10-20 euros. Often free spins are also credited, which have a similarly high value. For example, it is possible to use the first free spins for free immediately after registration.
