When you log into online casinos, you always see bonuses galore. It’s great for you, but surely there’s a reason why there are so many offers. It’s certainly not out of the goodness of their hearts.
Online casinos are always looking for ways to make more money and get new players. On top of more conventional advertising strategies such as internet banner ads, many casinos like to utilise bonus offers.
What are bonus offers?
Casino bonus offers are difficult to clearly define, as there are many variations on them. Popular ones include things like free spins on Slots games, bonus credits to bet on casino games, and match bonuses.
Using bonus offers can help you to gain an edge and increase your chances of success. They also allow you to experience what an online casino has to offer without needing to spend any money.
It’s important to note that most casino bonus offers are not as simple as getting “free money”. Generally, there are going to be terms and conditions associated with the offer. For instance, a bonus offer might be subject to a wagering requirement, meaning you need to bet a certain amount of your own money before the offer will activate.
The key to using bonus offers successfully is to carefully read the terms and conditions before you start playing. Making assumptions about what the terms are is a bad idea, as they are not always self-explanatory. For example, you might only be able to make up your wagering requirement by playing on a specific game.
Why are they offered?
The reason casinos have bonus offers is quite simple; they are used to advertise and promote a casino site. When players get the chance to play for free or to double their winnings, they are more likely to play at a casino site.
What are casino bonus codes?
These days, casino bonus codes are less common than they used to be. In the past, you would need to have a special code in order to qualify for a bonus offer. The intention was to give these bonus offers an “exclusive” feel.
Eventually, people figured out all you needed to do was type in “Casino X bonus code” into Google and you would instantly get the code you needed. Since acquiring codes became so easy, most casinos have stopped requiring them and simply give bonus offers to every customer.
Wagering requirements
Wagering requirements are how casino sites are able to offer bonuses while still remaining profitable. Basically, if you receive bonus cash by taking advantage of an offer, you will need to bet a certain amount of your own money to withdraw any of the winnings.
For example, let’s say you receive a £100 welcome bonus. Looking at the terms and conditions, you can see it is subject to a 20x wagering requirement. This means you would need to wager £2,000 before you would be eligible to withdraw any winnings you gained using the bonus.
As you can see, casinos stand to make a lot of money by offering these kinds of bonuses to their players. They carefully consider the kinds of wagering requirements they are going to use on their bonuses.
They don’t want to make it too generous as they could lose money, but they don’t want to make the amount too difficult to reach. With the right kinds of bonus offers, players will gamble for longer and spend more money.
Less bonus offers?
As a UK online casino player, you might have noticed the number of casino bonus offers available is declining. This is the effect of the recent crackdown on bonus terms and conditions by the UK Gambling Commission and the Competition and Markets Authority.
These regulatory bodies found that the terms and conditions of these bonus offers were often unfair to the consumer. Some sites made it difficult to figure out what the bonus terms actually were by hiding the terms and conditions in hard-to-reach areas of the site.
They announced steps would be taken to ensure bonus offers were being fairly represented to players, threatening hefty fines for any companies that didn’t comply. Instead of risking heavy fines, many operators decided to simply stop offering bonuses, which is why you are seeing less of them these days.
Always read and understand the terms
Bonus offers are not really a scam, but they do try to profit from people who don’t read the terms and conditions. If you are thinking of playing with a bonus offer, make sure you find the terms and conditions and read them carefully. The vast majority of bonus offers seem too good to be true, and if you read the fine print, you usually confirm this is the case.
