Online casinos always seek ways to attract customers. The growing audience is one of the key factors that determine the success of the gambling website. Therefore, various marketing tricks aimed to gain and retain the players are a common practice in the online gambling industry.
Online casinos and bonuses always go together shoulder-to-shoulder. There is still no tool that attracts new players better than free money. Thus, every online casino has its own bonus system in force, aimed at both new and existing players.
So, this article is intended to provide you with several helpful hints on how to get the best welcome bonus casino offer and the way they actually work. It is always better to know what the conditions are before you agree to something.
Why Do Casinos Give You Bonuses?
Obviously, $100 bonus money is not equal to $100 from your pocket. The casino itself is the institution that issues these cash bonuses. They have no authority to answer for their liquidity. For an online casino, no deposit, welcome and match bonuses are just a way to convert your from just a visitor into a client.
However, of course, there is a chance that you win with the money you get for free. In this case, wagering requirements are something that protects casinos from losing their revenue.
How Do Wagering Requirements Impact Your Win?

It is a piece of cake. When you agree to use any kind of bonus, you need to unlock it. In other words, to use bonuses, you need to bet (or wager) your real money. The amount you have to put at risk often exceeds the money you finally get for free.
However, you cannot accuse online casinos of being dishonest. The rules are outlined in the Terms and Conditions and are quite common for the industry. To know the trick, you just need to be more attentive.
How Can You Calculate What You Get?
If wagering requirements are still something unclear, no worries. The following will explain it to you in addition to game contributing percentage and game’s house edge. It’s all is necessary to understand before you actually get to play in the casino.
Wagering Requirement
Basically, this is the number of times you have to wager the deposit plus bonus money before the bonus amount can be withdrawn. In other words, you do not get to withdraw bonuses before you bet your deposited money along with bonus several times. This number is usually from 20 to 40 times.
Game Contributing Percentage
Some games weigh more than others though. To calculate their ‘importance,’ online players use game contributing percentage. For games like Baccarat, Blackjack, and Roulette this percentage is usually 50% – just a half from other games in the casino.
Game House Edge
This percentage means how much profit the casino expects to make in the long term from this particular game. For example, if this is only 2%, it means that the casino expects to get a 2% profit from this game in the long run. For you as a player, this percentage may affect how much time you need to spend before you actually can see a profit.
How Do Casino Makes Money from Bonus?
To earn a reputation of the best online casino, a casino must offer bonuses. This is a general rule in the industry. Yet, no gambling institution will work for free or agree to face losses. Therefore, there must be something that makes bonuses less loss-making.
Wagering requirements are what it is. When you play bonus-free, the amount you should be ready to lose is calculated by multiplying game contributing percentage and house edge. When you activate your bonus, the formula gets more complicated.
It now includes wagered amount (deposit plus bonus multiplied by wagering requirement and game contributing percentage) that is further multiplied by the house edge.
Expected loss = (deposit+bonus)*wagering requirement*GCP*GHE
And, guess what? This calculation always makes you lose more than you get as a bonus. Thus, in fact, it is impossible to win this bonus money at all.
So, Why Do People Agree to Get Bonuses?
Indeed, bonuses are a marketing trick. There are also casinos that offer no deposit bonus codes that have no deposit requirement. Such bonuses let players learn how to play different games without real money. Thus, they can win without spending even a dollar. A zero-wagering requirement is unusual, but it is real. For many casinos, such bonuses work better than any advertisement, attracting hundreds of clients referred by the casino’s loyal players.
The key recommendation for you as a player is to read Terms and Conditions and agree to bonuses if you really see them helpful. Do not let your winnings fade as well as try not to gate trapped with wagering schemes. There are bonuses that come with no price.
BIO
Jeff Blaylock is a freelance writer who is also a fan of the Baccarat game. He is very much into studying the gambling market and all that comes with it. In this article, he reflects a bit about his independent research on casino bonuses and their traps.