Online Casino Gambling

Understanding Online Casino Bonus Terms

Understanding casino bonus terms and conditions

Almost all online casinos offer free money bonuses, or first deposit match bonuses. But of course there's no such thing as a free lunch, and it pays to be aware of the terms and conditions attached to them. In return for giving you free money the casino expects you to "spend" that money by playing its games. So you won't find a casino that will just give you a free money bonus and then allow you to withdraw it straight away. You have to earn the money by wagering it. Let's look a bit closer at how this process works.

The importance of the casino 'hold'

What is common to all casino bonus offers of free money is that in order to withdraw either the bonus or the additional money you have won, you need to play more.

From the casino's point of view that's the whole point. It's simple math - because the casino has a slight statistical edge on you all the time (known in casino parlance as the 'hold'), in the long run the casino stands more of a chance of winning than you do. This edge is a small percentage advantage - at most online casinos across all games it averages out to between 2 - 3%, but multiplied by a large number of players this can earn the casino a lot of money.

This is of course common knowledge to all but the most naïve online or real world gambler, and is accepted practice - it's part of the deal. The casino is statistically more likely to win money from each player, and it is this that allows it to fund the big payouts that players sometimes win. We know that the house has this edge, but we also know that we have a chance of beating the edge by winning big once in a while - that's why we play.

So it's a matter of simple mathematical expediency that the more the casino can get you to play, the more it is likely to win from you.

Play-through conditions

The way the casino gets you to play more in return for your free money bonus is to make it a condition of the bonus offer that you 'play through' the bonus amount a specified number of times. This means that, for example, if you received a $100 free money bonus, you need to place wagers equivalent to a multiple of that bonus - say 30x. So in order to be able to withdraw your bonus, you must first place bets to the value of $3,000. This is generally easy enough to achieve - by wagering modest amounts, with the normal win/loss ratio, you'll be able to make bets to this value using nothing more than the $100 you were given.

The risk involved for you is that as you play through this wagering requirement, you slowly start losing money, so that at the end of it you have less money in your account than you started with. While the casino may have given you $100, by the time you've wagered enough to meet the play-through requirements, you'll perhaps only have $60 left that you are now free to withdraw. Naturally some players will win more and be able to withdraw the full bonus amount plus additional winnings, but statistically they will always be in the minority.

Of course it would be suicide for the casino to stack the odds too heavily in its favor - if enough people don't win enough money, they will move to a casino that is more favorable, so casino statisticians carefully calculate the points at which the casino will make as much money as possible, while keeping players happy enough to carry on playing.

Check the terms and conditions

So always remember to check the casino's promotional terms and conditions to see exactly what wagering requirements are attached to the bonus offer, and what conditions you need to meet in order to withdraw your initial winnings or free money. All reputable online casinos will make these terms and conditions available to you - while they won't exactly advertise them, they'll always provide a link to them, from the Promotions page on their web site, for instance. Read them so that you know exactly what is required of you before you make a deposit in order to get a free money bonus.