Most Common Types of Online Casino Bonuses
The competition between online gambling websites today is crazy. There are hundreds of online casinos, each of them fighting for the players’ attention and doing everything to become the one you’d want to choose for your bets. And what do they use to stand out of the crowd? Long lists of games and depositing options, bright banners, marketing materials, and, of course, a variety of bonuses and special offers. Most of them look perfectly good at the first glance, but sometimes, you need to dig deeper to learn the truth.
As I’ve spent more than 7 years in the gambling industry working as a casino dealer, manager, and professional player, I have plenty of experience when it comes to choosing the best bonus possible. And while you might not have such experience yourself, you can learn from my mistakes and quickly become a guru of online casino promotions. But before we start with the detailed instructions, let’s take a closer look at the most common types of bonuses you can find in most of the online casinos today. First of all, there is a group of bonuses you can get if you are a new player who never made bets in the casino before:
- ❇️ Deposit bonus. Also known as a deposit match, it’s the most sought offer casino promotion of all. Once you sign up at a casino and make your first deposit, you’ll be rewarded with a 100% match, meaning your NZ$100 deposit will turn into NZ$200 one. Some more generous casinos can even give you a 200% or 300% bonus.
- ❇️ Free spins bonus. This is exactly what you could guess from the name — a set of free spins to spend on your favourite pokies. In most cases, free spins are the part of the welcome package, but they can also be a stand-alone bonus too.
- ❇️ No deposit bonus. You can get this bonus as a welcome gift from a casino with no previous deposits made. It’s not going to be as big as a deposit match, usually not more than NZ$5-10, but it’s still a good thing to claim if you want to look around the casino and try some games without actually paying for it.
New players are not the only ones who can benefit from casino bonuses. The loyal ones can get some freebies too as online casinos want you to stay and play for a long time instead of switching to a new website every day. Here are the bonuses you can expect to get if you are a loyal casino player:
- ❇️ Reload bonus. This bonus is given to the frequent players as a reward for making another deposit. It can be a deposit match or some other amount of bonus money.
- ❇️ Cashback bonus. When a casino doesn’t want you to get too upset when you lose, it can offer you a cashback bonus so you can get, for instance, 10% of all your losses back into your account.
- ❇️ VIP bonus. If you are a member of the casino’s VIP program, you can expect a variety of rewards. It can be money, special gifts, tickets to gambling events, and so on.
Finding the Best Bonus For Your Needs (GUIDE)
It might seem that choosing a casino bonus is not difficult at all: you just open a casino website and see a bunch of offers waiting for you to claim them. But in fact, not all of them are worth claiming, and I urge you to be careful and attentive. To choose the best bonuses for myself, I created a 6-step instruction that you can follow too. Here it is:
If you don’t think you are ready to look for the bonus yourself or just don’t have time for it, you can always opt for my list of the best online casino offers. I divided the bonuses into several nominations so that every player can find something perfectly suitable for them. So think what exactly you are looking for at the moment — and pick a winner of the respective nomination.
You can also look for the best casino bonuses using the filter feature here on my website. Sort through the latest bonuses to see the freshest and newest promotions, take a look at the top bonuses if you are looking for the best multiplier, or filter through the biggest offers if you are in the need of the best deal possible.
Check the wagering requirements
The first thing you need to do when you see a bonus that seems nice is to open its T&C and look for the part devoted to the wagering requirements. Wagering requirements are the number of times you’d need to bet the bonus money until you are able to withdraw it. If you are surprised now — no, you can’t claim a bonus and withdraw the money immediately, otherwise, most of the casinos would go bankrupt.
The number stated in the wagering requirements might vary from 10x to 70x or even 100x. I personally believe that it shouldn’t exceed 40x for the bonus to be lucrative and worth claiming. WR can also be different for the different parts of a welcome package such as bonus money and free spins, so make sure to check all the details in advance.
Take a look at the set of games you can use the bonus for
The next thing to check is the set of games available to use the bonus for. Even though it would be great to have thousands of pokies and table games to choose from and play them all for free, it’s almost never the case, as the choice of games where players can use their bonus money or free spins is rather limited. It never includes live casino games, rarely includes table games, and in most cases, will have a few pokies — so your goal is to define whether these are the pokies you’d like to play or you don’t want to do it even for free.
If you are not satisfied with the games the casinos are offering you to play with your bonus money, you can always take a look at my list of free demos. Unfortunately, they won’t bring you the wins, but it’s a good way to test the water and come up with the best betting strategy before you start betting the real money.
Pay attention to deposit and bet limits
Wagering requirements are not the only limitations you are going to have when dealing with casino bonuses, and here come the deposit and bet limits for you to take a look at. The minimum deposit limit is the amount of money you are required to put into your account to be able to claim the bonus. In most cases, it’s not too big, so you’ll hardly have any problems with that — but it doesn’t mean there is no need to pay attention to this factor.
Bet limits are the limitations put on the bets you’ll be making with the bonus money. It’s the maximum bet limit in this case, as most likely, the casino will prohibit you from making larger bets using its money instead of your own. Thus, you won’t be able to hit a jackpot while betting the bonuses. And that’s okay, smaller winnings are better than no winnings, just make sure the maximum bet limit is not too low.
Make sure there are no restricted payment options
I put this step in the middle of this list though it’s actually one of the most important ones. Before you make your deposit in a casino waiting for a generous welcome bonus or any other promotion, you need to check whether there are any payment methods restrictions stated in the bonus T&C. Some casinos don’t allow their bonuses to be claimed by players who used e-wallets like Neteller, Skrill or PayPal for their deposits, and believe me, this is the thing you’d like to know before you deposited a couple of hundreds with the restricted payment method.
Learn whether the bonus is cashable
Here is the thing: there are two kinds of bonuses — the cashable and non-cashable ones. The cashable bonus is the one you can withdraw together with your winnings and deposit money, providing you’ve met the wagering requirements. The non-cashable bonus is the one that you won’t be able to withdraw in any case — just your winnings and the money you deposited yourself. I can’t say this is the decisive factor for me when choosing a casino bonus, but this is definitely the thing I recommend checking.
Opt for the bonuses with a longer validity time
Your last step is also the last limitation on your way to the best casino bonus, and now we are talking about time. The bonus you claim won’t last forever, unfortunately, and you must know the bonus validity time to not miss a chance to use it and get the wins. While some bonuses last for 24 hours only, I prefer the ones that can be wagered for at least 72 hours as I prefer not to hurry up when it comes to online gambling.
How to Claim the Casino Bonus
Now when you know how to select the best casino bonus, you are ready to claim it and make use of the money and free spins.
Stay Safe While Playing With Casino Bonuses
Taking a risk is an inevitable part of online gambling, but there are some things I don’t want you to risk, such as your safety and the safety of your personal/financial information. That’s why I recommend you to only make your bets and claim bonuses in safe and reliable online casinos that hold proper licenses and fairness certificates and can protect you from fraudsters or cyber-attacks. There are two things you can do to ensure the casino you are going to play in meets these requirements:
- Check my list of the best online casinos to find the websites proven by time, me, and thousands of other players.
- Check my casino blacklist where I put all the shady websites to make sure the casino of your choice is not in there.
Thus, you’ll ensure the highest quality of your gambling process and will significantly increase the possible amount of money you can get — as betting in shady online casinos can leave you with no money at all.
Conclusion
It’s always nice to get some free stuff, especially when that free stuff is the bonus money from online casinos. But hunting the best bonuses all the time can get pretty tiring, especially if you stop focusing on playing and having fun and start focusing on getting the most lucrative promotion only.
Luckily, now you don’t need to hunt for the casino bonuses yourself, as I have them all gathered in one place. Just pick the one you like, claim it, and may the luck will always be on your side!
