When you visit land based casinos, they generally offer comps, and loyalty programs that award customers points, that they can then redeem for things like free trips to a buffet or other dining establishment within the casino, or event tickets, or sometimes silly marketing items like t-shirts, hats, and even Frisbees.
Online casinos also offer comps too, generally however when an online casino offers a comp, it’s in the form of cold hard casino cash. Well not exactly cash, more like casino credits.
Types of Casino Bonuses
No Deposit Bonus
This bonus is everyone’s favorite bonus at an Internet casino. It’s purely free cash, the casino gives the player a few bucks, usually less than 10, but sometimes more than 30 to try the casino sites games out with. These bonuses are usually offered to brand new players, and sometimes offered to players that haven’t played in a while, or on special occasions such as the player’s birthday or wedding anniversary.
First Time Deposit or Welcome Bonus
The most common type of online casino bonus is a welcome bonus offered to new depositing players at the casino site. Generally, the casino will match your casino deposit up to a preset limit by 100, 200, and sometimes even 400% or higher.
This process is pretty simple to understand, you make a deposit to a brand new online casino account and up to that limit, your deposit is doubled, or tripled, or perhaps quadrupled.
Redeposit Bonus
Many casinos offer redeposit bonuses on bonuses made on special days and during promotions. Additionally, players that have worked their way up in the casino sites loyalty programs are sometimes offered bonuses on all future deposits. In any case, the higher the players position in the loyalty program, the higher the deposit bonus, we’ll look further into that when we talk specifically about loyalty and comp programs however.
Bet365 Redeposit Bonus
Bet365 Casino offers us a prime example of a casino with redeposit bonuses the casino offers four redeposit bonuses every week totaling $6000.00 in redeposit bonuses from the casino site month. The way the bonus scheme at Bet365 works, the player enters the bonus code BONUS3000 whenever they make a deposit to their casino account, after they’ve claimed their initial deposit bonuses.
Then the player processes their deposit of at least $100 into their account at Bet365, players from China, and Bronze level players actually have to deposit $200. The casino will then match that deposit bonus by 10% for players in China and bronze level players or by 20% for all other players.
The bonus can be claimed once per day up to four times per week. Players can earn as much as $400 by depositing, so the total weekly Bundle Bonus available is $6000.00.
Clearing a Casino Bonus
Every casino requires the player to clear their bonus before they cash-out. That’s just part of the game, so you may as well get used to it now. In fact, when you’re looking at new casinos, and trying to find the best casino bonuses, bonus clearing requirements are something you should be taking into consideration.
For instance, some casinos require that you wager all bonus money at least once. It’s rare, but they do exist, usually as part of specific promotions. Others may require that the players wager the money 10 times, or 20. In the fine print the casino will say that they have a 20x, 30x or 40x rollover requirement. That’s the amount of times that the player must wager the bonus before they are eligible to cash-out any winnings.
Some crazy casinos may void any progressive winnings if bonuses aren’t cleared yet. Other casinos will void any and all winnings if the player tries to cash-out prior to clearing the bonus, and other casinos will simply decline withdrawal requests if the player hasn’t cleared their bonus yet.
William Hill Casino for instance requires players to wager at least 20x the amount of their bonus before cashing out.
Bonus Clearing Game Selection
Another thing to take note of is that not all games clear casino bonuses at the same rate. This varies per casino, so you’ll have to read the terms for each and every bonus that you are considering. For instance, looking at the William Hill casino bonus again, any slots game earns the players 100% of the bet in credit towards clearing the bonus. That’s not the case with every game offered though, in fact, most table games are only counted at 25% of the initial bet and blackjack and a few other games offer even less credit toward bonus clearance at 20%, unless you’re playing blackjack switch, pontoon or a few other games that only clear at a 5% rate.
We’re not bashing William Hill by the way, this is how pretty much all online casinos work, there’s even a reason for the method. The player has the best odds of beating the house when they play the games that clear bonuses at the worst rates. The house can’t afford to pay out as much free cash to blackjack players as they can to slots players, because blackjack players over time, using proper blackjack strategy actually can obtain a small edge over the house and either drastically decrease losses or actually make money playing blackjack online.
The Biggest Bonus isn’t Always the Best Bonus
There are a few reasons that the biggest bonus might not always be the best bonus, one involves bonus clearing. In some cases, players actually lose any winnings that are acquired using bonus funds, if they attempt to cash-out prior to clearing the bonus, another reason is as we mentioned above, the way to clear a bonus is by betting it a specific number of times. It’s probably a lot easier to clear a $20 bonus that has to be wagered 20 times than it is to clear a $1000.00 bonus that has to be wagered even just 15 times right?
Another reason one bonus might be better than another involves the value for the player, looking at the redeposit bonus we mentioned above for instance, Bet365 is giving the player from 10-20% in redeposit bonuses up to a maximum amount of $6000.00 per week.
The total amount of the bonus ($6000.00) is huge; however, the percentage probably isn’t the best you can find in the industry, especially if you keep your eyes out for reload bonus promotions. For instance, William Hill Casino is offering a 50% Extra Bankroll bonus up to a maximum of £200. The money here is smaller; we’re talking 200 free as opposed to $6000.00 right? However in one case we’re talking about doubling your cash, and in the case of Betfair, we’re talking about just 10-20%. So the return on your investment is actually better at William Hill.