- One of the online casino bonuses to avoid is any that require a no-eescape clause.
- High playthrough requirements can make it incredibly difficult to withdraw your winnings.
- Time limitations are another caveat you should watch out for when claiming online casino bonuses.
There’s simply no denying it—online casino bonuses can be too good to refuse sometimes.
of the Biggest Casino Companies in the World (and How They Work)Although I never encourage anyone to chase their losses or gamble with money they cannot afford, the odd freebie from the house isn’t the worst thing in the world.
Moreover, casinos online would not survive for long if they did not offer incentives to new customers. The competition is just too fierce these days, which means getting your hands on a good deal has become somewhat of an art form.
While it is true that casinos online restrict certain countries from accessing their bonuses, there are plenty of opportunities available to most players.
If you know where to look!
Unfortunately, not all bonuses are as good as they seem, which is why I want to talk about some of the ones you should avoid at all costs.
What Are the Different Types of Bonuses at Online Casinos?
Before we begin, let’s quickly go over some of the different types of online casino bonuses that you might come across.
While this is by no means an exhaustive list, it should give you a decent overview of what is out there.
No Deposit Casino Bonuses
These are arguably the most popular among casual players, mainly because they do not require you to deposit any of your own money.
In most cases, no deposit casino bonuses are capped at a few tens of dollars but can go much higher depending on the casino and the marketing campaign behind the bonus.
The best no deposit casino bonuses will come with reasonable terms and conditions regarding the playthrough requirement and expiration dates. However, some can be near impossible to beat. As always, read the fine print before accepting.
Deposit Match Bonuses
This is perhaps the most common type of promotion offered by casinos online. In essence, the house will match your initial deposit by a certain percentage, up to a specific amount.
For example, a 100% match bonus up to $100 means that if you deposit $100, the casino will give you another $100 free.
Cashback / Insurance Bonuses
This type of promotion is usually offered on lost bets and pays a portion of your losses back into your account. While it might sound awesome, cashback/insurance bonuses typically come with very low caps and high rollover requirements.
For instance, you might get 10% cashback on slots up to $25 capped at $50 before any rollover. This means that even if you lose $500 on slots, all you’ll receive is $25 once you meet the 5x playthrough.
Reload Bonuses
Much like the deposit-match offer, reload bonuses provide you with free credits based on deposits made outside of the sign-up period. These can range anywhere from 25% – 50% matches all the way up to 100% in some instances.
Slot Machine Myths THAT YOU SHOULD NEVER BelieveSticky Bonuses
In most instances, sticky bonuses cannot be withdrawn under any circumstances. They must be used for betting purposes only and will be removed from your account as soon as you have met the relevant playthrough requirements.
Some bonuses will be part sticky and part withdrawable, depending on the size of the promotion and other contributing factors.
Free Spins Bonuses
Arguably the second most popular offer (no deposit bonuses being first) is the humble free spins promo.
Most of these will be restricted to specific slots, which probably explains why they carry such lucrative terms and conditions. But more on that later…
What Are the Terms and Conditions That You Need to Watch Out For?
As enticing as many of these promotions may appear, there is often far more to them than meets the eye. This section will highlight several of the more unsavory terms and conditions attached to many of these bonuses, providing you with a clearer picture of what you are getting yourself into.
Playthrough Requirements (Rollover)
This refers to the number of times you need to gamble the sum of your deposit and bonus before anything you win on top is yours to keep. For instance, a 30x playthrough requirement would mean that you would need to wager 30 times the total value of your deposit and bonus before you could submit a withdrawal request.
£ Deposit Casino Sites in the UK (Big Win Possibilities)There is often both a minimum deposit amount and a maximum bonus cap associated with playthrough. For instance, the sliding scale below highlights how much you would need to deposit to meet a modest 20x playthrough requirement.
- $20 x 20 = $400 – You will need to deposit $20
- $50 x 20 = $1,000 – You will need to deposit $30
- $100 x 20 = $2,000 – You will need to deposit $70
- $200 x 20 = $4,000 – You will need to deposit $120
- $500 x 20 = $10,000 – You will need to deposit $320
It is worth noting that some casinos will apply the rollover requirement to the deposit, bonus, and any winnings derived from said bonus. Whereas others will include only the bonus and winnings. Always check how the playthrough is calculated before agreeing to accept any bonus!
Incidentally, Slot games generally contribute 100% towards playthrough, while scratch cards might be capped at 5%. Some card games like , video poker, and blackjack offer somewhere in between. It is down to you to find out exactly how your chosen game contributes towards playthrough before wasting too much time playing it.
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The second most important term you need to familiarize yourself with is the expiration date. This is the period within which you have to meet the playthrough requirements before the bonus expires.
If you fail to complete the rollover during this window, you will be required to forfeit the bonus and any winnings attributed to it.
Expiration periods can range anywhere from a couple of days to several months but are usually around the 30-day marker.
Let’s say that you claimed a $100 bonus with a 20x playthrough requirement and a 30-day expiry date. If we use our trusty sliding scale calculator once again;
- $20 x 20 = $400 – You would need wagers of $400 within 30 days.
- $50 x 20 = $1,000 – You would need wagers of $1,000 within 30 days.
- $100 x 20 = $2,000 – You would need wagers of $2,000 within 30 days.
- $200 x 20 = $4,000 – You would need wagers of $4,000 within 30 days.
- $500 x 20 = $10,000 – You would need wagers of $10,000 within 30 days.
When bonuses are involved, it is nigh on impossible to guarantee profits in the short term on online slots and other casino games. Many of us will end up losing most, if not all, of what we deposit and receiving bonus funds in the process.
It is imperative to remember that you are racing against time to turn over the bonus and any associated deposit before the expiration date runs out. Do not forget that you are almost certainly losing money overall in the short term and require a bankroll large enough to cover multiple losses.
Game Contribution Percentages
I touched on this briefly earlier but wanted to expand further as many players fall foul of unawareness in this area. Each game at an online casino will contribute differently towards playthrough, as highlighted by the table below, which applies to the .
As you can see, slots typically contribute 100%, meaning that every dollar wagered on slot games translates into a dollar reduction in your playthrough. Things start to change considerably when we move away from slots.
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It gets worse for those of you who enjoy table games, with virtually everything offering less than 25% contribution aside from Premier Roulette. Even then, the house edge on premium roulette is 2.70%, meaning it would take nearly 40 bets of equal size just to place a single dollar towards your playthrough!
Baccarat, Blackjack, and Casino Hold’em all have very low house edges regardless of where you play, so I would not waste my time trying to knock off playthrough on these games. Even if you happen upon a particularly nasty streak, it will take years to whittle down your roll.
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Maximum Bet Size
Another crucial term to familiarize yourself with is the maximum bet size. Casinos will often state that you cannot risk more than a certain percentage of the bonus and deposit combined.
For example, the cap at Bovada is 20% up to a maximum $5, which means that if you had claimed their welcome bonus and placed a bet larger than $0.50, you would have voided the wager.
Losing all of your bonus and deposit is never pleasant, but it is better than realizing weeks after claiming the bonus that all of your wagers were dead weight due to exceeding the maximum bet amount.
Withdrawal Limits
Even if you manage to jump through all of the hoops and claim a casino bonus, there is often a ceiling on how much you can withdraw in one go. I recently came across a promo offering a staggering 300% deposit match up to $9,000.
Great, right? Except that you could only withdraw $500 at a time, making it impossible to meet the rollover without providing numerous sets of ID and wasting huge amounts of time communicating with customer support.
Even if you managed to clear the bonus, it would take years to collect your winnings at a rate of $500 per pop. Needless to say, I avoided this particular offer like the plague!
Best Casinos in Florida, 2023- Top Gambling DestinationsPositive Balance Clause
Some of the more dubious promotions contain a “positive balance” clause, stating that you cannot claim the bonus if you have previously made a deposit and still held a positive balance.
While this might sound fair on the surface, it is often exploited by casinos to deny legitimate new players access to a sign-up offer. I have seen casinos go back months when claiming a no deposit bonus made null and void any subsequent offers.
Needless to say, I am not a fan of this nefarious practice!
The Worst Gambling Bonuses to Avoid at All Costs
Having set the scene regarding the shadier aspects of casino bonuses, I want to talk about some of the worst offers I have encountered throughout my decades-long career in online gambling.
Please note that the following promotions are not necessarily banned from paying out or expiring. Instead, they all share unsavory terms and conditions that I believe make them challenging to profit from in the short term.
No Deposit Bonuses with Massive Rollover Requirements
There are plenty of excellent no deposit bonuses out there, some of which do not even require you to verify your identity!
Others come with strings attached, including massive playthrough demands that are nigh on impossible to beat. Let’s check out two current examples below.
National Casino – 20 Free Spins No Deposit Bonus w/200x Wagering
National Casino is currently offering 20 free spins with no deposit using the code : NFLX20. Once you have registered and verified your account, the free spins can be used on the always popular Book of Dead.
- Highlights:
- 20 Free Spins
- No Deposit Required
- Code: NFLX20
- Wagering x200
- Game Weighting Applies
- Min. Deposit $10 – First Deposit Only: 100% Up To $500 + 100 Free Spins
- Key Terms: $30 to claim the bonus | 35x bonus + deposit wagering requirements | $5 max bonus stake | 45x on free spins | Bonus policy applies |
Only winning of $8 or more will count toward the wagering requirement, and you must meet a rolling wagering target of $200 before anything you win can be cashed out.
Given that the average RTP on National Casino is around 96%, this effectively means that you will need to lose $250 before you can submit a valid withdrawal request.
Even if you manage to dodge the bullets and clear the playthrough, the fact that game weighting is applied makes this a non-starter. Most games will contribute less than 100% towards the rollover, with many slot games capped at 90%!
DuckyLuck Casino – 150% + 150 Free Spins No Deposit Bonus w/25x Wagering
Things don’t get much better over at where things are even worse!
Once again, you can snap up 150% up to $150 and 150 free spins with no deposit using the code NL150. Things could be worse than a 25x playthrough; at least that is achievable in under two weeks.
Again, only wins of $8 or more will contribute toward the wagering requirement, and the majority of games weigh contributions at 90% or less!
That means it could take roughly $300 worth of wagers to knock $8 off your bonus and deposit balance!
Avoid at all costs!
Deposit Match Bonuses with Tiny Caps and Prohibitive Rollover
The next category of bonus that you should steer clear of is the deposit match offer with a tiny cap and mammoth playthrough. The good news here is that at least the free credits are supposed to exceed your deposit!
The bad news is that you often have to deposit a minimum of $25 or more to qualify, and the playthrough can easily hit 40x or higher. Here’s one from Las Atlantis to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.
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The flagship welcome bonus at features a 300% match up to $300 that requires a 40x rollover. Now, it is true that the slot contribution sits at 100%, but you must deposit at least $25 to qualify, making the playthrough $1,200.
Given that the average RTP on Las Atlantis is around 96%, this would mean that you would need to lose $6,000 before you could withdraw any winnings derived from the bonus.
Of course, there is a chance that you hit a big winner right out of the gate. But these tend to come with high roll targets of their own. So, you would still likely need to gamble 10x-20x your win to meet the rollover.
Reload Bonuses with Short Expiration Periods
Reload bonuses are a great way for reputable casinos to reward existing customers for their loyalty. Unfortunately, some of the lesser establishments flood their member’s inboxes with an endless stream of low-hanging fruit that are nigh on impossible to beat.
Here is an example of such a bonus from SlotsandCasino.com.
SlotsandCasino.com– 320% up to $320 with 40x Playthrough and 1 Day Expiration
On the face of it, 320% up to $320 does not sound bad at all. And it really isn’t if you have no intention of trying to beat it!
The playthrough is fairly standard at 40x, but the 1-day expiry period is truly abhorrent. This means that you have 24 hours to gamble £8 to £10 worth of every dollar you deposit and claim before the bonus expires.
You would need to make hundreds of wagers within that day to even have a shot at meeting the rollover. Not to mention the fact that the vast majority of players will lose the majority of their deposits over such a compressed timeframe.
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Cashback Insurance Bonuses with Ridiculous Rollover Requirements
Insurance bonuses are a great way for casinos to cushion the blow when things do not go your way. Again, there is nothing wrong with these promotions as long as the terms and conditions are reasonable.
Unfortunately, some establishments offer cashback deals with rollover requirements that make it pretty much impossible to actually cash out. Take a look at the current insurance bonus at BC.Game for an example of what not to do!
BC.game – 20% Unlimited Cashback w/30x Playthrough
At first glance, an unlimited 20% cashback bonus sounds awesome. But when you learn that it carries a 30x playthrough requirement, things suddenly look a little different.
Given that the average RTP at BC.game is around 96%, this would mean that you must lose $150 to generate $20 in cashback that comes with a 30x playthrough.
So, you would need to wager a total of $4,500 before you could submit a valid withdrawal request!
Sites That Offer Free Poker Tournaments Online 2023I think you will agree that this is nigh on impossible in the short term, especially considering that the majority of games on the site weight at 80% or lower. Meaning that it could take hundreds of wagers to knock off just $1 of playthrough!
Avoid this bonus like the plague!
Free Spins Promotions with Ludicrously Low Caps & Playthrough
Perhaps the most toxic of all online casino bonuses are those offering free spins. Don’t get me wrong, I love free spins! But you need to be aware of the small print before wasting time trying to trigger them.
The most damaging terms and conditions include tiny caps and sky-high playthrough, but even gameweighting and exponentially reducing spins can render these offers useless.
Check out the current free spins bonanza at Drake Casino for a textbook example.
Drake Casino – 200% up to $5,000 + 50 Free Spins with a 30x Playthrough (60x on Spins!) and $100 Weekly Withdrawals
I want to start by pointing out that the main promo at Drake Casino is not a bad offer, all things considered. Okay, $5,000 is a little excessive, but a 30x playthrough on just the deposit is perfectly achievable.
So do, let’s deposit $1,000 and be left with $1,300 after the playtenance. We now have 30x $300, which works out at a rollover of $9,000. Assuming we are skilled or lucky enough to achieve this within 30 days, we can withdraw $100 per week.
But hang on – the 50 free spins come with a 60x playthrough! So, those 50 spins are worth just $25, and we would need to lose $1,500 before we could withdraw said credits. Not only that, the spins must be used on Golden Dragon, a medium to highly volatile slot with a modest RTP.
Social Casinos That Actually Pay Out - Do You Know Which?Incredibly, these free spins expire after three days, so you have just 96 hours to lose $1,500 and meet the rollover!
I guess the silver lining is that you would undoubtedly learn whether that one-in-a-million jackpot was destined for you…
Avoid Bonuses Without Clear Terms & Conditions
It is not unusual to come across casino bonuses that claim “No Rules!” or similar slogans. More often than not, this indicates that the promotion is designed to rip you off rather than reward you.
I am not suggesting that you should be wary of such deals; I am telling you that you should never consider claiming an offer without clear terms and conditions!
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Every bonus must outline the following information:
- Amount of the Promotion.
- Valid Promotional Codes.
- Minimum Deposit to Qualify.
- Key Dates – When the Offer Expires.
- Minimum Deposit to Quality.
- Game Weights (Contribution Percentages).
- Playthrough (Rollover) Requirement.
- Minimum Deposit to Qualify.
- Minimum/Maximum withdrawal Amounts.
- Wagering Requirements for Free Spins.
- Maximum Bet Size When Claiming and Using a Bonus.
Any bonus lacking the above details should be treated with the utmost suspicion. Do not fall for scare tactics that claim “No Rules” as these are often designed to hide underhanded practices.
Remember, there are plenty of casinos offering transparent and fair bonuses! So, there is no reason to mess with sketchy promotions.
Avoid Bonuses with No Value Added
It is also important to avoid bonuses with no genuine value added. There is little point accepting a casino bonus that requires a playthrough of $10,000 for a $10 win.
I appreciate that some of you are thinking, “But what if they get lucky?” and it is true; luck counts for a lot in the short term. But these bonuses carry expiry dates, which means you are under enormous pressure to meet the rollover in a short space of time.
I would much rather gamble my own deposit than be lumbered with a credit score attached. But again, some people will find solace in the fact that “it might work for me.”
Avoid “No-Brainer” Horse Racing Bonuses
Longball and penalty shootouts in soccer are notoriously low-scoring. Especially the penalties! So, it would make sense to consider taking a plus-hundred or plus-seventy handicap on most online sportsbooks, right?
Sure, you will win a lot of bets. But are the returns worth the risk?
Let’s say you have $50 to spend on bets. If you split it into ten wagers at $5 apiece and gamble on your favorite team, you give yourself the best possible chance of winning at least one bet.
On the other hand, combining nine $4 bets and one $1 bet together on the same outcome will certainly increase the chances of a profit. But when your returns are limited to $1.01 + $1.02 + $1.04… $1.07… $1.09… etc., you will wonder why you didn’t just take the single $5 bet in the first place!
Some casinos run similar promotions where you must place multiple bets to the value of X to qualify for a bonus. You might receive a $10 free bet, but you must stake at least $100 to $200 to earn it.
Again, you will likely win at least one bet before losing the rest. But the returns will be so low that you may struggle to clear the free bet.
Best Mississippi Casinos Worth Visiting Near JacksonAvoid “No-Deposit” Promotions Requiring Credit Card or Verification
I mentioned this type of bonus earlier, but it warrants another shoutout. There is no reason to provide your CCV when claiming a no-dep bonus. Therefore, any establishment asking for such information should be avoided at all costs.
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The bottom line is that these sites aim to steal your CCV, so they can use it fraudulently. There is no intention of paying you any additional bonuses beyond the five bucks they plan to seize.
I am not saying that all offers asking for CCV details are bad. Please just ensure that you conduct extensive research into the casino in question before entering your sensitive banking info.
The Enduring Appeal of Casino Bonuses
It goes against everything I preach about to exploiting positive expectancy opportunities with minimal draws on your bankroll when claiming casino bonuses. Yet I find myself falling into the trap on a semi-regular basis!
Why? Because I am weak, human, and susceptible to the siren call of “free” money. But there is a significant difference between accepting a bonus I can realistically clear and chasing unobtainable rainbows.
steps on how to open an online casino in 2024I will leave the latter to die-hard gamblers looking for a thrill. Meanwhile, I will attempt to limit my exposure to bonuses that do not align with my primary strategy of value finding.
With this in mind, please take the time to consider your own playing style before jumping at the bit to claim any online casino bonus.
Good luck!
Ben is a sportswriter with over 25 years’ experience writing about football, formula one, rugby, tennis, basketball, cricket, and various other sports. He has been a casino player for approximately 20 years and has in-depth knowledge of numerous games, including but not limited to cricket, basketball, and football.
Ben loves writing about the coolest games that exclusive live dealer gaming sites have to offer. His expertise extends to allowing players to choose the best games according to their preferences.
Ben is a die-hard fan of Chelsea FC, West Ham United, and the Denver Broncos. He supports these teams through thick and thin. His favorite players are Lauren, Joe Cole, Jody Wilson-Raybould, and Alphonse Davies.
His favorite books are “The Cat in the Hat” and “The Cat in the Hat Comes Back,” although he has enjoyed more adult literature titles such as “The Chronicles” by Robert Jordan.
