Which player doesn’t love a casino bonus? Whether it’s free spins on pokie machines, a new deposit match, or a no deposit bonus, most casinos offer them because players want them! Let’s understand the Wagering Requirements for Casino Bonuses.
But experienced hands know that not all bonuses are what they appear to be upon first inspection.
When you read the small print, there are some interesting conditions:
Minimum Deposits – The smallest amount you’ll need to deposit to activate a bonus. No deposit bonuses are exempt from these.
Win Limits – The maximum amount you can win in terms of real money you can withdraw.
Wagering Requirements – The number of times you’ll need to bet a bonus before you can withdraw it.
What Are Wagering Requirements for Casino Bonuses?
The first thing to know about wagering requirements for casino bonuses is that is known by several other names. Some casinos call them playthrough requirements, and others call them rollover requirements. It depends on the casino, and it also depends on what part of the world you’re playing in. More often than not, the term “playthrough requirements” is used when referring to sports betting bonuses, whereas the other two refer to casino bonuses.
For instance, a casino is offering a 100% deposit match up to $100 for all new players. The wagering requirements are 20x. This means that if you deposit the full $100, you’ll have to make $2,000 worth of wagers before you can withdraw the bonus.
Some players immediately scoff at wagering requirements for casino bonuses and dismiss casino bonuses which have them as a scam.
This is a mistake for three reasons:
- Casinos are businesses, and they have to manage their risk. They can’t afford for too many players to win and withdraw bonus cash.
- Wagering requirements for casino bonuses are not impossible to beat. Here are some tips for completing the below.
- There are lots of casino bonuses with low wagering requirements, which are much easier to beat. You will find some with wagering requirements of 3x.
Wagering requirements for casino bonuses can seem like a scam if you don’t read the terms and conditions and don’t understand them. However, as an intelligent player who has read this far, that’s not going to happen to you. Instead, you’ll know all about wagering requirements and will carefully pick which games you play to have the best chance of beating them.
Not all casino bonuses come with requirements at 20x. They could be as low as 3x all the way up to 100x. It’s obvious that you have virtually no chance of beating bonuses with 100x wagering requirements. Anything over 40x is getting close to impossible to achieve.
Game Weighting: Not All Games Are Equal
Another important concept to understand about casino wagering requirements for casino bonuses is game weighting.
When you make a bet, each game has a “weight” that counts toward the requirements. At most online casinos, pokies weight 100%, whereas games like blackjack might only weight 10%.
Why do casinos do this? It’s because of something called the house edge. Games like blackjack have an incredibly small house edge (advantage). Giving you 100% game weighting on blackjack as a bonus would tilt the odds in your favor, and the casino would soon go bust. With pokies, casinos have a much greater house edge, so they can afford that risk. Again, it all comes back to business and risk management.
It is best to use casino bonuses to play pokie machines. You can flip over to play table and card games after you’ve met wagering requirements for casino bonuses. Until then, play pokies, hope for a big win, and meet wagering requirements that way.
How to Beat Wagering Requirements
Here are some tips to help you beat wagering requirements for casino bonuses. You won’t win every time, but these can help you do so more often.
1. Choose a Low Wagering Bonus
You’d be amazed at how many players go for a bigger bonus with higher wagering requirements than a smaller one with lower wagering requirements for casino bonuses.
We, humans, love something for nothing, so you can’t blame naive players for this. Low wagering bonuses are those with wagering requirements below 20x. There’s downward pressure on this as more casinos eliminate wagering requirements, but for now, anything below 20x is a fairly good deal. The lower the better.
Always go with a bonus with lower wagering requirements, even if that bonus is smaller in monetary value.
2. Have a Strategy to Beat Wagering Requirements for casino bonuses
Some people claim there are no effective strategies for pokies machines, you simply have to spin and hope for the best. That may be true when playing slots on an average day, but it’s not true when it comes to beating playthrough requirements.
Here are a couple of strategies to beat them:
Make small bets on low-variance pokies machines. These games pay out small amounts more often. This means you can rack up plenty of wins without depleting your balance quickly. With an hour or two to spare, you should be able to meet wagering requirements. Play minimum stakes and don’t forget to consider the RTP, too.
The second strategy is the exact opposite. You’ll want to play medium or high-variance slot machines and play with medium stakes. Preferably, they should have lucrative bonus features with beefy multipliers. You should play these with a larger number of free spins, such as 100 or 200. The big (but less frequent) wins will keep your balance topped up long enough to beat wagering requirements.
You can decide what the best strategy is for you. It depends on your appetite for risk.
3. Pick the Best Pokies for Wagering
Each casino bonus will have a list of approved games you can use for free spins and bonus cash. I can tell you that you’ll rarely be able to play progressive jackpot pokies like Mega Moolah with free spins.
You should decide what the best pokies for wagering requirements for casino bonuses are after considering the following questions:
- Which strategy are you going to use to beat wagering requirements?
- How many free spins do you have at your disposal?
- What’s the RTP of the slot machine you’re considering?
Remember, you can’t always pick any pokie machine you want. Most casinos will give you a choice of a few games, but some bonus offers are conditional upon playing a specific game. In that case, the casino chooses for you and the above doesn’t matter.
Some of the best pokies for wagering are NetEnt games
You can play the following games with free spins:
- Starburst
- Dazzle Me
- Koi Princess
All of these pokie machines strike the right balance between RTP, volatility, and sizable wins. Luckily, lots of casinos offer free spins on Starburst. You might have to dig a little deeper to find free spins on the other two.
