All About Wagering Requirements

June 5, 2013

Have you ever wondered why some online casino sites offer an incredible cash bonus as part of a casino promotion? The larger online gambling companies always seem to offer a far lower level of bonus than the smaller online casino sites with their casino promotion bonuses, why is that? Well, the answer is that it all comes down to effective marketing, and the small print attached to the casino promotion, namely the wagering requirements that must be met before any bonus money can be withdrawn from the players online casino account.

OK let’s start by saying that online gambling firms have to make money, and they cannot make money if they give away huge chunks of free cash as a bonus during a casino promotion. So they need a system in place to make sure that the likelihood of the player actually cashing out any of this bonus cash in place, and this is what the wagering requirement is all about.

For example, let’s say that an online casino offers a 200% deposit bonus, up to a maximum of $200 as part of a casino promotion. So if a player makes a deposit of $100, they actually end up with $300 in their casino account. Now, if wagering requirements were not in place, the player could then turn around and cash out all $300, making a net profit of $200. Obviously, any online gambling company that allowed this would not be in business long!

So an online casino will apply a wagering requirement to the bonus cash, this means that the fre3 bonus money, the extra $200 the player received, cannot be cashed out until it has been wagered a set number of times. The online casino is counting on the fact that the house edge will assure that very few players have any of the free $200 left to cash out once they have met the wagering requirement.

The better online casino sites will offer a lower bonus, and set the wagering requirements much lower, typically 20 to 30 times. However, the smaller online casino sites will often give away thousands in free bonus cash, but set the wagering requirements much higher, 60 times or more! So that amazing free offer of thousands of dollars of free bonus cash is just a marketing gimmick, the chances of ever cashing any of that money out is very slim indeed.

Best advice is to stick to the major online gambling sites that offer a less impressive amount of free bonus cash, but set the wagering requirement low enough so that you still have a chance of cashing some of it out if you are lucky enough.

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