Understand Welcome Bonuses: No-Deposit, Matched and More

Bonuses are used by casinos to separate themselves from their many competitors. They offer many of the same games and banking options, so promotions and bonuses are the only thing they can do to try and get one-up on their rivals. This is great for the player, but at the same time these bonuses are not always what they seem and there are a few things you need to know if you’re going to learn how to determine what a good bonus is and what a bad bonus is.

Matched Deposit Bonuses

Casinos like to focus on the monetary amount and ignore all others. They will tell you that they are offering a bonus of £1,000, and then put everything else in the small print.

With bonuses like this you have to factor in two parameters. The first is the percentage. For instance a matched deposit bonus of 25% offering up to £1,000 is not as good as a 200% offering up to £500. On the first you will need to deposit £4,000 to get £1,000 free; on the second you just need £250 to get a free £500.

The second thing to take into account is the play-through rate, which is the amount of times you need to risk your bonus in order to withdraw it. The average is 30x, but some are as high as 100x and beyond.

No Deposit Bonus

With these bonuses you get the money upfront no deposit required. However, while sites like SkyBet have paid out to people who sign-up with a valid name and address, others require you to go through ID checks and to input credit card details.

The play-through rate also comes into it as some of them will require you to risk that bonus hundreds of times, which basically means you need to be winning hundreds from a £10 bonus in order to actually get any money out of them.

Free Spins

The main issue with this bonus is the value of the spin. 1 free spin of £1 is worth more than 50 free spins of £0.01, yet most players only focus on the amount and not the value. In fact, most sites will not show you the value and you will have to dig through the terms and conditions to find it.

This is well worth doing though because no two free spin bonuses are alike.