A Comprehensive Guide For Evaluating Casino Bonuses

If you’re new to casino bonuses, you may be puzzled by the many types available on our site. 

If so, don’t worry! In this article we’re going to go over the types available and how you can tell which is best.

Casino Bonuses Explained

Casinos offer bonuses to reward new players. Claiming a bonus entails making a first deposit or signing up for a new account. 

Once you have successfully made one of these actions, the casino will provide you with free spins or bonus credits. 

With free spins and bonus credits you can eventually win real cash, but casinos aren’t going to just give you real cash – you have to fulfill the terms and conditions of your bonus. 

The T&Cs is a set of rules that usually includes: 

  • Wagering Requirements – This rule is given as a multiplier (such as 20x). You times the ‘value’ of your bonus by the wagering requirements to find out the sum-total you must wager before you can cash out. 
  • Game Contribution – This rule is given as a percentage (such as 100%). It indicates how much of your stake contributes to the wagering requirements depending on the game you play. 
  • Win Caps – This is displayed as a monetary value and indicates the maximum you can cashout in real money using your casino bonus.

The Different Kinds Of Casino Bonus

As was already said, there are a lot of different types of casino bonuses. Each one has its own rules and gives you a different set of benefits. 

Most casino bonuses fall into one of these categories: 

  • No Deposit Bonus Credits – When you sign up for a new account, you’ll get bonus credits worth $10-$50. They are 100% free to claim. 
  • Free Spins With No Deposit – When you sign up for a new account you’ll get 10-50 free spins. They are 100% free to claim. 
  • Match Bonuses – When you make a deposit, you’ll have its ‘value’ matched by the casino by a certain percentage, such as 100%, 200% or even 300%. 
  • Cashback Bonuses – You will be retroactively paid back a portion of the money you lose, wager, or deposit in site credit. 

We’ll look at these extras in more depth below.

No Deposit Bonus Credits 

A no deposit bonus is a free bonus that you get when you sign up for a casino account. 

You will get site credits when you claim this bonus. Most are worth between $5-$20, but sometimes they are worth more. 

While it is possible to compare these bonuses by how many bonus credits you get, it is probably more reliable to focus on the wagering requirements and the withdrawal limits – which we will show you how to do below.

Wagering Requirements For No Deposit Bonus Credits

It can be difficult to meet the wagering requirements for most no deposit bonuses.

Typically, this rule will have you wagering your bonus between 30-60 times before you can withdraw any winnings. 

The difficulty of meeting these requirements is compounded by the notoriously short validity period of no deposit bonuses. 

It is therefore imperative you claim a no deposit bonus with low wagering requirements. 

We can illustrate why this is the case with a table: 

BonusBonus ValueWagering RequirementsAmount You Must Wager
Bonus A$2020x$400
Bonus B$5060x$3,000

Evidently, Bonus A – even though it gives you fewer bonus credits – is superior to Bonus B. 

With Bonus B you’d have to wager a massive $3,000 with your bonus, whereas with Bonus A you only have to wager $400.

Withdrawal Limits For No Deposit Bonus Credits

Casinos don’t want to lose too much money by giving away free bonuses, so they put win caps in place.

Regardless of how much you win, you can only withdraw sums up to the withdrawal limit. The withdrawal limit can vary a lot, and might be anywhere between $5-$200. 

One way of comparing the real value of a bonus is to look at the withdrawal limits.

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No Deposit Free Spins

Another type of free bonus is the no deposit free spins bonus. With this bonus, you’ll get a number of free spins after you create an account. 

Though similar to no deposit bonus credits, one significant difference between them is that you don’t get much freedom to choose which game you play with free spins. 

You may only get to play one or a handful of slot games. 

Moreover, the bet size of free spins are fixed and therefore cannot be changed. 

Nonetheless you can still win real cash with free spins by satisfying the terms and conditions.

How to Figure Out How Much Your Free Spins Are Worth

With free spins bonuses, the quantity of free spins you receive can be misleading. 

To figure out how much your free spins are really worth, you have to think about what slot game you’re going to play, what the minimum bet size is on the slot game, and how many free spins you receive. 

Here’s a table that illustrates why:

Free SpinsMinimum Bet On Eligible SlotActual Free Spins Bonus Value
20$0.1$2
60$0.01$0.6

As the table shows, the bonus offering only 20 free spins is in fact more valuable (on this measure alone) than the bonus offering 60 free spins. 

Other rules you ought to consider when evaluating no deposit free spins bonuses is the withdrawal limit and the wagering requirements. 

Wagering Requirements For No Deposit Free Spins

The way you work out the wagering requirements for no deposit free spins is different to how you do it with bonus credits. 

You can’t work out how much you have to wager with free spins until you use all of your free spins. The wagering requirements will then apply to your free spins winnings. 

BonusFree SpinsHow Much You’ve WonWagering RequirementsAmount You Have To Wager
Bonus A50$1560$900
Bonus B15$520$100

As the table illustrates, in many cases you can discount the number of free spins you will get. 

What really matters is how much you win using your free spins and the wagering requirements. 

In most cases, we recommend you only look at the wagering requirements and claim the free spins bonus with the lowest requirements. 

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Deposit Match Bonuses

A deposit match bonus is a generous bonus offered by casinos to new players. 

If you claim a deposit match bonus, the casino will take whatever you deposit and ‘match’ it in bonus credits by a percentage, such as 100% or 200%. 

For instance, let’s imagine you’re offered a deposit match bonus that is worth 100% up to $300:

  • By making a $300 deposit, you’d get $300 in bonus credits. 
  • By making a $200 deposit, you’d get $200 in bonus credits. 

Essentially, when a casino matches your deposit by 100% they are doubling your bankroll with bonus credits. 

While this is obviously very generous, it needs to be said that you can’t actually use your bonus credits until your real money has been used. 

Once your real money account has $0 in it, you can then start to use your bonus funds and start to fulfill the wagering requirements. 

BonusDeposit MadePercentage MatchBonus Credits ReceivedOverall Bankroll
Bonus A$10075%$75$175
Bonus B$100150%$150$250
Bonus C$100300%$300$400

Wagering Requirements For Deposit Match Bonuses

To understand how deposit match bonus wagering requirements work, you need to know that they can apply to either your bonus value, or both your bonus value plus the value of your deposit. 

We’ll show you how it works in both cases below:

Wagering Requirements When Applied To Bonus Value

Deposit MadeValue Of BonusWagering RequirementsSum-Total To Wager
$50$5020x($50 x 20) $1,000

Here’s how we can breakdown what’s going on here: 

  • A deposit of $50 is made.
  • The casino matches the deposit by 100%.
  • You get $50 in bonus credits.
  • You have to wager these bonus credits twenty times. 
  • Once you wager $1,000 you can cash out your winnings. 

This is pretty easy to understand. In fact, it’s pretty much the standard way to work out the wagering requirements for most bonuses. Still, you need to know this because with deposit match bonuses it can be different, which we’ll talk about below.

Wagering Requirements When Applied To Bonus Value And Deposit Value

Deposit MadeValue Of BonusWagering RequirementsSum-Total To Wager
$50$5020x($50 + $50) x 20 = $2,000

Let’s break down what going on in the table:

  • A $50 deposit is made.
  • The casino matches the deposit value by 100%.
  • You get $50 in bonus credits. 
  • However, the wagering requirements apply to both the deposit and bonus value.
  • Therefore, the wagering requirements of 20x applies to $100 rather than $50. 
  • You have to wager $2,000 with your bonus before attempting to cash out. 

Evidently, when the wagering requirements apply to the bonus value and deposit value the bonus is not as good as it otherwise would be. 
In this case, you’d have to wager double the amount (a whole $2,000!) than you would if the wagering requirements only applied to the bonus value.

Different Kinds Of Deposit Match Bonus

  • Deposit Match On Multiple Deposits – If you want to be rewarded with bonus credits over a series of deposits, this is a great bonus to claim. You can also get your deposit matched over your second, third and occasionally fourth deposit. 
  • High Roller Bonuses – If you have a particularly sizable bankroll, a high roller bonus will match you for deposits well over $1,000. 
  • Reload Match Bonuses – This is actually a type of promotion casinos run for existing players. They work like match bonuses except they aren’t offered to new players.
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Cashback Bonuses

A cashback bonus retroactively rewards you for either depositing, making bets, or making a loss. 

The amount you receive back after the time period ends also depends on the amount the casino promises to give back, with most cashback bonuses promising between 5-30%. 

You will more than likely be reimbursed in site credit and you can only get a cashback bonus upon making a deposit. 

Casino Bonus T&Cs

There are a number of bonus rules you need to be aware of before you claim a bonus if you are to effectively evaluate them. 

Not all of them apply to all the bonuses mentioned in this article, but it is knowledge worth having at any rate. 

Max Bonus Conversion

This is also known as a win cap or a withdrawal limit and applies almost exclusively to no deposit bonuses

Basically, it places a limit on how much you can win in real cash using a no deposit bonus. 

The limits can be significantly different, with most ranging between $10-$200. You cannot withdraw more than the value stipulated by the max bonus conversion.

Game Weightings

If you are claiming a bonus that gives you site credit, you might find you are allowed to play high odds games, such as table games.

If this is appealing to you, you need to know about game weightings.

Game weightings determine how much of your stake contributes to the wagering requirements.

For example, if you were to play roulette with your bonus and the game weighting had been scaled down to 6%, only 6% of your stake will go towards the wagering requirements.

The rule is used to ensure the casino maintains a significant house-edge.

Here is an illustration of the immense difference a lowered game weighting can make:

GameOverall StakeGame WeightingsAmount That Goes To Wagering Requirements
Roulette$2006%$12
Slot Games$200100%$200

The difference between $12 and $200 is not a small difference when you are trying to meet the wagering requirements as quickly as possible.

In Conclusion

Choosing the best bonus relies on a number of things, such as: 

  • If you care to try and win real cash. 
  • How much you’d like to deposit,
  • What games you would like to play, among other things. 

Depending on the type of casino bonus you want, the way you judge it is a little different, but the important takeaway is that the real value is in the T&Cs.

Published on: 2023/01/27

Our Expert

Hi, I'm Michael. As the Senior Writer here at BangBonus777, I write objective reviews and articles to ensure you get the best possible gaming experience. Here at BangBonus777, we're constantly looking out for you by recommending the best gambling practices, casinos and bonuses!