Bonus funds are great, but players can sometimes find it tough to get their heads around wagering requirements. In this guide, Lucky Admiral will address the topic of wagering requirements explained and clear up a few matters for you.
Why Wagering Requirements Exist
The simple explanation is that no casino could afford to give out vast sums of free money. As a result, players are challenged to clear their bonus funds by playing through them a specified number of times.
A second reason for the existence of play-through requirements is to combat criminals who try to launder their illicit funds through legitimate gaming sites. At the very minimum, there must be casino and bingo sites with low wagering requirements to make this an unviable strategy for them.
How Wagering Requirements Work
After building up the topic, it is now time to provide an example for clearing wagering requirements. You can always check back when figuring out your play-through responsibilities.
Bonuses Alone
Let’s say that you join a gaming site and make a £20 deposit to receive a 100% match bonus that comes with 40x wagering requirements. This will give you a £20 bonus that must be played through 40 times. You can calculate your overall wagering target by multiplying £20 by 40 to get £800.
Deposit + Bonus
At times, some gaming sites will include the deposit and your bonus funds when applying wagering requirements. From the example above, this would require you to add £20 deposit plus £20 bonus. As a result, £40 multiplied by 40 will give you an overall wagering target of £1,600 to achieve.
How Wagering Requirements Are Applied
Your play-through responsibility can be presented in different ways across gaming sites. Therefore, it is important to understand what is out there to encounter.
Bonus Funds Only
There are gaming sites that will only apply wagering requirements on the bonus funds that you receive. This is an approach that is simple to understand, but you have to consider the following aspects of the offer in question:
- Requirements can be higher: You might find that these offers come with much higher requirements.
- Make comparisons: You should always consider requirements next to other offers. For example, 60x might not be that bad compared to a site where you have to cover 40x against your deposit and bonus.
Deposits Included
At competing gaming sites, these operators might instead choose to combine deposits and bonuses into one sum for which wagering requirements will have to be met. When claiming these offers, here are some factors to bear in mind:
- Harder to recover deposits: It might be tougher to recover your deposit if a site treats the money in the same way as bonus funds.
- Perceptions can be skewed: The fact that you have to include the deposit means that you should compare to the value of bonus-only requirements. This could mean finding out that 20x is actually more competitive compared to 50x on bonuses alone.
Wagering Requirements Have Limitations
Bonus funds are not provided for the end of time and they will come with limitations. These can prove to be an unpleasant surprise if they catch you unaware, but sites like Lucky Admiral are great at giving you informative bonus terms to follow…
Expiry Dates
Online casinos can impose timeframes of one week, two weeks, one month, or longer when giving you the chance to use up your bonus funds. Having a large timeframe is obviously the ideal target, but sometimes you can overlook this for a great deal. Always check the expiry date on your bonus funds to avoid being disappointed.
Excluded Games
Terms and conditions can also reveal that some games will contribute poorly or not at all whenever you try to clear bonus funds. Table games feature commonly in this case, with blackjack, roulette, and poker often proving to be ineffective at negotiating requirements. Meanwhile, select slots like progressive jackpots can also be excluded.
Bonus Types
Non-sticky bonuses can eventually be cleared and offer you the chance to withdraw large sums of winnings, but they have higher requirements that can be extremely tough to meet. Alternatively, a casino will remove a sticky bonus whenever you come to claim winnings, but they can usually have smaller requirements.
Exclusive Bonuses
In some instances, you might get to claim a bonus that is exclusively available for live dealers or table games. These can carry different play-through requirements and terms compared to standard offers – be sure to see what they are.
Minimum Withdrawals
In the end, you might successfully reach your goal and clear the requirements, perhaps leaving you with £10 in winnings. Nevertheless, it can transpire that the minimum withdrawal transaction is set above that. This highlights the continued importance of understanding bonus terms.
Lucky Admiral will continue you to keep supporting you with informative guides to improve your gaming experience.
