What Is a Welcome Bonus?
When you first create an account on an online casino, you may see an offer for a welcome bonus, but what exactly does this offer entail? Usually, the casino will offer a certain amount of free credit or spins to be used on the site.
The intention, of course, is to entice new players onto the site and to get them playing the various games available. Quite often, you'll find these offers are quite significant amounts of money. It's not uncommon to see hundreds of dollars at a time being offered.
So is it as simple as you getting free money from the establishment? Sadly, that's not usually the case. These promotions often have various terms and conditions associated with them, which you'll need to be aware of if you don't want to lose out.
How They Work
In some cases, it might be as simple as you being given free credit, which can be used freely, without any terms and conditions attached. These kinds of promos are known as no deposit offers. If you see an award that describes itself as being a no deposit one, you should always check the terms and conditions anyway to make sure you don't run into any surprises.
On the other hand, many of these offers do actually require you to deposit some of your own cash if you want to fully take advantage of them. Sometimes, you might need to make a deposit if you want to be able to withdraw any winnings which you got by using the gift. The amount you'll need to spend is known as the wagering requirement.
Wagering Requirements
A wagering requirement determines how much you'll need to spend to withdraw your winnings from a welcome bonus. Generally, this amount will be displayed somewhere in the terms and conditions.
Say, for example, you're given $100 as your welcome offer and win $50; you might check the terms and conditions and see the wagering requirement is 15x. This would mean you need to wager $750 of the bonus money before you'll gain the ability to withdraw any bonus funds.
Make Sure You Check the Terms
The key thing to bear in mind when you're using any kind of welcome award is to check out the terms and conditions. The terms will outline exactly what you need to do to get the most out of any kind of welcome offer.
It'll also help you to avoid any pitfalls. For instance, with some promos, only certain games are going to contribute towards your wagering requirements. The terms and conditions aren't always immediately visible, but it pays off to find them.
You might find that the wagering requirements are too high for you to conceivably ever profit from your award. In that case, you could simply see the extra credit as the chance to try out a casino and see what the games and the overall player experience are like.