Understanding Casino Bonuses/Playthrough Requirements
One of the biggest benefits of playing casino games online is being able to cash in on the latest bonuses and promotions. Just about every online casino offers some form of bonus or another. The most popular bonus though is the Welcome Bonus. The Welcome Bonus, or Sign up Bonus is given to new members who sign up for a new casino account and make their very first casino deposits. In most cases, the Welcome Bonus comes in the form of a 100% cash match, with some casinos offering a 200% or even 300% match.
Essentially, a 100% cash match bonus is where the casino will match your initial deposit up to a certain cash limit. So, if you deposit $100, your account will reflect $200. This seems simple enough, but when it comes to bonuses, most players look at the advertised figure and don’t actually find out the exact details of the bonus, more specifically, the playthrough requirements. If you have been around a while, you will know that the casino bonus itself means nothing unless you have favourable playthrough requirements to match.
What is a Wagering Requirement?
So, what is a playthrough requirement? In a nutshell, these are specific restrictions or requirements linked to the bonus that must be met before you can cashout your winnings. In an ideal world, you would be able to collect your bonus, play a few online slots for real money in Canada and then cash out the remainder or your bonus or winnings. As you can imagine, casinos would lose big in this scenario. In order to make back the money they are giving you, the casino adds restrictions where you need to wager a certain amount of money before you can cash out.
Every casino bonus, big or small comes with a wagering requirement of some sort. In most cases, the wagering requirement is expressed as a multiplication with a X symbol next to the wagering number. For example, a wagering requirement on a 100% bonus can be 5x. What this means is that you would need to wager five times the bonus amount before you can even think about cashing out. If you initially deposited $50 and your 100% match is $50, then you would need to place 5×50 or $250 worth of bets before you can withdraw any winnings.
Always Read the Fine Print
If the same casino bonus came with a 15x wagering requirement, the you would end up having to place a total of $750 in bets before you can cash out. Even if you win a bit of money, by the time you have wagered all $750, chances are you have lost more than you have gained. Some casino bonuses include the initial deposit into the wagering requirement, so instead of multiplying just the bonus amount by 5x or 15x you are adding the total of the deposit and bonus.
In the above scenario, this would make a total of $100. With a 5x wagering requirement that would equate to $500 in bets and on a 15x wagering requirement, this would mean betting $1500 in bets. When looking at a casino bonus, always read the fine print and find out what the requirements are before signing up.