Decoding Bonus Wagering Requirements: What You Need to Know Before You Play

Many casinos advertise their bonuses and show how lucrative they are. If you are a newbie to the world of online casino games, you will certainly be tempted by those enjoyable rewards that you can receive without much effort. Indeed, gifts for new and regular players are sweet and might increase a player's gaming balance significantly. However, free money and bonus spins do not come easy.
There are certain things you should keep in mind when claiming a casino bonus to make sure you maximize your benefit from it. One such thing is wagering requirements. They are a part of practically every promotion, but those are often not specified on advertising banners. Thus, you would need to open terms and conditions to find out if they exist and what they are. Given this, claiming a bonus might come with quite an unpleasant surprise. Especially if you are new to gambling. To avoid such a situation, we have created this beginner guide on bonus wagering requirements. You can find here answers to all the questions that help you understand how they work and how to meet them successfully. So, we strongly recommend looking at this article before claiming a bonus and playing it through.
What Are Bonus Wagering Requirements?
Wagering requirements (also known as playthrough or rollover requirements) are the number of times a player needs to bet their bonus before the winnings scooped in the process of playing with bonus money become withdrawable. As simple as that. When you open terms and conditions, it is a number (often represented in the following format - x30, x40) that complicates things a little bit and makes you spend a good amount of time placing bets on selected games.
How challenging might it get? It depends on the bonus, the size of wagering requirements, the choice of a casino, and the choice of a game. There are plenty of factors to consider. The first thing we might recommend you do is to calculate the total sum of bets you need to place to clear a bonus. Many online casinos do this automatically for you as soon as you claim a bonus. However, many experts recommend doing this even before you actually claim a bonus to assess how achievable playthrough requirements are for your deposit sum. You might use this automated calculator or follow the instructions below and calculate it manually.
How to Calculate Obligatory Wagering Requirements?
To find out the final sum of bets you would need to play, follow the step-by-step instructions below (on the example of deposit percentage match)
- Find a casino with a lucrative bonus offer and pay attention to the percentage of the bonus. It is often advertised the following way: 150% up to $1,000. The percentage indicates the sum of the bonus calculated from your deposit sum. “Up to a certain sum” shows the maximum deposit you can get. Thus, for the “150% up to $1,000” offer with a $200, you can expect a $300 bonus. Therefore, you will have a total of $500 available for wagering.
- The second step would be to open the bonus terms and conditions to find the number of times you must play through your bonus. Let’s say, it is x30 Please note that the sum of your deposit counts into the sum that should be wagered.
- Now you have all the necessary information, so just take the total sum (a deposit + bonus) and multiply it by the number of times it should be wagered. Returning to the example above: if you will get $500 on your account, you should place wagers totaling $15,000. After that, withdrawal of winnings will be available for you.
Once you have a sum, it is high time to evaluate how achievable wagering requirements are for you and whether you have enough patience to play games. If you do, you can claim a bonus and enjoy the benefits that come with it.
Why do Casinos Implement Rollover Requirements?
First of all, let’s highlight that whenever an online casino does not have wagering requirements for a regular bonus, you should think twice if to deposit money at this operator. Most probably, it is a rogue website created to cheat gamblers. Any reputable and trustworthy online casino that pays to the players has wagering requirements for the bonuses.
There are a couple of reasons for this. First of all, it is done to prevent players from bonus abuse. If it were not for wagering requirements, players would be able to withdraw a bonus immediately without placing any bets. Moreover, they would probably create multiple accounts to claim the same bonus many times. Furthermore, a casino is a place for entertainment and not a place to receive free money. To make things fair, operators require you to wager a given bonus a certain number of times to ensure you spend the reward with the right purpose – exploring gambling options at a casino.
Bonuses That Have Obligatory Wagering Requirements
Frankly, it is easier to list those bonuses and promotions that do not have obligatory rollover requirements. Still, we will try to mention all the popular bonus types that you can face at any operator and will have to play through the bonus amount if you claim one.
No Deposit Offer
We doubt you would find it often, but let’s take a look at it if you do. In terms of wagering requirements, this kind of promotion is a no-brainer. You do not need to spend time outweighing the benefits and drawbacks. Just claim it, as you do not risk your own money! The worst that can happen is if a no-deposit bonus is claimed – you will lose it.
Unfortunately, meeting wagering requirements for such risk-free offers is challenging. Operators ensure that playthrough requirements are high, so only the luckiest of players would meet them. Given you do not deposit your own money, it is a fair deal.
Welcome Package
When you make your first deposit and claim a welcome package, you should be prepared that some offers might make you meet two different wagering requirements: one for cash reward, and the other one for bonus spins. Both are obligatory, so they cannot be avoided. If you plan to claim a welcome package, it is recommended to assess the possibility of clearing it, as there is no need to spoil the first impression from gambling on a certain platform because of the lost deposit to wagering requirements.
For sign-up offers, play-through is the lowest among the regular packages, but it is still relatively difficult. Moreover, be ready that your choice of wagering games might be limited.
Reload Offers
Rollover rules are practically the same as for the welcome package, as, again, you can claim both a cash reward and bonus spins or just one of the two. You will already be well familiar with playthrough after claiming a welcome package, so you would be aware of how it works.
Reload bonuses are offered to active players after they have to make several initial deposits. They require a new balance top-up. It is a lucrative opportunity to boost your deposit. At the same time, you will have to wager for quite a while risking losing everything that is on your balance.
Cashback
Lucky you if a selected website gives cashback on losses with no play-through requirements! Normally, you will have to roll over a granted sum. However, it is not that bad with cashback: often wagering requirements are quite low (up to five times). Compared to betting your bonus 30 or 40 times, x5 wagering requirements are a piece of cake.
Pitfalls of Bonus Playthrough
Even though the way wagering requirements work is clear and fair, sometimes players might face some disappointing situations, as they have not looked through the terms and conditions. To avoid this keep in mind the following:
- Pay attention to the period you have for wagering. If you do not notice the bonus expiry time, you can simply not meet wagering requirements because you will not have enough time. Also, you might put it aside for some time, and it might be too late to wager your bonus.
- Find out if there are game restrictions for the claimed bonus. Oftentimes, a playthrough is possible in only several games, or certain releases might be excluded from rollover gambling. Thus, you might have planned to play a certain game to meet wagering requirements, but it will not be available.
- Make sure you have cleared up your bonus before sending a withdrawal request. Though it is not common, some casinos might cancel your bonus if you ask for a cashout before the playthrough is finished.
- Check if a selected game contributes to the wagering requirements and what is the contribution percentage. Most slots have 100% contribution, while for live dealer or table games, contribution might be 0% or very close to it.
Tips on Meeting Wagering Requirements
Avoiding pitfalls is already a part of success when it comes to bonus rollover. However, there are several other effective tips that can help you cash out winnings from your wagered bonus, namely:
- Always check the reliability of a selected casino. If the brand is rogue, you can meet its playthrough requirements diligently, but you will not receive your payout. Thus, you will lose deposited money and time without being able to win something right from the start.
- Visit several online casinos and compare their bonuses and the size of wagering requirements. Always choose an operator that has lower rollover requirements. In such a way, you would have more chances to clear a bonus.
- Calculate the sum of wagers that should be placed and decide if this number is achievable for you.
- Pay attention to the maximum bet that is possible for a playthrough, because as soon as your wager is higher than a possible limit, it will not count for the rollover.
- Be patient and do not try to meet wagering requirements with big bets. It is much better to stick to smaller bets and spend a little bit more time for a playthrough than to lose your entire bonus after a couple of spins.
Finally, always think carefully about which game to play. If you are torn apart between table games and slots and cannot decide what should you choose to play , you can hear a firm “play slots” from us, as you can be sure that reeled machines have 100% contribution. This means that if you place a bet of $1, it counts fully to the wagering requirements. Please note that progressive slots are not available for playthrough in practically every online casino, so you would need to choose other slot categories.
We have tried playing thousands of games, and we would recommend you try some of the games that have buy bonus features. Bonus spins often cannot be bought if you have an active bonus, but some mini features are available for purchase. It can be either releases by ELK with x-Iter (e.g. Pirots X or Rogue Rats of Nitropolis) or by Hacksaw (Octo Attack, SixSixSix). Slot machines with enhanced bets that give increased chances to launch bonus spins are also a good option.
Our Opinion on Wagering Requirements
Playthrough requirements are a fair feature that allows casinos to make bonus distribution a good bargain. Players receive a generous bonus, but they need to wager it for a while to be able to take the biggest benefit from it and withdraw winnings. However, many casinos ensure their promotions are often used for entertainment only, as the rollover is often challenging, and not all the players can meet them. However, do not let wagering requirements scare you off bonus activation, as you never know when luck will smile at you!