Learn to assess your online casino bonus  

Learn to assess your online casino bonus For most people, online casino selection comes down to the bonus offered by the casino. While that should indeed weigh heavily in the balance, make sure you do not make your choice based exclusively on that factor. Every online casino offers sign-up bonuses. The market has long become way too competitive for them not to hand out such “free money”. What you need to understand about bonus the casino gives you is that – even though it is advertised as such – it is by no means free money. You will need to work, or rather play, quite a lot before you get to have your bonus money transferred to you without any strings attached. The amount that the online casino advertises is the absolute maximum you can get. If they tell you that you’ll get $150 free bonus casino money, that’s more like a 100% (or 200% or whatever the casino’s policy is in this respect) match on your deposit up to a maximum of $150. In which case, you’ll only get $150 if you do indeed deposit that much. For a $50 deposit, you only get $50 and so forth. This is the first thing you should know about casino bonuses.

The second thing is that the bonus you receive will seldom land directly in your real money account. In most of the cases, the casino transfers your bonus money into a special bonus account where it will await your fulfillment of the play-through requirements. Once the play-through or turn-over requirements are fulfilled, you get your bonus money. Other casinos will transfer the bonus money into your real money account right away, in which case you will not be able to make a withdrawal until you fulfill the above mentioned requirements. The restriction is not only valid for the bonus sum, but to all the money that you win wagering it.

The bottom line is, without unlocking your bonus, you will not be able to get your hands on it. The most important thing about the bonus redemption requirements is the turn-over rate. Some casinos will require that you wager your deposit over 30 times before your bonus is released. Others have milder turn over expectations. The turn over rate is a huge factor in determining a bonus’ overall value. You see, in a casino – whether it’s a land based or an online one – you’ll be playing against the house edge, which means that over the long-run, you’re confronted with negative expected value. The longer you play, the bigger the effect the house edge will have on your bankroll, because over the long-term, the house drop also crawls into the equation. With that in mind, it’s quite easy to mathematically explain why it is much better for you when you only have to turn your bonus amount over 15-20 times. Once you got this matter out of the way, take a look at the actual house edges the casino has on all the different games. The bigger the house edge, the bigger your negative EV shall be, so – in theory – you’re better off avoiding high house-edge games altogether. In practice however, you might be forced to play them nonetheless.

The problem is, that most casinos will count turn over on low house edge games to a much smaller degree than your turn-over on big house edge ones. Some games, which not only feature a small house edges but offer players close to 50-50 odds are completely excluded from your play through production. Take betting on odds or even, or on red and black on roulette. Because through these bets players can turn over huge amounts of money with relatively tiny risks, they will not count towards your bonus redemption. Exactly which games are subjects to this rule, varies from one casino to another. Obviously, the looser these restrictions are, the better off you’ll be at the end of the day. While a sign-up bonus can provide a powerful initial boost to your bankroll, loyalty bonuses like rakeback or cashback have far bigger impacts over the long run. Make sure you choose a casino which offers some sort of loyalty redemption bonus.