Bonus Review Guidelines

Creating an unbiased and reliable review of an online casino bonus can be a challenge. Casinos often use complex terms and conditions to make their bonuses seem trustworthy, even if they aren't. However, we have been claiming bonuses for well over a decade and have gained a lot of experience and knowledge about how to identify a great bonus while steering clear of the bad apples.

Our Bonus Review Process

We focus on reviewing bonuses that we think are worth your time. As such, we know these reviews are important and take our responsibility to you seriously.

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The steps that The Casino Wizard's follows when creating bonus reviews

Here are the steps we follow when creating bonus reviews from scratch:

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1. Tell you how to claim the bonus 

We start by explaining the steps to follow to claim a bonus, and we’ll tell you whether or not you’ll need a bonus code to activate it.

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2. Tell you which games you can spend the bonus on 

We provide you with a complete analysis of available games where you can spend your free spins or bonus money. Where possible, we highlight the bonus stake weights to give you a good idea of which games contribute the most toward fulfilling any wagering requirements.

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3. Analyze and explain how to turn the bonus into real money

We give you a practical guide to each bonus and analyze its wagering requirement and stake weights. We aim to provide you with easy-to-follow steps to quickly turn the bonus into withdrawable cash.

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4. Explain the casino bonus terms 

We will guide you through each bonus's terms and conditions, highlighting the most important parts so you can better understand what claiming a bonus entails.

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5. Compare the pros and cons of the offer 

We tell you why you may want to claim the offer and why you may want to stay away from it. Reasons can range from game restrictions to cashout limits and everything in between.

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6. Recommend similar bonuses

Like what you see in a casino bonus? Then you may also like similar offers that we’ve tried, which is why we recommend them near the end of our reviews. These can either complement your experience or serve as alternatives, depending on your preferences.

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7. Give you our verdict on the offer 

Do we think the bonus is overall worth claiming? Why is it worth your time? Then you may also like similar offers we've tried. 

What Types of Bonuses Do We Review?

You will find all sorts of bonuses when browsing The Casino Wizard website; from traditional deposit bonuses that match 100% of your money in free cash to innovative rewards that give you a chance to play for free.

Before we publish or even think about writing a bonus review, we ensure they meet the following criteria:

  • They’re promotions that we have claimed ourselves. How could we recommend a promotion if we hadn’t played with it? Our bonus reviews are always based on insights our team gathers while claiming and playing with the bonus in question. We only ever recommend rewards that we’ve played with and, where possible, cashed out.
  • The bonuses are offered by reliable casinos. When choosing a casino bonus, trustworthiness is as important as monetary value. Our top-rated casinos have licenses from institutions such as the MGA or Curacao eGaming. We're always cautious about online casinos operating as rogue sites and will never recommend any of these.
  • They’re rewards you can actually cash out. At the very least, they should give you the chance to earn free money. Some casino bonuses don’t allow you to cash out the bonus funds, but only the bonus money generated from playing with the offer. We'll let you know if that's the case for any bonus we review. Still, we generally prefer bonuses that can be cashed out together with their winnings and give those a much better rating.

Generally, when we review a bonus that we don’t recommend, we don’t follow the structure above. Instead, we break down reliable alternatives and explain why we think an offer isn’t worth claiming.

Key Bonus Terms & Conditions

Bonus terms and casino reliability are the two most fundamental things to consider when determining the quality of a bonus. Online casinos often have long lists of bonus terms, which can be tedious to read, especially if you're unfamiliar with the most important aspects of a promotion.

When writing our casino bonus reviews, we look into the most important bonus terms. In our experience, these are:

Wagering Requirements

Understanding the wagering requirements, or rollover, is crucial before you can cash out a casino bonus. Typically, the number of times you need to spend the bonus before it can be cashed out is determined by the wagering conditions. Offers with a wagering requirement of 50x or less are generally recommended

In our reviews, we carefully analyze this condition for each bonus to determine if it applies to your deposit, the bonus terms, or both. This analysis helps determine the likelihood of cashing out a casino promotion.

Bonus Timeframes

Casinos should provide you with enough time to fulfill the wagering requirements of a bonus. When looking at bonus timeframes, we balance them against the wagering requirements. If the wagering requirement is small, a short bonus timeframe isn’t an issue.

Max Betting Limits

Almost every single online casino sets a limit on the maximum amount of cash you can bet with an active bonus in your account. Bonuses with large wagering requirements, matching large sums of cash, should have max betting limits of $10, whilst smaller bonuses should have max limits of $5.

In our reviews, we determine how fair max betting limits are on their own, and compare them to bonus timeframes and wagering requirements.

Cashout Conditions

The amount of cash that you can win with a casino bonus is key to determine its quality. No-deposit bonuses should come with a max cashout limit of at least $50, and we prefer deposit bonuses that come with no max cashout or, at the very least, a limit of 10x your deposit.

Expenditure Rules

Where the bonus can be spent says a lot about how beneficial it actually is for players. We prefer bonuses that you can spend playing many different games. In case of free spins, we base our opinion both on where the free spins can be spent and where you can use the bonus cash generated by the free spins.

Expenditure rules are also related to the bonus stake weights, which determine how much your bets in each type of game will contribute toward any wagering requirements.

Reviews for Every Type of Player, Written by Experts

The team at Casino Wizard has reviewed a wide range of bonuses, including free spins, match deposit bonuses, welcome bonus packages, sign-up offers, and no deposit bonuses. These comprehensive reviews can help you make an informed decision about which bonus type is the best for you to claim.

Years of experience in the industry have allowed us to filter out unreliable offers and bring you reviews of the best bonuses on the internet. Read our casino bonus reviews and choose a promotion to claim in a reliable online casino!