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Wagering requirements tend to be the make-or-break feature that defines the qualities of a bonus and turns it into either an amazing offer or one that you would rather avoid – even if it promises to give you over €1,000 in free cash. The world’s best online casinos tend to lock their lucrative bonuses behind some of these wagering requirements, but the fairest of casinos provide you with requirements that are actually achievable and not just a placeholder for an offer that you’ll never be able to comply with. This guide, however, will take you through the steps you need to follow to make sure that you walk away with cash after playing with your bonus money. We will be talking about everything you can do – ranging from finding the best bonuses (we’re going to tell you all about them, don’t worry) to properly managing your bonus bankroll to make sure that the offer ends up in your pocket and not on the casino’s hands.
What are Bonus Wagering Requirements?
Bonus wagering requirements are a determined amount of money that you need to bet in order to “unlock” the rewards of a casino bonus and turn the bonus money into real money that you can withdraw to your bank account or e-wallet. Almost every online casino bonus has wagering requirements that rule over it, as online casinos will not be giving you free cash otherwise. These wagering requirements make some players unable to withdraw the money after failing to comply with them, but you can come across some very fair wagering requirements that are not difficult to comply with at all. Even the best casinos in the world use wagering requirements in their bonuses, so it’s almost impossible to run away from them if that’s what you’re looking to do. This guide will allow you to make the best of the bonus money and actually walk away with a withdrawable profit from any of the offers upon which you partake in any online casino.
Expected Wagering Requirements – What Should You Settle for?
One question that we often see on the internet, and one that we’re keen to answer, is “what is a fair wagering requirement for a casino bonus?”. Even though the answer to this question varies depending on player perception, we’ve always said that a wagering requirement that stays below 35x the amount of your deposit is often considered a fair one. Of course, if you happen to find a casino bonus with no wagering requirements at all, or one that has a wagering requirement of 30 times or lower, those are some bonuses that you’ll want to claim as soon as you can. Keep in mind that some online casinos hide the actual amount of the wagering requirement and make it seem lower than it really is. For example, you might come across an offer that says that the wagering requirement is 35x, but it multiplies both the amount of your deposit and the amount of money that you’ll get as a bonus, which ends up making it unfair. Such terms would have you wagering 70 times the amount of your deposit, assuming that the bonus is a 100% match deposit reward.
Do All Bonuses Come with Wagering Requirements?
Most online casino bonuses come with wagering requirements in an attempt to make players actually work for the free cash that they’re going to receive and not just keep the money that they’re getting from the site. However, there are some online casinos that offer world-class bonuses that permit players to cash out the money almost as soon as they spend the rewards. PlayOJO is a fantastic online casino that provides players with wager-free bonuses, should you rather spend your time playing in online casinos that don’t have wagering requirements. You can also find online casinos with fair wagering requirements and attempt to fulfill them, as they often provide you with higher sums of cash than what you can get from PlayOJO. PlayOJO gives you 90 wager-free spins, whilst other online casinos would be otherwise offering free spins only after you've made a deposit, or free spins that aren't as lucrative as the ones offered by PlayOJO.
What Are Low Wagering Requirements? – The Numbers Explained
Low wagering requirements aren’t necessary requirements that are below 35 times the amount of your deposit. In fact, you could say that a low wagering requirement would be one with a higher number but with more lenient terms. For example, if you’re allowed to spend your bonus money in games with an RTP of 98% or higher, it might be worth claiming a bonus even if it has a requirement of 50x or more. In most cases, though, the one clear indicator of a fair offer is that the bonus comes with a low wagering requirement that only includes the amount of your deposit OR the amount of your bonus – not both. You should look for bonuses that have a requirement of 35x the amount of your deposit or 35x the amount of the bonus per se. Avoid bonuses that ask you to wager both – those are very difficult to cash out.
Fulfilling Casino Wagering Requirements – The Easy Way
Now that you know which bonuses are fair and which ones to avoid, it’s time for you to dive deep into the world of wagering requirements and actually discover how you can cash out one of these offers without struggling too much. Before we give you our full list of tips and advice, please keep one thing in mind: online casinos will never make it easy for you to cash out an offer. The more lucrative an offer is, the harder it will be to cash out. You’ll find this out even if you try to claim one of the wager-free bonuses that we’ve mentioned in this piece. These bonuses tend to be far less lucrative than the ones that promise sums of money in excess of €1,000. However, those guarantee that you’ll walk away with at least a euro or two without losing any of your own money to get them.
Stake Weights – How to Approach Them
The first thing that you’ll need to know when claiming a bonus is that stake weights will play a huge part in determining whether you’ll be able to walk away with a profit or lose your money altogether. A stake weight is basically a percentage of your bet that will go towards the fulfillment of the wagering requirement in question. For example, most online casinos give online slots a 100% stake weight. That means that, for every €5 that you bet in these games, you’d be getting €5 towards the fulfillment of your wagering requirement. However, table games often have a lower stake weight of around 10%, which means that a €5 bet will only contribute a total of €0.50 towards the fulfillment of the wagering requirement in question. Online casinos often do this to encourage their players to bet their money in online slots, which are much less under the control of the player than games like blackjack or roulette where safer bets are far more likely to be won. Make sure that you read the rules and see whether the online casino at which you’re playing allows making “safe” bets in table games. If those are allowed, you might be better off playing table games even though they have reduced stake weights. Safe bets are bets that are almost close to a 50% return rate, such as betting on red and black on roulette. Do note, however, that you’re likely to be disqualified from claiming the bonus money if you place €5 on the black and €5 on the red. Close-to-zero-risk bets are almost always not allowed to be made.
Study the Bonus Timeframes
Another important aspect of online casino bonuses that you should consider is the timeframe in which you have to spend the bonus cash or free spins. This will determine whether you might be better off spending the bonus cash in online slots to speed up the process of claiming the cash or if it’s better for you to play table games, take more time to comply with the requirements, and play with safer bets with higher return rates. The magic of online casino bonuses is that you’ll always have to determine what’s best for you after seeing the cards that you’ve been dealt. If you have one month to comply with a 30x wagering requirement, you’ll have leeway into deciding what you want to do with the money. However, if you find yourself with one week and you need to comply with a wagering requirement of 35x, you might have to spend it on slots and cross your fingers hoping that the money that you’re spending is money well spent. Once you know how much time the offer has left, you’ll be able to decide what to play with a clear state of mind. You should always read about the wagering requirements and the bonus timeframe before claiming a welcome bonus to be sure that you’ll be able to comply with the conditions in advance.
Bonuses that Make You Use Your Own Money – Should You Claim Them?
All online casino bonuses should provide you with cash, but the vast majority of them will place the bonus cash as part of your “Bonus Balance” until the wagering requirements have been fulfilled. Our favorite bonuses, and the best online casino bonuses in the world, tend to allow you to play with the bonus balance before using your own cash. However, there are some bonuses that require you to use your own money in order to comply with the terms and conditions of the offer. This can be difficult for players who are looking to not spend their own money but rather play with the casino’s money instead. Bonuses that work like this are not always ones to avoid, but you do need to read the terms and conditions before claiming the offer to make sure that you can actually use your bonus cash. Some casinos allow you to use the bonus cash once your own wallet balance runs out. Ideally, though, you should be able to comply with the wagering requirements by playing with your bonus balance. Prioritize claiming casino bonuses that allow players to wager the bonus money first. Those are the ones that give you the best value for your investment. In most cases, though, you will not be able to make any withdrawals of your own money until the wagering requirements of the bonus have been fulfilled. You might be allowed to make them, but the bonus money will be deleted from your account if you choose to do it. It’s up to you to decide what to do with the cash.
The Games that You Should Play
If you’re looking to comply with the requirements as quickly as possible and you trust your luck, the best games to quickly fulfill the wagering requirements of a casino are the online slots that the website has to offer. In most cases, a lucky streak in an online slot will allow you to comply with the wagering requirements in less than one hour. If you’re not a fan of slots, make sure that you claim a bonus that allows you to play other types of games. Some casino bonuses are exclusively made for specific sections of each casino, which means that they are tailor-made for certain players. Should you love to play live games, look for online casinos that offer live dealer welcome bonuses. If you’re a fan of sportsbooks, visit casinos with world-class sportsbook bonuses and spend the money in any sport that you like the most. Pay a visit to LeoVegas and Betsson if you do like to play sports – those have some absolutely fantastic bonuses. Likewise, if you’re a fan of table games and poker, you might want to check out the 888 Casino poker bonus (and other 888 Casino promotions) or the Betsson poker bonus to get started with a bang in some of the world’s best poker tables.
Compare Games with Other Online Casinos
Once you know where you can spend your bonus money in an online casino, you will need to check out other online casino bonuses to see which games they allow you to play with the cash. Let’s illustrate this better with an example: Let’s say that Online Casino ‘A’ disallows the use of bonus money in 10 different online slots. This is most likely due to the fact that these slots come with high RTP rates, which means that you’re far more likely to walk away with the money if you spend your bonus cash in them. Check out the names of those slots and visit other online casinos that offer quality bonuses to see if you’re allowed to play these slots in other casinos. If you happen to find games that are banned from certain casinos but you can play them with bonus money in others, you might be able to use this to your advantage and play them with bonus money in other sites to try and get a good monetary return. On the other hand, you may also visit online casinos that disclose the RTP of games or simply look for games with a high RTP and play them in any online casino that offers bonuses for those games. The general rule of thumb is that you will be able to make a profit with bonus cash as long as you do proper research to minimize the odds of losing and maximize the odds of winning. The latter might never reach 100%, but you can get close to it by playing games with high RTP rates using your bonus cash.
Free Spins and Free Bonus Money – Know the Difference
Even though both of these bonuses will end up with you having bonus money in your account, there’s a huge difference as to how you can spend bonus money when it is given straight to you and when it’s given as part of a free spin bonus. Free spin bonuses are often restricted to be spent on a certain online slot, or a handful of them, selected by the casino. This means that you will need to play one game with the bonus spins, even though that game might not have a high RTP or you might prefer playing something else. A good trick that we recommend to all our readers is to spend the bonus free spins as quickly as possible and then pick up that bonus cash and spend it on games that come with a higher RTP.
Some of the world’s most popular online slots, which you will find as part of many welcome bonuses on the internet, don’t have the best of RTP rates on the internet. Take a game like Starburst, for example. It’s a world-class title and one of the most popular slots on the planet, but the game comes with an RTP of roughly 96%. The same goes for Book of Dead, which is why it's always better to play these games with Starburst bonus codes or Book of Dead free spins.
However, the decent RTP of these games allows you to make a small profit while playing them, which will then allow you to spend the bonus cash in other games that you might like and that offer better return rates. That’s our advice to you: spend your free spins in whichever game the casino wants you to play and turn them into bonus money. Then, use the bonus money to play the best online casino slots or the best table games, if the offer allows you to do it. Most online casinos treat the bonus money generated by free spins like they would treat a traditional deposit bonus that gives you cash. That means that they’re ruled by the same restrictions and conditions.
Find Fair Casinos Bonuses
This might sound a tad obvious, but the best way for you to walk away with a profit from an online casino is to simply look for offers that are fair for the player and that aren’t looking to scam you out of your money. The only way for you to do this is by actually reading the terms and conditions of an offer to make sure that they aren’t unfair to you. There are a few conditions that make it obvious for the player that an offer is as fair as they come:
- The wagering requirements of a bonus are 35xb, 35xd, or lower
- The timeframe of the offer exceeds 15 days
- Stake weights are fair and they allow you to play casino games other than slots
- You’re not restricted to spend the money in one game
- Although not really a condition, it’s also important to read the opinions of other players to see
Don’t Fall for Extremely Lucrative Offers without Reading the Terms
We know that some offers just seem like they’re too good to be true. Don’t get us wrong – in some cases, bonuses that look promising can indeed be very promising. However, whenever you come across one of those bonuses that rewards you with €1,000 in free cash, you might want to take a closer look at the offer’s terms and conditions to ensure that you’re not getting scammed. Some casinos give you a ton of money but you have to fulfill the requirements using your own cash, and the requirements can often be as high as 100 times the amount of money of the bonus. These offers are better off being left alone, as it’s almost certain that you won’t make money out of them. The terms and conditions are always your best friend when claiming a bonus. They can be rather lengthy, but worry not – we have compiled the world’s best online casino bonuses and summarized all of their terms and conditions for your reading pleasure. No need to go through endless pages on your own!
The Best Online Casinos with Fair Wagering Requirements
Even though we have reviewed dozens of online casinos, we can safely tell you that not all of them are looking to give you fair wagering requirements for their bonuses. You will struggle to withdraw money from some of the world’s best online casinos if you don’t know which ones to avoid. As such, we’ve compiled the crème de la crème when it comes to quality online casinos that provide you with world-class bonuses, which will allow you to enjoy amazing rewards that you’ll eventually cash out after fulfilling their requirements. All of the online casinos that we’re going to mention are rated among the best that we’ve ever reviewed, so you can rest assured that you’ll only find quality bonuses from the best online casinos in the world.
Wildz Casino
The Wildz Casino comes packed with a ton of amazing games that you can enjoy, including one of the best live dealer sections that we’ve ever had the pleasure of trying out. This fantastic online casino stands out among many sites that are rated as the best in the world, but it manages to outshine other websites thanks to its quality selection of bonuses and one of the best welcome bonuses on the planet.
This fantastic Wildz sign up bonus provides you with 200 free spins and up to €500 in free cash with a staggeringly low wagering requirement of just 35 times the amount of the bonus money. This includes the amount of cash generated with the free spins, making it even lower than it looks at first glance. Wildz is an amazing online casino that provides players with thousands of slots to enjoy, a quality selection of table games, a unique spinback feature, and bonuses that are fair for all players to enjoy. You can claim many fantastic offers with the Wildz loyalty program – check it out and win big!
Mr Green Casino
The Mr Green Casino is one of the best websites in the world, having won multiple prizes in the past and being recognized as one of the most successful online casinos in recent years. As things stand, the Mr Green Casino provides players with the chance to claim fantastic bonuses with very low wagering requirements, with rewards that you can spend in games that are exclusive to the casino. The Mr Green Casino provides you with a Mr Green Casino sign up bonus that allows you to spend free spins in Starburst, so it might be time for you to put out strategy into practice: use the bonus money generated with the free spins to win big rewards in other games! The Mr Green Casino is home to a decent number of tournaments and competitions at in which you can partake if you intend to win additional bonus money apart from the cash you can get by claiming bonuses on the casino. Bonuses galore and promotions with fair requirements await those who walk through the virtual doors of the Mr Green Casino.
Special Mention – The PlayOJO Casino
Although the PlayOJO Casino is not rated among our top 10 best online casinos, we still think that it deserves a special mention here because of the highly-lucrative offers that you can enjoy on this site. PlayOJO has a policy in place in which their welcome bonus free spins come attached to wagering requirements, which we believe that you’re going to love as much as we did. At the PlayOJO Casino, you will be able to claim that amazing 90 PlayOJO free spins offer that we talked about, plus a staggering daily bonus that will bolster your account balance every day by simply complying with the requirements that the casino tells you. The catch? There is none. You just won’t get as much money as you would get in other online casinos, but chances are that you’ll be able to make much more using the bonus cash than what you would make in online casinos that promise you thousands of euros but hide them behind wagering requirements of 50 times or more.
Visit Your Favorite Casino and Put Our Guide to Good Use!
Now that you know which bonuses are better than others, where to find the best bonuses, and how your money is better spent, it’s time for you to visit any online casinos with quality bonuses and get down to business. The best bonuses in the world are waiting for you to claim them, and your bank balance is all but waiting to skyrocket. Choose whichever casino you like the most and embark on an adventure of a lifetime with your newly-gained knowledge!