Which Online Casino Bonuses Are the Best?

There’s a lot to love about online casino bonuses and free play offers. Here at the Casino Directory, we make sure to hand-pick the best ones before offering them to our readers. However, there’s a lot to understand about which casino bonuses are the best and why. Knowing how to identify offers that would be most useful to you personally is a surefire way of making the most out of them.

With that in mind, let’s look at some points to consider whenever you compare top online casino bonuses.

Understand How, When, and Why Certain Online Bonuses Work

This might seem obvious, but it’s one of the most common mistakes rookies make with online casino promotions. They rush into attractive offers and opt into bonuses before fully understanding how they are used.

One such factor is which game the bonus applies to. For instance, many offers are limited only to certain games or titles. If you’re looking to, for example, play online roulette, free slot spins won’t do you much good.

However, most offers aren’t quite as obvious as free slot spins. We used them as an example because most such special deals specifically target slot players. When and how a casino bonus can be used is usually stated in the terms and conditions, so make sure to carefully read through them.

Check the Bonus Wagering Requirements

No matter how special casino deals are advertised, they usually come with a few caveats. The most common of these is the wagering requirement on casino bonuses. So, first of all, what are wagering requirements in casino bonuses?

Wagering requirements are terms of how many times you need to bet casino bonus funds before they can be paid out as cash. For example, a 10x wagering requirement means you need to bet a total of 10 times the bonus amount. If you receive a $100 casino bonus, you won’t be able to withdraw it before wagering a total of $1,000.

This might seem daunting at first because such requirements can be huge. However, note that you don’t need to keep throwing money at the casino – you’re cycling it through. That’s how playing at an online casino works. You bet some money, win some, lose some, and you can use your winnings as the next stake. How well this works out for you in the long run depends on the RTP of the selected game.

Still, you need to be careful. Some of these requirements can be quite enormous, and you can end up losing the bonus funds before ever getting a chance to withdraw.

To be fair, these terms exist for a reason. Otherwise, you could just deposit, collect the bonus, and immediately withdraw for a tidy profit. Casino bonus wagering requirements were implemented to avoid such abuse.

Consider Online Casino Bonus Wagering Contributions

This next point combines the previous two, essentially. In short, not every casino game contributes all of the stake towards meeting wagering requirements. This information can usually be found in the terms and conditions, so be sure to read the fine print.

For example, if a certain type of game has a 50% contribution, only half the amount you wager will count for the wagering requirement. This can make certain games more or less favorable for online casino bonuses.

As a rule of thumb, the lower the RTP of a game, the lower its wagering contribution. This makes a lot of sense from an operator’s perspective if you understand how casino wagering requirements work. It makes the bonus harder to cash out in the long run. Players will often burn through their casino freeplay bonus before ever getting a chance to withdraw it.

That’s why online slots casino bonuses come with a 100% contribution. Slots often have lower RTP than most table games, so they are arguably the best option for casino operators.

Conversely, games like blackjack often come with abysmal contributions, sometimes as low as 5%. Blackjack generally offers an RTP rate of over 99% – the highest of all online casino games. Patient and persistent players could easily use it to receive most of their bonus funds as a cash payout. With a 5% contribution, though, chances are that the player will run out of time before getting a chance to wager through the full amount.

Check the Validity Period

This last point ties into the previous one and is quite easy to understand. In short, your bonus funds are bound to expire at some point. Your hope as the player is that you’ll meet the wagering requirements and withdraw the bonus before this moment comes.

Sometimes, the period can be as short as a week. Other times, casinos let your bonus funds stick around for a couple of months. This can make all the difference in the world.

Also, that’s why you might want to consider not taking advantage of as big of a bonus as possible. If you don’t plan to bet a lot, taking a smaller amount with your first deposit bonus can mean you’ll be able to complete the requirements before time runs out.

As you can see, the number one advice on how to pick the best casino bonus is to read the terms carefully. Otherwise, you may get roped into a deal that doesn’t suit you at all.