The Most Important Characteristics of a Casino Bonus
These are some of the key components and terms that you need to be aware of when playing with a casino bonus.
Wagering Requirements
Wagering requirements (also called playthrough requirements) are the standard bonus condition at most online casinos. That includes those for Aussie players.
Basically, wagering requirements ask you to bet with a multiple of the bonus money amount that you got before you can make a withdrawal. Fairly simple.
- For example, consider an AU$10 bonus with a 10x wagering requirement.
- This would mean you’d need to wager AU$100 before you can withdraw any winnings you may have made from the bonus.
- That’s AU$10 times the 10x wagering. Easy.
Without a clause like this, casinos would just be handing out free money with their bonuses. Which isn’t an economical way to run any business, we’re sure you’ll agree.
You’ll find online casinos in Aus offering wagering requirements of anywhere between 20x and 50x. Any higher than that is not really fair dos.
Deposit Match
A deposit match is when the casino gives you bonus money equal to the amount you deposited.
It’s not always completely equal, however. Often deposit matches are tied to a percentage amount.
Sometimes you might even see different percentages split across your first three deposits.
For example, your first deposit might match 100% up to AU$100.
You might then get 50% on your next deposit up to AU$500.
Let’s say you deposited AU$20 the first time and then AU$50 the second time.
That would give you a total of AU$45 – 100% of $20 and then 50% of AU$50.
The maximum you could get would be $AU350 if you took up the whole offer.
These bonuses are good for casinos and players, because all budgets of players can benefit in the same way – whether you deposit a tenner or AU$100 at a time.
Maximum Stake
A rare few bonuses at Australian online casinos will come with a maximum stake that you’re allowed to use during your playthrough or wagering.
This is to stop you hitting a VIP table or high-limit pokies, and betting your whole requirement in one go.
Usually the limits are $AU5 to AU$50 or so. Which is quite unfair on high value players, but that’s the way it is.
We’re not a fan of these clauses, although they don’t appear too often. We’ll always point them out when do see them.
Maximum Cashout
Fairly self-explanatory this one. This gives you a maximum amount that you’re allowed to withdraw of any bonus winnings.
Sometimes this is used in conjunction with wagering requirements, but other times not.
These aren’t the best clauses to find in your casino bonus, so we’ll usually point them out – especially when they’re lower than $AU500 or so.
These cash-out limits don’t usually apply to jackpot pokies wins, but we’ll tell you if they do.
Game Contribution
Game contribution in online casino bonuses, is when different games only pay a certain percent of your bet towards the wagering requirement (see above).
Casinos know that you’re more likely to make consistent small wins playing a game like blackjack rather than pokies.
Sure, you could hit the jackpot, but over the long term one player getting lucky is balanced by all the players that didn’t.
That’s why live casino games and table games are often either completely excluded from the bonus or have a lesser contribution.
For example, a common percentage for blackjack is 10%. That means for every AU$10 you bet, only AU$1 will come off your progress towards a withdrawal.
Types Of Bonuses
Not all bonuses are created equal. Here we will explore the different types or kinds of deals that are commonly found at online casinos of today.
Deposit Bonuses/Welcome Packages
Welcome bonuses are a welcome to the casino to new players. You can usually only get them once or split over your first few deposits.
They’re nearly always deposit matches, but you do get flat cash bonuses or free spins welcome bonuses too.
Deposit bonuses are usually deposit match offers, that are usually tied to certain days of the week or month.
You can get these whether you’re a new or existing player.
However, they can’t always be combined with the welcome bonus – so watch out for that.
No Deposit Bonuses
The holy grail of online casino bonuses, no-deposit bonuses give you free bets (usually bonus cash or free spins) simply for being a customer or signing up. Easy!
These tend to have slightly more restrictive terms than deposit-matched bonuses, but not always.
We’ll never miss a chance a to point you in the direction of a good no deposit bonus when we review a casino with one.
Free Spins (Deposit or No Deposit)
Free spins give you, as you might think, free spins on pokies games.
These can be determined by the casino, or (more rarely) on the pokies game of your choice.
They’ll always be at a set bet limit, usually the lowest bet on a given slot, but sometimes they go higher.
These are the offers most likely to have a maximum win clause on them – but we’ll always point you in the direction of the less restrictive offers out there.
Live Casino Bonuses
We mentioned game contribution above – and this is the reason live casino fans will want to find bonuses exclusively tailored to them.
These will often be lower in cash value, as table games generally give more chances to make regular small profits.
However, the trade-off is they will contribute 100% to your wagering requirement.
Meaning you can play your bonus through just as quickly on blackjack or roulette, without being forced to play pokies to complete the wagering. Smashing it!
Cashback
Cashback offers give you cash back on any losses (if you make a loss) over a certain period.
This could be within 24 hours of your deposit or on certain dates like international holidays or weekends.
They usually tend to give you about 1% to 10% of any losses back – and they’re the most likely of all online casino bonuses to be actual withdrawable cash instead of bonus money.
Fantastic!
Loyalty Rewards
Loyalty rewards are bonuses online casinos give you for being a long-term customer on their site.
They can take the form of:
- Free spins
- No Deposit Cash Bonuses
- Cashback Offers
- Loyalty Points that can be exchanged for the above bonuses
- Prize wheels for levelling up your account
- Prize draws for holiday trips, gadgets etc. (less common for Aussie players sadly)
Sometimes you’ll get more points for betting higher amounts, but other casinos will simply offer points based upon number of bets or time spent playing.
You might even find some casinos themed entirely around their reward system, which is always cool.
Although, you might also find a lot of casinos with no reward system at all (boo!).
One of the best ways to tell is to read our reviews first, where we outline exactly what rewards you should expect.
Calculating Value of a Bonus
Ideally, you want a bonus with a low playthrough requirement of 30x or less, with no maximum win or stake clauses.
Before you jump in though, there’s still one useful thing to know – the expected value. To do so:
- Find a slot game you want to play, or one with a good return to player (96%-plus).
- Take the maximum bonus amount, we’ll say $AU100, and multiply that by the wagering to get how much you need to play before a withdrawal. In this case, we’ll use 30x again – so wagering is AU$3000.
- Take the house edge of your pokies game, let’s say 2.5%.
- Take the house edge percentage of the wagering requirement, so in this case AU$75.
- Then you minus that expected loss over AU$3000 of wagering, from the original max deposit.
- That’s: AU$100, minus 2.5% of AU$3000 ($AU75). Therefore, the expected value of such a bonus would be +AU$25.
That means, on average, most players taking up the full bonus amount would win around 25 bucks.
If it came out as a negative number, you’d have to get lucky to the tune of that amount to finish the bonus playthrough at all.
All things are possible though – including jackpot wins.
That’s because EV is only a mathematical prediction and not foolproof.
Gambling online for any one individual can be a hugely different experience from what’s expected with thousands of players over many years.
So take the EV calculation with a pinch of salt – but it can still offer some idea of what’s a good bonus.
Bonuses For Table Games
Like live casino games, RNG tables games are also mostly excluded from contributing to your bonus playthrough.
That’s for the same reasons – table games have a lower house edge in general than slots.
Some, like blackjack, even have an element of skill.
That means canny players can game the bonus for maximum returns, so casinos generally just don’t let you play bonus funds of table games.
You will find a few bonuses suitable for virtual blackjack or craps play though.
They range from 50% contribution to sometimes even 100% on dedicated table game bonuses.
So look out for those in our casino reviews!