Make smart use of bonuses for risk free casino gaming
Whether you play casino games in Las Vegas, in Monte Carlo or in your bathroom on your smartphone, you’ll know there’s one golden rule common to them all. The house always wins. It’s logical, a casino is a business with staff to pay and shareholders to satisfy, so it has to take in more money than it pays out.
But – there is always a but. Casinos operate in an incredibly competitive environment. They have something else in common with other businesses in that they are prepared to speculate to accumulate. Casino bonuses are getting bigger and bolder all the time and casinos try to make them look like they guarantee a big win. That’s not true, but if you play them smart, you can enjoy some risk free gaming and stand at least a chance of some sort of return, too.
Types of bonuses
Casinos are desperate to gain market share by attracting newbie gamblers or tempting them to defect from rival providers. That’s why their bonuses are heavily stacked towards new players as opposed to existing ones. Welcome bonuses typically consist of matched bonuses, where the casino will match whatever amount you deposit into your new gambling account, no deposit bonuses, where they will give you some gambling money to get started without you needing to deposit anything, and free spins.
Of course, with a matched bonus, you must pony up some money of your own, so it’s not risk-free. But how about the other types of bonuses? Let’s look more closely.
Free spins
You sometimes see free spins online casino bonus offers as part of a wider welcome package – for example given away alongside a matched bonus. Some casinos, on the other hand, offer free spins with no deposit. As with all bonus offers, the first priority is to read the details, conditions and exclusions very closely before you sign up.
Genuinely free spins, ie those that have no deposit requirement, are usually bound up with many such conditions, for example a high wagering requirement. This essentially means you have to “reinvest” whatever winning your free spins generate a set number of times before you can cash out. Wagering requirements can be as high as 60x. Even worse, some have a limit on how much you can win. That can lead to a sick feeling in the stomach if you hit the jackpot.
Free money?
A no deposit bonus is sometimes made to look like free money, but it’s not exactly that. Think of it more as gambling tokens. Just like the free spins, these “tokens” are subject to wagering requirements and other conditions.
The benefit of this kind of bonus over the free spins is that you generally have more choice on where to spend it. Usually, it is restricted to slots, but sometimes you can use it to play video poker, too – it will all be detailed in the conditions.
Playing smart
You need to accept that most of the time, you will burn out the free spins or “free money” before you can meet the wagering requirement and cash out any winnings. But even if then, these bonuses offer a risk-free way to try out one or more games at zero cost.
To maximize your chances of beating the odds and the conditions, look for bonuses with a lower wagering requirement. When you can, use them to play low volatility games. That way, if you get lucky, you just might emerge with something to cash out!
