Online casino bonus offers must be clear and fully understood

One of the most obvious and popular marketing strategies has always been based on providing goods or services cheaper than your rivals. Most retailers have used this approach at some time or another, and some even seem to advertise sales promotions all year round. There is no doubt that we all enjoy the idea that we are getting a bargain even if there is little evidence of that being the case, but not every business can use that approach to attract new customers and they need to find another way. The gambling industry for example has no scope for offering sales promotions or discounts to stand out from their rivals, they can only really compete on price by offering better odds. The online gambling sector, particularly the online casinos do have the advantage that they can reduce the minimum table stakes on their casino games compared to their land based competitors but other than that they are limited in what they can do. Most online casinos have chosen to use an online casino bonus offer as a way to attract new customers, whereas the online sports gambling sites tend to concentrate on free bets and cash back deals. To their credit Paddy Power have been fairly innovative over the years in finding other ways to stand out from the crowd, but generally there is very little difference between the operators in both sectors of the industry. There is however a worrying aspect with regard to some of the online casino bonus offers which we need to address. Whereas the bonus offers used by the sports gambling site operators are generally relative straightforward and easy to understand, there are always a number of terms and conditions associated with almost all the online casino bonus deals which can cause problems for new casino games players if the requirements of those terms and conditions are not fully understood. Most of the online casino bonus offers, particularly the welcome bonuses targeted at new online casino games players are very similar and use the same format. A new customer is offered the chance to double the stake money they have available to play the casino games featured on the online casino site, with a promise that their first deposit will be matched by the site operator with a 100% bonus. In many cases there is also a similar reduced bonus applicable to the second and even the third deposits made by a new customer. All of these online casino bonus offers however come with terms and conditions attached, the most important of which is what is called the play through requirement. This defines the amount of money a new player will be expected to gamble on playing casino games before they will be allowed to withdraw any potential winnings from their account. There may also be a time limit imposed on satisfying the play through requirements and even perhaps restrictions on which casino games qualify fully towards those requirements. There is no doubt that this type of online casino bonus is a very good deal for those new players for whom these terms and conditions are fully understood and within their budget. After all they are being offered the chance to play casino games with the site operator’s money, but this type of online casino bonus is certainly not a good deal for everybody.

Most people deciding to try playing casino games at an online casino will hopefully have set themselves some sort of budget which they are prepared to spend enjoying this increasingly popular leisure activity, but unfortunately some people have then gone on to greatly exceed that budget simply because they did not understand the play through requirements associated with an online casino bonus offer they agreed to accept. Most of the online casino bonus offers we have studied define the play through requirement in terms of a multiple of the sum of the deposit plus the bonus, generally a factor of at least twenty. That means that a new player who transfers an initial sum of say 25 euros into their account, and agrees to accept a bonus of a further 25 euros will be expected to stake a minimum of twenty times 50 euros, which is 1000 euros before being allowed to withdraw any winnings from their account. If that minimum stake also come with a time limit it is easy to see why some people get into trouble as a result of not fully understanding what they are required to do when they accept this type of online casino bonus. Don’t get us wrong, here at onlinecasino.ie we are not condemning these bonus deals because we completely understand why the terms and conditions are necessary. All we are saying is that they must be clear and fully understood by anyone tempted to accept this type of bonus. Although most of the established online casinos operated by the leading bookmakers tend to use this type of online casino bonus to attract new players, some of the newer online casinos on our recommended list have taken a different approach. The marketing strategy used by the Free Spins casino for example is fairly obvious, and is a very simple offer similar to the free bets offered by some of the online sports gambling sites. Another relatively new online casino with an obvious title is the No Bonus casino. In this case they have chosen to offer all their customers, both new and existing players an innovative cash back deal. Anyone making a deposit today who then encounters a serious run of bad luck leading to the loss of the whole of that deposit on the same day, will receive a 10% cash back paid into their account the following morning. There are also no restrictions on what you can do with that cash, it can be used to play more casino games or withdrawn with no questions asked. Both of these new online casinos have come up with a fresh approach to attracting new customers and we congratulate them for it.