Make sure you understand the terms of any online casino bonus offer

There are many ways for a business to try and steal a march on their rivals and attract new customers, but nowadays price is one of the most commonly used strategies particularly among the big supermarket companies. The success of the new low cost supermarket chains has undoubtedly changed the way many people shop for their fresh food and groceries, but keeping prices low is not the only way to stand out from the crowd. There are some business sectors such as fashion where high prices are deliberately maintained so that customers believe they are getting the best quality and are therefore prepared to pay the highest prices. The importance of quality over cost is also very apparent in the online casino sector of course, because there is very little opportunity to compete on price against their online competitors. All the online casinos offer their customers the chance to play casino games for very small stakes, so that although this is an effective advantage over real casinos it is totally useless as a marketing strategy to compete with their online rivals. Here at onlinecasino.ie we will always believe that the best way for any online casino to attract new customers is to offer them the most exciting and highest quality casino games, but we should also be aware of another common approach, namely the online casino bonus offers available at almost every online casino site. There is nothing wrong with offering an online casino bonus to new customers, but many of these bonus deals can often appear more attractive than they really are and can even cause unnecessary problems for some new casino games players on a low budget. When one of the online sports gambling sites offer a bonus deal it is usually very straightforward and easy to understand, but that is not always true when it comes to understanding the terms and conditions associated with the most common form of online casino bonus. Most of the online casinos featured on our recommended list offer potential new casino games players a similar type of welcome bonus deal, which involves a promise to match that new customer’s first deposit with a 100% bonus so that they have double the amount of stake money with which to play their casino games. Some online casinos also offer a reduced bonus on the customer’s second and even third deposits into their online casino account, but they all come with a list of terms and conditions which may mean that this type of online casino bonus is not suitable for everybody. Clearly the idea of being offered the chance to play casino games for twice as long or for higher stakes as a result of accepting this type of welcome bonus can be very attractive, but as with many seemingly unmissable offers the sting is in the small print.

The most important of the terms and conditions associated with almost every one of this type of online casino bonus is what is generally known as the play through requirement. This defines how much money the recipient of the welcome bonus needs to stake on playing casino games before being allowed to withdraw any potential winnings from their account. This play through requirement is usually expressed as a multiple of the sum of the initial deposit plus the bonus, and is usually at least a factor of twenty. Putting that definition into more understandable language, a relatively small deposit of say 20 euros attracting a bonus of another 20 euros would provide the player with a total stake of 40 euros. A multiple of twenty would therefore mean that the player would need to gamble at least 800 euros on playing casino games before being able to withdraw any winnings from their account. Some online casinos also apply a time limit on that play through requirement and even disqualify some of their casino games from being used to satisfy that requirement. Clearly if the new casino games player is not concerned at the prospect of being required to gamble at least 800 euros on playing casino games to qualify for a 20 euro bonus, this type of online casino bonus potentially represents a good deal, but there are many people for whom that play through requirement would lead to them massively exceeding their budget and that would not be a good idea. The reasons why the online casino operators need to apply these terms and conditions are fairly obvious, because they are offering us the chance to enjoy playing casino games with their money and therefore need us to stay on their site for as long as possible. We do not blame the operators for applying these terms and conditions because we understand why they need to do it, but we also believe that it is important that anybody considering accepting one of these welcome bonus deals fully understands what is expected of them. Not every online casino uses this type of approach to attracting new customers however, and the No Bonus casino in particular has come up with an interesting alternative. The No Bonus casino offers an innovative cash back deal for all their casino games players, both new and existing players. If any of their players make a deposit today and then suffer a run of bad luck costing them the whole of that deposit n the same day, 10% of that lost deposit will be repaid into their account the following morning. There are no conditions attached to that cash back money and it can even be totally withdrawn from the account without penalty. It’s true of course that this cash back offer only applies when we have lost all our deposit, but it does allow us to play casino games without being tempted to exceed our budget. Another of the online casinos on our recommended list which does not offer an online casino bonus is the Free Spins casino. Their approach to attracting new casino games players is again obvious in the name of the site and most of their games can be played free of charge.