An online casino bonus may not suit every new player

Every business whether online or on the high street needs to find a way to stand out from their rivals, and there are of course many different ways to achieve that objective. If we look at the online gambling sector for instance the marketing strategies vary from high profile national advertising right through to online casino bonus deals and even the latest approach,a cash back offer for those suffering a run of bad luck. Recently there has been a great deal of publicity regarding the major bookmakers advertising during live sports broadcasting on television and whether that advertising encourages children to start gambling, and there is even talk of the bookmakers voluntarily agreeing to stop this form of advertising. The fact remains however that sport will always play an important part in the marketing strategy of every gambling business. Bookmakers such as Paddy Power and Ladbrokes do not have a big problem in terms of brand awareness because of their significant high street presence, but the online bookmakers such as Bwin and 888 who do not have any high street betting shops need to find another way to establish their brand, and one of the ways they do that is by sports sponsorship. Many of the online casinos on our recommended list are of course operated by the big bookmakers and form part of their big online sports gambling sites, but we are increasingly seeing new online casinos coming on stream which have no connection with the big bookmakers or sports gambling. It is these specialist online casinos that need to establish a customer base in other ways, which brings us back to the online casino bonus offers commonly found throughout the online casino sector. Bonus deals are not uncommon in the online sports gambling sector, with Paddy Power and Betfred particularly well known for their innovative bonus offers, but these deals are usually very straightforward and easy to understand whereas many of the online casino bonus offers have so many terms and conditions associated with them that they can easily be misunderstood. It is also debatable whether they actually achieve their objective of persuading potential new customers to lay their casino games on a particular online casino site, because many of the available online casino bonus offers are almost identical.Nevertheless most of the online casino operators clearly believe that they are effective and continue to offer new customers a bonus.

Almost all of these online casino bonus offers take the form of a promise to match a new player’s first deposit with a 100% bonus. The bonus therefore doubles the amount of money the new customer has to stake on playing casino games, which is clearly a very attractive offer on the face of it. Many online casinos also offer a similar but reduced bonus on the second and even the third deposit made by a new casino games player, but they all come with a list of terms and conditions which need to be fully understood by anyone considering accepting one of these online casino bonus deals. The most important and often the most misunderstood of the terms and conditions associated with this type of online casino bonus is what we refer to as the play through requirement. This defines how much money a player needs to stake on playing casino games in order to qualify for the bonus and before they can withdraw any potential winnings resulting from the bonus. This play through requirement is usually defined as a multiple of the sum of the deposit plus the bonus, and is commonly a factor of at least 20 times that total. A relatively modest initial deposit of say 20 euros would therefore attract a bonus of a further 20 euros making a total of 40 euros. If we then multiply that figure by a factor of 20 a player would need to gamble 800 euros on playing casino games in order to satisfy the play through conditions associated with accepting the bonus. It is also not unusual for there to be restrictions on which casino games qualify fully towards the play through requirement, because some casino games such as roulette for example generally have a smaller house edge than others. There may also be a time limit on completing the play through requirement included in the terms and conditions, all of which may mean that accepting this form of online casino bonus may not be the best option for many potential new online casino games players. We fully understand why the online casino operators need to apply these terms and conditions to this type of online casino bonus offer, because they are enabling those new customers to play casino games with the casino’s money and therefore need them to stay on the site for as long as possible in order to be able to get some of that money back, but it is important that the terms and conditions are fully understood.After all if a new customer gets into trouble because they do not understand what is expected of them they are unlikely to play again and certainly would not recommend that particular site. Having pointed out the potential draw backs associated with this type of online casino bonus we should also say that for anyone who is happy with the play through requirements the opportunity to double the amount of money they have available to play casino games is a great deal.Earlier in this article we commented on the latest alternative to this type of welcome bonus deal, namely the cash back deal being offered by the No Bonus casino. In the event that a player makes a deposit today and suffers a horrible run of bad luck that leads to them losing the whole of that deposit on the same day, their account will be credited with a cash back of 10% of that loss the following morning. There are no strings attached and the money can even be withdrawn without any penalties if that is what the player wants to do.