Some online casino bonus deals may not be suitable

It is a fact of life that the business world is a very competitive environment whatever sector you are operating in. Nowadays the retail sector is particularly difficult because high street retailers not only have to compete with other town centre businesses, they are also competing with the internet retailers who have much lower costs and are therefore able to undercut the high street shops on price. The net result of this intense competition is that almost every high street shop appears to be permanently advertising a discounted sale event throughout the year. There are however some business sectors in which price is not an issue, one of which is the online gambling industry, including online casinos. The online sports gambling sites may occasionally be able to offer slightly better odds than their rivals, but that sort of marketing strategy is virtually impossible for the online casino operators which is why we see so many online casino bonus offers on the online casino sites. Bonus deals or cash back offers are of course common place among the online sports gambling site operators, but most of those deals are fairly straightforward and easy to understand. Unfortunately we cannot say the same about most of the online casino bonus offers we encounter because we continually hear stories of people who did not understand the implications of the terms and conditions associated with these offers, which in turn led to them struggling to satisfy those terms and conditions. The online casino sector is becoming more competitive all the time because more and more new sites are coming on stream, so it is also becoming harder to stand out from the crowd and attract new customers. There are also very few strategies that the online casino operators have at their disposal, certainly as far as competing with their rivals on a financial basis is concerned which is why we now see most online casinos choosing to offer very similar welcome bonuses targeted primarily at new casino games players. The majority of the online casino bonus offers are very similar and take the form of a promise to match a new players initial deposit with a 100% bonus, effectively doubling the stake money they have available to play the casino games on the site. Many of the online casinos also offer a reduced bonus on the new player’s second and even their third deposit, but all these welcome bonuses come with a list of terms and conditions which we strongly recommend that the player should make sure they fully understand before deciding to accept the bonus.

Undoubtedly the most important and indeed the most contentious of these terms and conditions is what we refer to as the play through requirements. This defines how much a player is required to gamble on playing the online casino games in order to qualify for the bonus and before being allowed to withdraw any potential winnings related to the bonus. The play through requirement is usually expressed as a multiple of the sum of the deposit plus the bonus, and is commonly at least a factor of twenty. To put that in plain English, a player who makes a relatively modest initial deposit of say 20 euros and decides to accept a 100 % bonus of 20 euros would need to bet at least 20 x 40 euros, ie. a total of 800 euros on playing casino games in order to qualify for the bonus. As you can see that sort of gambling budget may not be suitable for a number of potential online casino games players, particularly where the casino operator also specifies a time limit on the play through requirement which is not uncommon. There may also be restrictions on what type of casino games fully qualify towards the play through requirement because some games such as roulette have a lower house edge than others. Clearly it is easy to see why some new players misunderstand some of these terms and conditions, and therefore what is expected of them to qualify for the bonus.

Although we have pointed out the pitfalls associated with this type of online casino bonus, we also fully understand why the terms and conditions are necessary from the point of view of the online casino operator. This form of welcome bonus is of course a very generous offer and allows their customers to play casino games with the site operator’s money rather than their own. It is therefore understandable that the online casino site operator needs that player to stay on the site for as long as possible in order to have a chance of getting their money back, which is why the play through requirements are so important. However in spite of the fact that we understand why the online casino operator needs to impose the terms and conditions, we also need to do our best to ensure that nobody is forced to gamble more than they can afford simple to satisfy the terms associated with this type of welcome bonus. Any bonus of this sort is very generous if the terms and conditions allow a player to keep within their budget, but it must not lead to the temptation to over stretch your budget. Remember that these bonus deals are voluntary and declining to accept a bonus will never affect your future relationship with the online casino. Before we conclude this article, we should probably also query whether this type of online casino bonus is even effective as a way of competing with rival online casino sites, because almost all the welcome bonus deals are very similar. There is however one online casino which has decide against offering this type of welcome bonus. The No Bonus casino now offers a cash back deal aimed at anyone who encounters a run of bad luck which costs them the whole of their deposit on the same day. It is not restricted to new players and promises to repay 10% of the deposit into their account the following morning.