Online casino bonus offers are not suitable for everybody

2016 was another year which saw a continuation of the trend towards self-employment and the establishment of new small businesses. Many of these new businesses are internet based and operated from the founder’s home, but that does not mean that the basics of running a business do not apply. Setting up a business selling goods or services over the internet clearly does not normally require the sort of big financial investment involved in operating from the high street or a retail park, but that does not mean that you do not need some sort of business plan. First and foremost a new business needs to identify who and where their potential customers are, and perhaps more importantly how they propose to communicate with those potential customers. That communication almost certainly needs to start with some form of introduction to let your target customer base know who you are what goods or services you are offering. Most businesses nowadays operate in a highly competitive market so to be successful they have to offer something different. That difference may relate to the quality of the product, or even customer service but in the retail sector the bottom line is nearly always considered to be price. There are a few retail and fashion design organisations who can successfully persuade their customers that their products are worth paying top prices for, but most are very price sensitive particularly for their internet customers who can quickly and easily compare prices from different suppliers. There are however some internet businesses for whom reducing prices to attract customers is not an option, and online casinos for instance are a good example of that type of business. Even in the early days of online casinos when they were all part of bigger online sports gambling sites operated by the leading bookmakers, there was still significant competition between the site operators for new customers. Although most of these online gambling sites already had a strong customer base comprising their sports gambling fans, the introduction of casino games was intended to attract a different group of people who enjoyed playing games. To a certain degree it was possible for different online casino operators to offer a different range of casino games by employing different casino software suppliers, but most of them concentrated their efforts towards attracting new customers by offering some form of online casino bonus.

The idea of offering bonuses in one form or another was not new in the online gambling sector, and all the bookmakers who were operating these sites already had some form of welcome bonus deal for new sports gambling customers. Paddy Power in particular became well known for innovative incentives and bonuses to attract new customers, and although some of their marketing techniques attracted a certain amount of criticism from some quarters they are still the most popular in Ireland. Unfortunately we have yet to see similar inventiveness when it comes to online casino bonus offers, almost all of which are very similar whichever site you look at. Here at onlinecasino.ie we also think that there is another problem with most of these online casino bonus offers, and that is the complexity of some of the terms and conditions associated with these bonus offers. A welcome bonus offer on an online sports gambling site is usually a very straightforward promise of one or more free bets, but most of the online casino bonus offers we find on the leading online casino sites are unfortunately not that simple.

The most common form of online casino bonus is a commitment to match a customer’s first deposit with a 100% bonus so that they have twice the available stake money to play casino games. Some online casino operators also offer a reduced bonus applicable to the second and even third deposits made by a customer, but they are all subject to the same terms and conditions and that is where the misunderstandings can start. It is important that any new online casino games player who is considering accepting one of these online casino bonus offers fully understands all the terms and conditions, most notably the play-through requirements. This is probably the most important of the terms and conditions and stipulates how much money has to be staked on playing casino games before any money can be withdrawn from the customer’s account. It is usually defined as a multiple of the sum of the deposit plus the bonus. It is normally 20 times that sum but can be as high as 30 times on a few sites. If we put that requirement in simple terms, a deposit of 25 euros for instance would attract a bonus of a further 25 euros making a total of 50 euros with which to play casino games. However if we apply a multiple of 20 to that figure we realise that the player would need to stake at least 1000 euros on playing casino games before accessing their account. We fully understand why the online casino operators need to apply these terms and conditions, because they need to ensure that we remain on the site for as long as possible, but for many new players the idea of gambling 1000 euros on playing casino games would be out of the question and well beyond their budget. For some people of course it is a good deal but the important thing is that people understand what is required before accepting this type of online casino bonus. Remember that they are voluntary and turning them down will not affect your relationship with the online casino in any way.

Although we have said that most of the leading online casinos have similar bonus offers, many of the new online casinos have decided to take a different approach to attracting new customers. Probably the most interesting of these is from the aptly named No Bonus casino. As the name suggests they do not offer any bonus deals at all, preferring an innovative cash back offer for anyone suffering a run of bad luck. If a player makes a deposit and loses it all the same day, a 10% cash back will be paid into their account the next day.