Online casino bonuses can be generous but they are not for everybody

Almost every business needs first to identify their potential customers and then to find a way to persuade them to buy goods or services from them as opposed from their rivals. There are of course many different ways to achieve that objective, so much so that there are a huge number of companies who specialise in doing just that for their customers. This process is nowadays generally referred to as marketing and covers everything from advertising to customer relations and pricing. All of these areas are vitally important to any successful marketing strategy, but there is no doubt that pricing can have the biggest influence of how successful a company can be particularly in a highly competitive environment where quality and service levels are similar. The most obvious example of that sort of environment is clearly the retail sector both on the high street and online, and as consumers we are usually very price sensitive when it comes to shopping. The rapid growth of online retailers such as Amazon is testament to how influential price can be some retail sectors, and we have also become used to regular sales promotions and discount offers all year round as rival companies try to attract our custom. There are however some businesses where simple marketing strategies involving price reductions are just not relevant or even possible, and online casinos are an example of that. It is true that some online casinos may have lower minimum table stakes than others when playing certain casino games, but the differences are minimal and smaller stakes generally lead to smaller winnings. Here at onlinecasino.ie we believe that the most important element in our choice of online casino should be and usually is the quality of the casino games we can play. Nevertheless almost all our online casinos do still use special offers and bonuses to encourage us to play on their site. There is of course nothing wrong with that sort of marketing, and we all clearly like a bargain if we can find one but not all of the bonuses we see online are as good as they may seem. Welcome bonuses and free bets are common on many online sports gambling sites, and generally speaking they are very straightforward and good value, but that is unfortunately not necessarily true of some of the common online casino bonus offers. Don’t get us wrong some of these online casino bonus offers can be very good value for some potential new casino games players, but there are also many people for whom they are simply not suitable and should be avoided. The problem for those people lies in the terms and conditions associated with many of these welcome bonuses.

Although there are exceptions, most of the online casinos which feature on our recommended list offer some form of welcome bonus to new customers. These deals generally take the form of a promise to match a customer’s first deposit with a 100% bonus, effectively doubling the stake money they have available to play casino games. Some online casinos also offer reduced bonuses on the second and third deposits, but they all come with terms and conditions which must be clearly understood by anybody considering accepting one of these deals. As far as we are concerned here at onlinecasino.ie the most important of these terms and conditions is what is called the play through requirement. This defines how much money needs to be wagered on playing casino games before any money can be withdrawn from an account. It is usually expressed as a multiple of the total of the first deposit plus the bonus, and is usually at least twenty times that total. Let’s assume that a new player decides to take advantage of one of these online casino bonus deals, and deposits 25 euros into their account. The online casino would then add a further 25 euros to the account giving the player 50 euros to play with. However the play through requirement calculation using a multiple of 20 means that the player actually needs to spend 1000 euros on playing casino games before being allowed to withdraw funds. That level of expenditure may or may not be within the player’s proposed budget when they decided to start playing casino games online. If it is not then don’t agree to the deal because it is voluntary and certainly won’t affect your future relationship with the online casino. There may also be other terms and conditions which could affect your decision, one of which may define which casino games contribute to the play through because some online casinos may not allow money bet on roulette for example to count as a play through contribution. There may also be a time limit on the play through requirement, which again needs to be understood before accepting the deal. It is important to note that we are not criticising the online casinos for having these terms and conditions, because we understand why they need to keep us on their site for as long as possible to get back the money they have given us. After all when was the last time you had a free bet at a real casino.

As we said earlier in this article there are online casinos which choose not to use this type of bonus offer to attract customers to their site, one of which is the No Bonus casino. Instead of offering their customers bonus deals with loads of terms and conditions the No Bonus casino has come up with an interesting cash-back offer. We all know that some days when we play casino games online we simply can’t win at anything. This is where the cash-back offer is triggered, so that if a customer makes a deposit and then loses all of that deposit on the same day, a 10% cash-back will be paid into their account the following morning. There are no strings and the money can be used in any way we choose, including being withdrawn, and it applies to all their customers not just new players.