When it comes to playing at casinos online, there are a few things that can persuade or dissuade you from signing up. One of those is whether or not the online casino wagering requirements on their welcome bonus and future bonuses are reasonable and achievable.
So let’s define what casino wagering is:
Every bet you make on a slot machine, hand of blackjack, or a spin of the roulette wheel, is considered a wager.
That’s pretty simple stuff. So what are wagering requirements, then?
Casino wagering requirements define the number of wagers you must make to cash out any winnings from your casino bonus.
Again, pretty simple to understand, but let us run you through a few examples from some of our best casino sites.
Example 1: Videoslots bonus
If you head over to Videoslots casino from one of our links here on SlotSumo, you’ll get a first deposit bonus of 100% up to €$200 – 18+ | T&Cs Apply. Within their terms and conditions for this bonus, you’ll notice that you have to wager the bonus money you get 35x.
What does that mean?
Well, it means that if you were to get the maximum bonus, you could deposit €$200 in real money and get €$200 more in bonus money, giving you a total of €$400 to play with.
That 35x wagering on the bonus money means that you would have to wager a total of €$200 x 35, giving you a total of €$7000 in wagers to take any winnings from this bonus out as real money.
It can sometimes be hard to clear, but if you pick the right machine, you can make $50 worth of wagers, with only a $10 or $20 in bonus money.
The reason for that is every little win where you get your bet back, which is just bringing you back to where you started, is ‘new’ money to play against the wagering.
You still need to get a little lucky, but equally, you get to play for longer on some of your favourite slots online.
How to calculate the number of wagers you need to clear a bonus
Here’s our formula for how you can calculate how much you have to wager to clear any bonus you might come across.
This takes into consideration the amount of bonus money, the type of wagering, and the percentage that the games you like to play count towards your overall clearing of the wagering.
There are a few ways in which casinos like to define ‘wagering requirements’. This can be the bonus money, the deposit amount only, or the bonus plus the deposit amount.
Most fair casinos make you wager the bonus money only, with a common wagering requirement being around 30x – 40x.
So lets us give you our casino wagers formula:
- Formula: (Bonus x Wagering) x (100/Game Percentage), Example: (200×40) x (100/100) = 8000
- Formula: ((Bonus + Deposit) x Wagering) x (100/Game Percentage), Example: ((200+200)x40) x (100/100) = 16000
- Formula: (Deposit x Wagering) x (100/Game Percentage), Example: (200 x 40) x (100/100) = 8000
What do they all mean?
- Bonus: The amount of bonus money you are given based on how much you deposit
- Deposit: The amount of real money you deposit at the casino when you take the bonus
- Wagering: The number you have to multiply the corresponding number by. i.e. the casino requirements
- Game Percentage: The number (not including the % sign) that the game you are playing counts towards the wagering. Ie. usually slots count as 100%, blackjack as 80% etc..
It looks more complicated than it is, but at least now you have a formula that lets you put it into practice with any of our favourite casinos and their special welcome bonus.
What about slot free spins bonus wagering requirements?
The reason we use casino deposit bonuses as an example is that they can come in different forms, namely only the bonus money counts, or your deposit and bonus counts towards the wagering.
Any free spins bonus wagering requirements simply fall into that first category: i.e. anything you win from the free spins is turned into bonus money.
So you use formula number one to calculate how many times you need to wager your free spins winnings.
Example 2: Casumo casino bonus for Canada – 100% up to CAD$500 with 30x bonus wagering
The terms and conditions here are that you can get a maximum of 500 in bonus money with 30x wagering on the bonus money only. The Casumo slots count as 100% of the game percentage, so everything you bet to pass the wagering requirements will count.
So the maximum you can deposit to get the maximum bonus is (500/100) x 100 = $500.
Ok, so let’s say you deposit a maximum of $500. That would be your deposit amount, giving you $500 in bonus money. Now plugging the numbers into our formula above, you get:
(Bonus x Wagering) x (100/Game Percentage), which is equivalent to (500×30) x (100/100) = 15000
Easy when you know how, hey?
That means you could pretty much now calculate how much you will need to wager on any bonus from any casino site. Just be sure to calculate the maximum you can deposit, given the size of the bonus, carefully.
And at the end of the day, if you can’t figure it out or are feeling lazy, you can always ask their customer support staff before you deposit and take any online casino bonus.
If they are not happy to tell you how much you’ll need to wager, it’s not worth playing at that casino.
Lookout at when you can cash out your winnings
For most casino bonuses, once you take them, you must play through the wagering before withdrawing.
Every once in a while, you get some really fair online casino terms, where you can withdraw anytime. You lose your bonus, of course, but you don’t have to clear any wagering to withdraw.
Why is this good? Because it means the casino lets you play with your real money casino deposit first, then your bonus money. If you win using your real money, why wouldn’t you want to withdraw?
They view the bonus as it should be; bonus money for when you run out of money. You don’t have to use it if you don’t need it.
Leo Vegas and Vera & John has this fair play policy on board.
A few of our favourite casinos online
- GUTS Casino – offer you a great welcome package along with no wagering free spins
- LeoVegas Casino – give you hundreds of slots, live casino and sportsbook to play
- Videoslots Casino – have the largest number of slot titles online and mobile
