Deposit bonuses and other promotions offer customers cash or site credit that can be used to play casino games and win money in return for signing up for an account, making a deposit or taking some other action deemed desirable by the casino operator (such as playing a certain game).
There is a lot to know when it comes to extracting maximum value from bonuses, but today we will break it all down in simple terms. Below, we list the best casino bonuses and explain how we rank them, describe the various types of bonuses and discuss some of the pitfalls to avoid.
Offshore casinos are completely unregulated and can be especially nefarious when it comes to welcome bonuses. By contrast, licensed online casinos are subject to strict regulations and truthful advertising laws that ensure customers are treated fairly.
State Specific Casino Offers
- New Jersey Casino Bonuses
- Pennsylvania Casino Bonuses
- Michigan Casino Bonuses
- West Virginia Casino Bonuses
Best Online Casino Bonuses
Identifying the best casino bonuses involves much more than simply looking for those that offer the most money. Every bonus comes with terms and conditions that significantly impact the true value of any particular offer.
Most prominent among the types of terms and conditions customers are likely to find are wagering requirements, also known as the rollover. Rollover is discussed in more detail lower on this page, but the short version is most bonuses require players to wager a certain amount of money before a withdrawal may be made.
For example, a casino that comes with a 10x rollover means players must wager 10 times the amount of the bonus before withdrawing. A $100 bonus with a 10x rollover would require the player to place $1,000 worth of wagers on slots or other games to clear the bonus for withdrawal.
Clearing a bonus exposes players to the house advantage built into every game. If a gambler must place a total of $1,000 worth of wagers and does so by playing an online slot with a 95% return-to-player percentage (RTP), that player is expected to lose roughly $50 on average. To put that another way, the expected value of wagering $1,000 on a 95% RTP game is -$50 ($1,000 x .05).
Note that expected value is merely a theoretical expression. Anything can happen over the short term and rarely will a player lose exactly $50 in this scenario. Even so, expected value is an accurate means of comparing bonuses to one another.
Imagine comparing the welcome bonuses offered by two competing online casinos. Let’s say Bonus A offers new customers $100 in return for depositing and comes with a 10x rollover. Let’s say Bonus B offers new customers $200 but comes with a 20x rollover.
Now, imagine playing a 95% RTP slot to clear both bonuses. We can quickly compare the expected value of each bonus to decide which one is truly the better deal.
Clearing Bonus A would require $1,000 worth of wagers. Doing so on a 95% slot game would yield an expected value of -$50 as we discussed above. Subtract that from the original bonus amount and we can see https://casinosreview.ca/skrill/ Bonus A is worth $50 from an expected value standpoint.
Now, let’s do the same for Bonus B. This one is worth $200 but comes with twice the rollover. Clearing this bonus would require the player to place a total of $4,000 worth of wagers. Doing so on a 95% RTP game would yield an expected value of -$200 ($4,000 x 0.05). Subtract that from the original bonus amount and we see Bonus B is actually just breakeven from an expected value standpoint.