By Samantha Williams

One thing you are not going to get when you walk through the doors of a live casino – is a bunch of free chips, thrust into your sticky little, spend-thrifty paws. Play at no deposit casinos online and they can’t give you enough free chips, and we are not talking about the deep-fried kind, the sort that comes with battered fish! We are talking casino chips here and these are worth real money. Virtually every virtual casino hands a certain amount to every new member, as they take their first tentative steps through the doors.

For example, 888casino.com; they are one of the best no deposit casinos. They let you try before you buy, but not every online casino does this. What all other sites do, do however, is, give you free casino chips when you make a first deposit. There are definitely industry standards when it comes to handing out free chips. The absolute minimum is 100% and this is on varying amounts. There is a pattern we see which generally works hand-in-hand with brand faith, and the biggest brands never hand out the biggest bonuses. There is a very good reason for this, and it pays for the online casino player to catch onto the reason early.

Here is the thing about giving free bonuses at online casinos – they offer these as incentives, and every incentive comes at a price. In the case of bonuses, the price is wagering requirements. Wagering requirements are a multiple of the first deposit plus the bonus. This is the very reason why the best brands keep bonuses low. It enables the player to take advantage of the offer without getting their knickers in a knot. One can understand why a players knickers would get in a knot, when they aren’t able to make a withdrawal or cash in their bonuses until they have spent a million pounds/dollars first. OK, so, maybe not a million, but we are talking big bucks.

Look at this for an example – a casino offers a small bonus of up to maximum of £50 in a 100% cash match to welcome the new member. Their wagering requirements are 20 x deposit + bonus to clear funds/winnings from the account in the case of a withdrawal. This means if the player deposits £50 and receives a £50 bonus, they have to wager a total of £50 + £50 = £100 x 20 = £2 000 to clear their funds. When we look at it from this point of view, those free chips might start to lose their free appeal.

It is for this reason we always maintain, that when it comes to making first deposits at online casinos, biggest is never best. To coin a phrase – if it looks too good to be true – it very definitely generally is. We have seen anything like up to 50 or even 100 x wagering requirements on maximum deposits of anything up to thousands of pound/dollars. With numbers like this – we are talking really big bucks!

By Samantha Williams

While there is no such thing as free online casinos per se, there are many online casinos which give away lots of things free. The aim of the game in the short-term, for punting free online casinos, is to attract customers to their sites. So, the concept is; if they are giving it away for free – take advantage of the situation. Trying before we buy is a well know way to test a product to see how much we like it, in fact the more they give away free – generally the more we like a product.

There are several ways an online casino allows players to try before they buy. There is the “no deposit bonus”; which is generally a nominal amount of money or credits to play any games. Then there is the “free spins”; this is obviously relevant to slots and the fans of these games. There is also limited time offers, such as “play an hour” free, or the ability to play a variety of games in demo as well as real money mode. Playing games in demo mode or taking advantage of free offers allows the potential new customer to get a real feel for the games and the site itself.

Free online casinos do limit these offers in their terms and conditions, but then every online casino is in this business, simply to do business. There are terms and conditions with regards to wagering requirements if for example the player wins with the free offer, and it is always advisable to read these conditions; but then again, if it costs nothing in the first place, nothing is lost in the second place. Wagering requirements can be a bit of a bugger however, when it comes to withdrawing winnings, so it is good to look out for favorable terms. There is nothing however, to stop anyone from registering at four or five different online casino brands and trying out their free offers as well as the terms and conditions. There is no law which says any one player can only play at one site.

One of the most important considerations when playing at free online casinos is the issue of security. The point is that if you like the site and the games, it also needs to be secure for real money play. They can throw as much free money at us as they like, but if they are licensed in Timbuktu and we are UK players there isn’t much point in being a member. Sites with obscure licensing jurisdictions are not worth the trouble of playing at! Simply put, because while we are playing for free it is fine, but if we play for real money and have trouble retrieving our winning – there is very little, or no room for recourse, so we simply have do the most sensible thing.