By Samantha Williams
Playing at a casino online has a lot to offer in terms of entertainment and prize winning value. Pretty much all casinos offer the same, if not necessarily in the same quantities!! For example if you are a new online player and you look at first deposit bonuses, you will be hard pressed not to select a casino which offers you a 400% first deposit bonus, over a 100% deposit bonus. But let’s just examine this concept for a moment.
There is no casino online which does not tie their wagering requirements into their free bonus chips offers for first time depositors. When you look at this logically it makes sense. If they are going to be giving you £400 because you deposited £100, that is a lot of free dough! They want to make sure they get that money back, so they are going to ask to you “in the spirit of fairness”, to wager something like 4 or often more – as much as 12 times your initial deposit amount plus the bonus funds before you make a withdrawal. If you don’t meet these terms you lose the bonus funds not already spent.
When you have been writing about casinos online as long as I have, you start to see a pattern emerging. The BIG brand name casino online will offer smaller deposit bonuses, bigger prize money and a much faster wagering requirement to make withdrawals.
There is nothing underhand about this practice, it is all completely above board, but it sorts of boils down to the fact that “nothing really comes free”. However all is not lost, if the casino you fancy playing at has a humongous first deposit bonus and you want to take advantage of it. You then have to live with the fact that it will take a lot of wagering of your own real money before a withdrawal can be made.
On the other hand, if you still fancy playing at that site and you want to be in a position whereby you can withdraw any winnings whenever you feel like it. Just make the minimum first deposit amount and take whatever you get free with it. That way, you make not end up with £400 in your bonus account, you may have only £40, but pound for pound you still earned the same bonus as anyone else.
When it comes down to the final answer, it really lies in reading the terms and conditions of any casino online you would like to join. It isn’t all about bonuses, it is also about fairness and when all is said and done, fair play works both ways. Personally, I would rather play with a big brand name even if the bonuses are only 100% of £50. The prizes will always be better and the sense of security a player feels makes the online gambling experience so much more relaxed and fun.
