Understanding Deposit Bonuses: A Guide

While it’s not guaranteed, there is a hefty chance you will find plenty of deposit bonuses on offer when you start looking around some online casinos. They create these offers to make sure players visit their sites to learn more about them. There’s plenty of competition online, hence why you need to understand how these bonuses work before selecting any of them.

What are deposit bonuses?

Let’s begin with the basics. A deposit bonus is often the first one you will see at a casino when you sign up. In some cases, there might be a no deposit bonus that’s first in line – and as the name suggests, this does not ask you to make a deposit.

However, almost all online casinos have deposit bonuses, designed to entice new players to sign up and make a deposit to get a bonus. This might apply to one deposit or to several – commonly called a welcome package. Let’s look at some more info about these bonuses.

Watch out for wagering requirements

You will almost certainly come across wagering requirements when you are online looking at a selection of deposit bonuses. We have seen a few no wagering bonuses before, but when they crop up, they tend to come with a maximum amount you can win while using them. This is to protect the casino from losing too much if a player should win a significant amount.

With wagering requirements, you won’t have a ceiling on prize potential, but you will need to meet the wagering if you want to be able to withdraw your prizes. What does this mean? Well, it means you need to fulfill the wagering by looking at the multiplier and using that to work out how much you need to bet before a withdrawal becomes a possibility.

Let’s assume you get a bonus with wagering of 5x. This is nice and low, making it easier to meet. If your deposit is $20, you multiply this by 5x, and it gives you $100. This is the amount you’ll need to wager to be able to withdraw any prizes won while using the bonus.

Obviously, the higher the wagering requirement multiplier goes, the harder it will be to meet it – and the more you’ll need to bet to get there. It’s common to see multipliers of 20x or above, so do some calculations before choosing which deposit bonus you want to use.

Is the deposit bonus sticky or non-sticky?

You might also see a bonus called cashable or non-cashable, but both ways of describing the offers are the same. This means a sticky bonus is the same as a non-cashable bonus, while a non-sticky bonus is identical to a cashable bonus.

If you have a sticky bonus, it means the bonus amount will stay with the casino when you come to withdraw anything you’ve managed to win by using it. So, if the bonus amount is $10 and you win $60, you can withdraw a maximum of $50. If it isn’t sticky – meaning it is cashable – you can grab the bonus amount too. This is far less common though.

You can only ever have one casino deposit bonus active at one time

This is a common rule, applicable at all online casinos. If you collect a bonus, you need to complete its terms before you can withdraw anything you’ve won with it. You also need to make sure you complete it before picking up another bonus on a future deposit. If you try and claim another one, you might lose out on the bonus you’ve already claimed.

The most important thing to remember here is to make sure you read all the rules for any deposit bonus you find. Some of them require a much bigger deposit than others, so it makes sense to compare some before you do anything else. This might mean comparing offers at one casino, or checking out two or more casinos to see which site has the best deals. Putting in a little homework first is always the smartest move when you want to claim a deposit bonus for an online casino.