Make sure you understand any online casino bonus offers you accept

Running a business in any sphere of operation is extremely competitive and it is therefore essential that you find a way to stand out from the crowd. The internet in particular has now become one of the most competitive business scenes of all. In retail for example we read a lot about how the high street stores are struggling to compete with their online rivals, but every online retailer also faces severe competition from the likes of Amazon and ebay. The online casino sector has also become extremely competitive over recent years and the original online casinos established by the big bookmakers now have to compete with an increasing number of new specialist online casinos featuring an even greater variety of new casino games. Unfortunately the online casino operators cannot stand out from their rivals by reducing prices or offering interest free credit, two of the most common marketing strategies in the retail sector, so they have almost all chosen to offer some form of online casino bonus to attract new customers. Bonus deals are of cause quite common in the online sports gambling sector with bookmakers such as Paddy Power particularly innovative in the bonus deals they offer, and most of these bonus offers are very straightforward and are easily understood. Unfortunately that cannot always be said of some of the online casino bonus deals being used by the online casino operators to attract new casino games players to their site. Most of the online casino bonus offers used by the online casino operators take the form of a promise to match a new customer’s first deposit with a 100% bonus. Many online casino sites also offer reduced bonuses on the second and third deposits that the new casino games player pays into their account, but they all come with very similar terms and conditions. Clearly the promise to increase the amount of money a new player has to spend on playing casino games online is a very attractive offer, but whereas the free bet or cash back offers which are common in the online sports gambling sector usually come with very few terms and conditions, almost all of the online casino bonus deals have a whole list of terms and conditions associated with them, some of which may cause unwary new players unnecessary problems if the implications of those conditions are not fully understood.

The most important of these terms and conditions is what we refer to as the play-through requirement. This defines how much money the new casino games player needs to stake on playing online casino games in order to qualify for the bonus and more importantly before they can withdraw any potential winnings from their account. This play-through requirement is usually defined as a multiple of the total of the deposit plus the bonus, and is often a factor of at least twenty times that total. If we put that into more understandable language, that means that a new player making a relatively modest initial deposit of say 20 euros and accepting a bonus of a further 20 euros would be required to gamble at least twenty times 40 euros, totalling 800 euros before being allowed to withdraw any potential winnings from their account. There may also be a time limit applicable to the play-through requirements contained in the terms and conditions associated with this type of online casino bonus on some sites. It is also not uncommon for there to be a list of some casino games which do not fully qualify for the play-through requirement making it even more difficult for some players to satisfy those requirements. Clearly there are very good reasons why the online casino operators need to set these terms and conditions on their bonus offers of this type. They are after all allowing these new customers to play casino games with the company’s money so they clearly need to ensure that the customer plays casino games on their site for as long as possible in order to have a chance to get their money back. The problem is that some new players simply do not fully understand the implications of those terms and conditions when they agree to accept this type of online casino bonus, and are therefore tempted to gamble far more than they originally intended simply to qualify for the bonus. One of the basic rules when it comes to enjoying any form of gambling is to set your budget and stick to it whether you win or lose, so it is important that the play-through requirements associated with this type of online casino bonus also remain within that budget. Always remember that these online casino bonus deals are voluntary and choosing not to accept them will not affect your relationship with the online casino site operator in any way at all.

These matching bonus offers are of course not the only marketing strategy to be found in the online casino sector, there are a few different ideas when it comes to attracting new customers. The most obvious of these is clearly to be found on the Free Spins casino site. As the name suggests the Free Spins casino allows all their casino games players to play their games free of charge. This approach clearly relies on the fact that most of us enjoy the risk associated with playing casino games online and will therefore quickly start to play for real rather than continuing to play for free. There is also another online casino which has chosen not to use the deposit matching bonus of online casino bonus, and that is the No Bonus casino. Once again the clue is in the name of the site which in this case means that the operators have chosen not to offer any form of bonus at all. They have instead chosen to compensate any of their customers who suffer from a very bad run of luck and therefore lose the whole of their deposit in one day, with a 10% cash back which is paid into their account the following morning.