Casino Bonus: Guide to best online casino bonuses

With Christmas and New Year holidays nearing closer, the online casinos will begin to ramp up their seasonal promotions, mostly in the form of bonuses and free money offers. And while this kind of season's spirit exhibited by the online casinos every year is beneficial to the payers, it pays to know how to choose the best online casino bonuses, before you plunge head first into gambling with all the free money the casinos will be throwing at you this year. As with all online casinos, the casino bonuses are also not created equality and a deeper understanding of what exactly is offered to you would not only increase your chances of winning at the gambling websites, but also avoid some headaches that could come with misunderstanding a particular promotion.

As many of you already know, the majority of the online casino bonuses are given to players on a percentage basis of a deposit made by the customer. For example, the online casino may advertise a $500 free, but chances are that you won't get $500 to play with just for opening an account, rather it's 100% or 125% and even 10% of your deposit, up to the amount of $500. Even though this topic is somewhat trivial to many casino players, there are plenty of people who are new to online gambling and see an advertisement for $500 and more, thinking they would get it right away just for signing up with the online casino in question. Of course, there are a few online casinos left that still offer absolutely free money just for joining, but the amount of such bonuses rarely exceeds $15-$20.

So the first thing one should look for while in search of the best online casino bonus is to check the percentage of the deposit which is given to players. For example, Go Casino is offering a series of bonuses to new players, up to $20,000, but those offers are for 100% on each deposit you make. Other casinos, such as the Vegas Casino Online offer $500 free, but their percentage is 125% of the first deposit you make at the gambling website. And then we have the Bodog Online Casino which offers only 10% bonus, but it does so on every single deposit you make and there is no limit on the amount of the bonus. Which one of those offers would represent your ideal best casino bonus obviously depends on how you'd make your first deposit. If you want to get the most bonus for a small deposit, going with the higher percentage is the best choice, while when you plan on patronizing that particular online casino for a while, taking the series of big bonus offers makes more sense.

Once you have figured out which bonus offer is the best for you, the next step will be to make sure you check the play-through requirements. To avoid fraud, the online casinos attach a requirement to the bonus called a "play-through" and it indicates the amount of wagering the player must complete as related to the amount of the bonus before the bonus money could be withdrawn by the customer. For example a 10x play-through requirement on a $100 bonus means that the player must wager $1,000 before the bonus could be withdrawn. We must note here that the requirement is for wagering only, i.e. it doesn't matter if you win or lose, the important part is to make bets in the amount of $1,000. With this in mind, the more experienced casino player would immediately realize that they can simply bet on both black and red on roulette and effectively meet the bonus requirements without losing (or winning) anything, but the casino bonus. Which brings us to our next point - the exceptions. Depending on the online casino and on the bonus itself, certain games will be restricted from participating in the meeting of the casino bonus requirements. Keep that in mind and make sure that you play only casino games which will contribute to your play-through requirements so you can withdraw your bonus, as well.

And finally, make sure that you know whether the online casino bonus offer is connected or not to a payment method. Some online casinos will offer additional bonuses to players who deposit money in their casino accounts by using certain methods, such as ewallets. If you claim a payment method bonus for an ewallet but deposit with credit card, obviously the casino will not honor the bonus. At the same time, it's a great way to increase your casino bonus further by taking advantage of payment method offers if you already work with that particular ewallet. Overall, these are the most important factors to consider when choosing the best online casino bonus and factors that must be investigated before you take advantage and accept a casino bonus offer.

Published on 12/16/2009