Meeting Criteria Before Cashing In
Most online casinos offer sign-up bonuses to incentivise players to choose their casinos over the many hundred others available online.
There are also other bonuses that are awarded to players to thank them for their patronage. However, in order to offset the risk of offering these bonuses, online casinos have established structured wagering requirements that need to be met before withdrawals by players can be made.
Wagering requirements do little to increase an online casino's appeal, and as such, details pertaining to bonus redemptions and the wagering requirements that need to be honoured, are usually not very visible on the casino site. However, licensed and well regulated casinos are bound to publish all terms and conditions of use, and whilst it may take a little searching, wagering requirement rules are required to be available to all users. In most cases, the wagering or playthrough requirements can be found under the "Promotions" link.
In simple terms, a wagering requirement is the amount of wagers that a player needs to make in order to be eligible to withdraw funds. This number is usually assigned by the casinos Risk Management team, and is calculated according to the size of the bonus. Large bonuses that seem to good to be true are more likely to be subject to greater wagering requirements, so in fact, the size of the bonus and the wagering requirement imposed is generally relative. A player can determine for him/herself whether a playthrough requirement is worthwhile by examining how many times the bonus amount needs to be wagered. Stricter casinos impose a wagering requirement of 40x , whilst others require wagers of 15x.
So, how does the wagering requirement work? Assume that a player has redeemed a 100% match bonus of up to $100 by depositing $100. The casino requires a 20x wagering requirement on the $200 total he now has. That means that by multiplying $200 by 20, the player is required to make wagers to the value of $4000 before he is able to withdraw winnings.
Things get a little more complicated though, because online casinos often place varying percentages on specific games. Usually, slots wagers account for 100% of their bet value toward the wagering requirement, but various other casino games such as roulette and blackjack may count for very little, if anything at all. So, should a player only participate in blackjack, and the casino stipulates that this particular game is not included in meeting wagering requirements, the player is in essence, unable to withdraw funds pertaining to the bonus. This includes the deposit made in order to redeem the bonus. So for this reason, players need to be really certain that they understand the casinos wagering requirements prior to making any deposits.