Consequently, a no wagering requirements bonus is a offer that doesn’t have any kind of requirements, you can use it and then withdraw what you’ve won instantly. Also, there are several types of bonuses that can be part of the no pay-through category.
Large wagering requirements and slots are a bad combination. The high house edge and high variance of slots makes it difficult to complete a wagering requirement with traditional strategy. Fortunately there are bonuses without large wagering requirements and without wagering requirements at all. Nevada casino customers inched closer Thursday to being able to sign up for and fund a wagering account that could be used to gamble at slot machines, table games and bingo parlors. The way slots wagering requirements work is like this: a slots wagering requirement is normally given out as a kind of multiplier. In the same way you would find with any online slot bonus offer. Imagine you find an online casino site offering a £100 bonus for example, with a 4x wagering requirement.
Wagering requirements are a confusing thing to many new online gamblers, especially since they can also be called ‘playthrough requirements’ or ‘rollover requirements’, further complicating the matter. Put simply, wagering meaning can be defined as the number of times you have to get a bonus before you can withdraw it. For example, if you took a £100 bonus at x20 wagering requirements, you would have to make £2,000 worth of bets before you can withdraw the £100.
That might seem impossible, but it’s not. Check out our guide on how to beat them for some insight.
What are wagering requirements and what’s the easiest way to understand what they mean for you as the player? This short, simple article will explain them.
We’ll look at the most important things about wagering requirements, including:
Don’t confuse wagering requirements with wager. They’re different terms. For those who don’t have the time to read the entire piece, wagering requirements make it difficult for you to withdraw the bonus cash you are given. We don’t like them, and we know you won’t either. We prefer casino bonuses with no wagering requirements. They’re not as ‘exciting’ as the free money offers, but it’s 100% honest. You get to keep 100% of what you win.
Now, back to what wagering requirements actually are…
Imagine the following casino welcome bonus offer:
“Get a 100% deposit match up to £2,000 on your first deposit. Minimum deposit £20. x20 wagering requirements apply”.
What this means is that if you deposit anything up to £2,000, the casino will double your money. However, the wagering requirements clause means you’ll have to bet that money x20 over before you can withdraw it, or any winnings you get on top of it. Let’s say you deposited £100 and the house gives you another £100 on top – you would have to bet £2,000 before you can withdraw the bonus money. Hopefully, this helps you to understand wagering meaning in gambling.
Let’s say you take the offer and play slots, and you hit a nice £5k jackpot. If you’ve burned through the initial deposit and are now using the free casino bonus, you’ll have to bet it x20 over before you can withdraw that jackpot.
This is how the casinos make their money. To be fair, you can’t expect them to be dishing out thousands of pounds willy-nilly. After all, they’re a business and they’re out to make money. Wagering x20 isn’t as hard as it initially seems, but it is highly unlikely you’re going to be able to withdraw that money, and that’s exactly what the casino wants. Even at low wagering casinos, you will have to bet bonus cash between 5x and 10x.
The best way to look at welcome bonuses and deposits is free money to play with. In realistic terms, you aren’t going to make the wagering requirements and win without extreme luck on your side. That doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t enjoy playing your favourite slots, tables games or card games using that money.
Don’t bank on betting the house’s money x20 and winning. The games are based on probability and you’d have to have a horseshoe up your arse to be able to bet that many times over and win. However, the house’s money can be used to just have fun and play your favourite games at whatever casino you desire.
It’s still always best to find casino welcome bonus deals with the lowest possible wagering requirements, giving you the best chance of being able to actually win and withdraw that money plus any associated jackpots. Anything between x20-x35 is normal but stay away from the casinos that take things over and above this as x40 or x50 would be nearly mathematically impossible to meet. Rather than try to meet them, just play at the lowest wagering requirements casino in the UK – PlayOJO, which has no wagering requirements at all. It’s also important to play the best slots for wagering. There’s no point in understanding the wagering meaning without knowing how to take advantage and beat them!
What does wagered 30 times mean?
Wagered 30x means that you have to bet the bonus 30 times before you can withdraw it. For example, if you get a £100 bonus, you have to wager £3,000 before you can withdraw the bonus. This isn’t as impossible as it first seems, but it will require some luck.
Most bonuses also usually also come with time limits. For example, they might say you have to meet them within 30 days, 90 days, or whatever the casino in question determines. Always read the small print to find out about time limits as well.
Let’s say the wagering requirements at a wager casino are x20 and have to be met within 30 days. You deposit £100 and get £100 to play with from the casino. That means you’ll have to bet £2000 within 30 days or the deposit money will be cancelled and any winnings will be declared void.
Casinos do this for cash flow reasons. They can’t give you their money and let you sit on it forever as this would make it hard for them to meet their substantial operating expenses. Some give more generous time limits than 30 days, but they all have time limits in some form.
The final thing to consider is game weighting. Once you understand wagering meaning, you have to go deeper and understand this too.
Game weighting means, in a nutshell, the percentage of bets that will count towards meeting wagering in a given game.
For example, slots almost always count 100% towards wagering requirements. That means that for every penny you bet, you’re working towards meeting the wagering requirements. However, card games like blackjack rarely count 100%, and might be assigned a game weight of something like 70%, meaning that for every 10 you play with, 7 will count towards wagering requirements.
Always check the terms and conditions of a given deposit bonus of welcome offer to check what games count. Since most online casino players play slots more than any other game, this shouldn’t be of too much concern. If you’re out to play another game, however, you need to consider if you’ll need to bet more to meet the wagering requirements. Again, the best casino sites with no wagering requirements eliminate this issue altogether. Game weighting brings a whole new element to wagering meaning.
As you can see, wagering requirements virtually guarantee the house will be getting their deposit money back again. Only a few lucky fish slip through the net of playthroughs and actually put the casino cash in their pocket. You will stand more chance if you play high RTP slots.
Knowing this, just take the money with the aim to play games for free. You might as well approach it that you aren’t likely to win using the welcome bonuses, because that’s basically the truth when you look at it objectively. Still, these offers are there for the taking and you can try out all of the various games and play whatever you want at the casino without using your own cash.
If you do manage to score a huge jackpot using the welcome bonus money, such as x100 the value of the bonus then you can bet away to meet the wagering requirements, knowing that when you do, you’ll be able to make the withdrawal and still be up a large amount of money. For example, let’s say you spin slots with a £100 bonus and win £10,000 – you’ll only have to bet £2000 before you can withdraw the jackpot, provided the wagering requirements are x20 as in our previous example.
Remember, it’s all free money at the end of the day and you just never know – you could be spinning away on the likes of Mega Moolah and could hit the progressive jackpot. At that point, meeting the wagering requirements before you can withdraw will be a walk in the park.
Did you enjoy this article on wagering meaning? Did it explain them properly or do you still have unanswered questions? Drop us a comment and let us know. We suggest you claim some free spins no wager and say adios to wagering requirements for good.
With the online gambling marketplace becoming so competitive, it is perhaps no surprise that gambling sites use clever marketing ploys in order to entice new players their way.
One of these tactics is through seemingly generous sign up or welcome bonuses, which grant new players a host of free bets or cash bonuses for opening an account with them. These can take the form of matching your first deposit with free cash, free bets when you stake X amount, or even just free money – no questions asked.
That sounds pretty good, what’s the catch?
The only fly in the ointment from a punter’s perspective is wagering requirements.
These are essentially the hoops that you will have to jump through in order to get your hands on your bonus and any winnings that come from it. This is generally known as the ‘play through’, and will state how much money you need to stake in order to activate your bonus and profits.
Luckily wagering requirements, or play through, is always low for sports bonuses and free bets.
The majority of wagering requirements are also accompanied by a list of terms & conditions as long as the Magna Carta too, so it pays to become acquainted with these as they will outline exactly what you need to do to secure your bonus or free bets.
Some examples:
So let’s say that your chosen a deposit bonus which has granted you a welcome bonus of 100% up to £200. Thanks very much!
But there’s a clever bit of wordplay here when you look closely: up to. So it could well be less. This amount is directly linked to your first deposit amount so if you only fund your account with £10 you only get a £10 bonus.
This will all be outlined in those pesky T’s & C’s, so do take the time to check.
To be able to withdraw your bonus if you deposited £50 these are the requirements you’d need to meet:
When you look at it that way, it’s not surprising that some people get a little annoyed with welcome bonuses as they’re not always as they seem on the surface. Are they a scam? No but you do need to do your homework.
The 3x wagering requirement is obviously a hugely favourable one for the player, and in most cases will be a lot higher – casino bonuses for example are usually between 20x and 50x.
Sometimes a gambling site will offer what is known as a tiered wagering requirement, which is a staggered collection of payments. An example might be:
Time Limit | Requirements | Bonus |
7 Days | £20 | £20 |
30 Days | £250 | £30 |
60 Days | £500 | £50 |
In this example, even though the tiered wagering requirements make it seem slightly different, the ultimate bottom line is that you need to wager a grand total of £500 within two months of opening your account in order to access your £100 worth of total bonuses.
And whilst this will make it ‘more affordable’ for you, e.g. playing in installments rather than all at once, at the end of the day the financials are still the same.
Hopefully this has given you an insight into the sometimes murky world of wagering requirements, which are a bit of a pain after being promised such a great deal by your casino or bookmaker.
But it makes business sense for an online gambling platform to do this; to entice new customers but to protect themselves financially. It is a perfectly legal and above-board way of generating new custom.
As the old saying goes ‘only fools rush in’, so do take the time to read the terms & conditions as specified by your provider. The wagering requirements will be clearly stated here, and ultimately it is your responsibility to understand the implications of accepting a sign up bonus or offer.
Unsurprisingly, many of the complaints that casinos and bookmakers receive are from customers who claim they didn’t know about any wagering requirements, and want their bonus cash pronto. Well, they should have read the T’s & C’s then….
As soon as you sign up for a new account, you have accepted the terms of the sign up offer. There’s no going back now.
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