What Does Wagering Requirement Mean?

A wagering requirement in bingo is an amount of play that must be completed before the player can withdraw their winnings.  Wagering requirements have been a source of confusion and exasperation for online bingo and casino players for many years and if you’ve never played bingo online before it can be difficult to get your head round them.

1. What is a wagering requirement?
2. Example of a wagering requirement
3. Why do bingo sites have a wagering requirement?
4. How can I find out what the wagering requirement is?
5. What happens if I want to withdraw winnings without filling it?
6. Spend Order and why it matters
7. Win Caps and Max Convertibles
8. Is there any way round wagering requirements?
9. The evolution of wagering requirements
10. Network/software overview

What is a wagering requirement?

A wagering requirement is a minimum spend condition imposed by online bingo sites (and other gambling sites) when they give out a bonus. The minimum spend is generally some multiple of the bonus, or of the bonus plus any associated deposit, or of the initial winnings if it was a slot spin offer.

With a bingo bonus wagering requirement, the spend has to be on bingo tickets only with anything spent on other games on the site not counted. With a slots offer wagering requirement, the spend has to be on slots only.  This is a legal requirement as on January 2026; in the past other games sometimes contributed at a much lower rate but this is no longer allowed.

Slots wagering requirements (whether on casino sites or for playing slots at a bingo site) tend to be much higher than bingo bonus wagering requirements.

It’s also common to have a restricted list of games that bonuses can be used on (and that includes filling the wagering requirement).  So when you claim a bonus or slot spins with a wagering requirement, be sure and read the terms and conditions to see which games count and which don’t.

Examples of wagering requirements

4 x bonus is a common wagering requirement for bingo bonus. Suppose you deposited £10 and received 300% bonus giving you £40 to play with initially. A 4x wagering requirement on the bonus would work out at £30 x 4 = £120. You would need to spend £120 on bingo tickets (taken from the bonus plus £80 worth of winnings and usually not counting any spend from your original deposit) to clear this wagering requirement, although most sites will treat it as cleared if your account balance reaches zero in the meantime.

It used to be common for wagering requirements to include the original deposit in the multiple. If the wagering requirement in the above example were 4 x (deposit + bonus) instead of a straightforward 4 x bonus, the required spend to clear it would be 4 x (£10 + £30) = £160. The less generous the bonus is, the more of an adverse effect the inclusion of the deposit in the calculation has. In the case of a 50% reload bonus, for example, including the deposit in the wagering requirement TRIPLES the amount of play required to complete it!

E.g. Deposit £10, receive £5 bonus. 4 x bonus = 4 x £5 = £20. 4 x (deposit + bonus) = 4 x £15 = £60.

You would think that the new rules limiting wagering requirements to 10x maximum would have put a stop to that, but we still occasionally see it in the terms and conditions, so be alert.

In general, the sites that offer the best introductory bonuses also tend to have the highest wagering requirements and when those sites offer reload bonuses carrying a further wagering requirement, it can take a very long time indeed to clear if the bonuses stack and don’t have a fixed expiry.  You might not mind that, of course, if your main motivation for playing bingo is to have fun and socialise.

Why do bingo sites have a wagering requirement?

There are a few reasons for such requirements. Firstly, the bingo site has to comply with anti money laundering regulations, and this means it’s a hard no to putting money in and taking it straight back out again – at least one playthrough of the deposit is required. Secondly, the bingo site would like to ensure, in return for the bonus it gives you to play with, that you keep on playing at the site for a while (which helps to make the bingo rooms busy and lively and therefore attractive to players in general). Thirdly, in the case of a site which offers reload bonuses, without a wagering requirement there would be nothing to prevent a player from repeatedly taking money out and then immediately depositing it again to stack up multiple deposit bonuses.

How can I find out what the wagering requirement is?

The Gambling Commission licence conditions and codes of practice require the wagering requirement (and any other important terms and conditions) to be specified when the bonus is advertised/offered. In the dim and distant past this all used to be buried in the small print but following the crackdowns on gambling advertising that have been happening periodically since 2015, bingo sites have to be much more careful about spelling it out – and now (in theory at least) the significant terms and conditions MUST be shown near the offer, so no more nasty surprises. We also include the wagering requirements in all our reviews, along with any time limits on completing them, so you can see how the different offers compare.

What happens if I want to withdraw winnings without filling the wagering requirement?

Bingo sites are required by law to allow you to withdraw your cash any time (assuming that you’re a UK player – rules differ internationally), so if you win when playing with your original cash deposit (or any subsequent deposit) those winnings can be taken out. BUT at almost all sites that will result in not only losing any remaining bonus, but also any pending winnings from bonus play.

Spend order and why it matters

Spend order determines what happens when you buy bingo tickets (or play slots) when your account contains both cash and bonus.

At a site with a Cash First spend order, you won’t start to play with your bonus until there is no cash in your account and there are three possible scenarios:

1. You won playing with your deposit and took it out right away, so you lose your bonus and never get to play with it
2. You lost all your cash so now you get to play with the bonus
3. You won with your deposit and continued to play with the winnings until you completed the wagering requirement, so in theory you would get to keep your bonus if you withdraw, but you still don’t get to play with it as long as you have cash in your account.

Unfortunately, scenario 3 is not possible at many bingo and slot sites because not only do they have a cash first spend order, they do not count any cash play towards wagering requirements!  At such a site, you can never play with your bonus without first losing all your cash – in double quick time if there’s a time limit!

Many of the best bingo sites that still have a wagering requirement have a Bonus First spend order and this is much better for players.  Typically the deposit has to be played through once in order to trigger the bonus, but once it has been triggered stakes will come out of pending winnings first, then the bonus itself – and any cash winnings from the initial deposit and any subsequent deposits will not be used as long as the bonus remains in play.  There will probably still be a time limit, though.  At a Bonus First site, you can claim further bonuses and play with them even if you’ve already got cash in your account.

Win caps and max convertibles

Win caps and max convertibles are conditions imposed by bingo and slot sites to limit their liability on bonus play, instead of or often as well as a wagering requirement.

• A win cap is a limit on the initial amount that can be won with a bonus or (more usually) a batch of slot spins, regardless of whether or not there is a wagering requirement that subsequently needs to be filled.
• A max convertible or max conversion is a limit on the amount of bonus winnings that can be turned into withdrawable cash as a result of filling a wagering requirement.

The difference between the two is in when they are applied.  For example, Jumpman sites used to have both a win cap and a max convertible.  The win cap – £8 per 10 spins – applied to what could be won with slot spins from their Mega Reel offer.  The max convertible – which was originally £250 – applied (and still applies) to what can eventually be withdrawn.  So you could play the spins, win a big bonus round but only receive £8 bonus – then play again, win another big bonus round and end up with £500 bonus, which you would get to play with, but regardless of how much more than £250 you had at the end of playing through the wagering requirement, you would only be able to take out £250 cash and the rest would be confiscated.   Unfortunately, despite the removal of the win cap it’s even worse than that now: Jumpman changed their terms and conditions in May 2020 to make the max convertible equal to the player’s total deposits in the lifetime of the account, with a ceiling of £250.  Yes, that does mean that if your first deposit at a Jumpman site is £10, regardless of how much you win from the Mega Reel welcome offer you’ll only be able to withdraw £10!  It just goes to show how important it is to read the small print!

Is there any way round wagering requirements?

If you don’t like wagering requirements there are two possible ways to avoid them:

1. You can opt out of the bonus offer altogether to avoid wagering requirements (although they will then still require you to play through your deposit once to comply with money laundering regulations).
2. Look for no wagering bingo and no wagering slots offers.

The evolution of wagering requirements

Wagering requirements have come a long way over the last few years.

It started way back in September 2013 when the UK Gambling Commission published a consultation document regarding proposed changes to gambling conditions and codes of practice in connection with change in the law which was to take place in October 2014, requiring all UK facing gambling sites to have a UKGC licence. The marketing of bonus offers and free bets was identified as an area of concern “particularly in relation to potentially misleading or unfair terms and conditions”, and a multi-agency review was planned.

The Advertising Standards Authority had been receiving an increasing number of complaints about bonus offers and free bets, and of the 58 cases investigated between 2008 and 2013, 53 resulted in some kind of enforcement action. The ASA began taking action regarding advertising on companies’ own web sites and via email and social media, as well as TV advertising and posters and once the Gambling Commission got involved as well – by making the advertising regulations part of the licence conditions -it was the death knell for excessive wagering requirements buried in the small print.

Some of the big name Playtech bingo sites reacted to the original consultation document by doing away with wagering requirements as such. Instead, they offered a welcome bonus that was not released until the player had deposited and spent at least £10. The bonus could only be spent on bingo cards – but after that, there were no restrictions. Ladbrokes at one point went one better still, and offered this arrangement 5 times in 5 different bingo rooms!

Where the big bookies led, others followed. In January 2014 Jumpman did away with the traditional wagering requirement they had previously imposed; anyone who had previously wagered a total of £30 real cash (from deposit and/or winnings) could withdraw from any of their sites any time that they had sufficient cash in their account to make the minimum £30 withdrawal (but making a withdrawal still resulted in the loss of any unused bonus or loyalty points). This arrangement (which arguably wasn’t helpful to players as it was still not possible to play with bonus without first losing all your cash) remained in force throughout 2015 and much of 2016 but at some stage the total playthrough requirement was quietly upped to a whopping £100 and as soon as the network introduced slot bonuses wagering requirements were back in force as well.

We thought at the time that other sites and networks might move to this type of arrangement, with a minimum amount that must be deposited and played in order to comply with anti-money laundering rules, and loyalty points and bonuses being used as an incentive for the player NOT to take any money out after that, but in fact much the reverse happened. The Playtech bingo sites discussed above continued to require the initial deposit to be spent before releasing their welcome bonus but almost all added a wagering requirement on top of that. This was partly to do with bingo sites feeling the pinch after the introduction of the POC tax and not having so much free money to give away any more, and partly to do with the increase in popularity of slots bonuses.

Whatever happened with the wagering requirements for bingo bonuses, the wagering requirements for slots bonuses were never going to go away; the RTP on slots is so high that it would be financially ruinous for the bingo sites and casinos to drop them. What did become a growing trend was the offer of free slots spins rather than a slots bonus. With free spins, it is generally the WINNINGS from the free spins that carry the wagering requirement – so if you don’t win anything from the free spins, that’s the end of it.  There are also free spins offers where the winnings are paid in cash but in many cases there is a win cap.

Another nail in the coffin of unfair wagering requirements came back in October 2016 when the UK Competition and Markets Authority launched an investigation into online gambling.  In particular, they were interested in “concerns raised by the Gambling Commission about potential breaches of consumer law, including misleading promotions and unfair terms, being used by firms to block players’ payouts”.  The end result of this was a new set of rules that came into effect in spring 2018.  Basically, the new rules say that wagering requirements must not prevent players withdrawing their cash balance.  One would imagine that this would be helpful to players but many sites responded by stopping the bonus from coming into play at all if there is any cash in the player account – by imposing a cash first spend order and excluding cash play from wagering requirements.

The handful of No Wagering sites continue to show us one way forward.  These sites have non standard welcome offers usually consisting of free bingo tickets for specific bingo rooms or games or free slot spins (with winnings paid in cash).  Instead of using reload bonus offers with wagering requirements to retain players, they have innovative player reward schemes and promotions to keep players interested – which is much better for the players.

A more recent development in the saga is the introduction of free bingo tickets at Playtech and Entain bingo sites; these can be redeemed in a selection of bingo rooms and winnings are paid in cash.

In January 2026 some stringent new rules came in:

1. No mixing products in promotions.  That is why bingo offers no longer include slot spins and why the wagering requirement on a bingo offer has to be filled on bingo only.
2. The maximum wagering requirement allowed is 10x.  This hasn’t really impacted bingo bonuses but has had a huge impact on slot bonuses.

Network/Software overview

Following the 2026 rule changes, here’s what to expect at the various different bingo networks and platforms regarding wagering requirements:

Playtech

Playtech wagering requirements are set by the individual operators and vary from a single playthrough to comply with anti money laundering legislation (usually combined with a requirement to spend all of the cash deposit before the bonus can be released in the first place) to as high as 5x for bingo. Wagers are typcially taken from the cash balance first and bonus will only be used if you have no cash left, but some sites remain cash only. Another variable at Playtech bingo sites is restrictions on bonus usage with some rooms being made cash only.

Playtech bingo sites often have free bingo ticket offers; these are typically redeemable for tickets with a face value of 10p or less in specified bingo rooms only.  Any winnings are free of wagering requirements.

Free spins at Playtech bingo sites are typically free of any wagering requirements but at some sites – Sun Bingo for example – they are not, and carry the maximum 10x wagering requirrement.

Dragonfish

The standard Dragonfish wagering requirement is 4 x bingo bonus and 10x instant games bonus (down from 35 x instant games bonus which was itself down from an extremely unattractive 99 x). Free spins winnings are treated as instant games bonus.  Not all Dragonfish offers have the standard requirement; some bingo offers have a lower 2x wagering requirement.

Historically at Dragonfish all that happened if you withdrew before meeting the wagering requirement on a bingo bonus was that you lost any remaining bonus (although you did have to have made a minimum deposit, typically £20 or £30, before any withdrawals were allowed at all). Things are different now – if you withdraw without completing the wagering, you lose all your winnings from bonus wagering as well as any remaining bonus and there’s an additional restriction on slots bonuses and free spins, capping the amount of winnings that can be cashed out even after completing the wagering requirement at £100 plus the value of the original bonus (apart from in the case of a progressive jackpot win).

Bonus expiry has changed too. Dragonfish bonuses used to be valid indefinitely, as long as the player logs in at least once every 30 days to keep the account active.  That was cut to 5 days, and now the 5 days has become a hard expiry.

What about no wagering offers? In early 2017 Dragonfish tried something new – the Real Bingo Network.  The first, experimental site on this network was Blighty Bingo and after numerous tweaks to the welcome offer, other sites started to appear on the network in Summer 2017.  The Real Bingo Network looked to be a completely separate network where only cash play would be allowed, but in fact it wasn’t long before it had almost all of the same rooms as the regular Dragonfish network (this was due to liquidity issues i.e. not enough players spending enough money).  Instead of bingo bonuses, Real Bingo sites gave out free bingo tickets to specific games and/or free slot spins, with no wagering requirements on the winnings, both as part of the welcome offer and daily as part of the loyalty scheme.  The only restriction on taking money out was the win cap on the slot spins and the minimum withdrawal (initially this was rather high at £35). This rather radical solution to the problem of wagering requirements certainly generated plenty of complaints to start with when players were expecting a bonus and didn’t get one. The other problem with these sites was that the free bingo tickets were usually for a specific bingo game where you had hardly any chance of winning and the prize was quite small.  Some of these sites are still around but now they all have a slot spins offer only.

Broadway Gaming bingo sites are also now powered by Dragonfish (after first Microgaming and then Pragmatic Play retired their bingo products).  The sites – which include Butler’s Bingo – have a 3x wagering requirement on bingo bonus offers, and a 10x wagering requirement on the winnings from slot spins offers.  Broadway bonus offers have a short expiry time of just 2 days.

Entain

At Entain sites the bingo wagering requirement is 4x, but they also give out free bingo tickets and the winnings from these are paid in cash once you’ve used all the tickets.  The standard slot wagering requirement is 10x but most slot promotions come in the form of free spins with no wagering requirements.

Jumpman

Jumpman sites no longer offer any form of bingo bonus – all welcome offers are slot bonus, slot spins or the opportunity to win slot spins.  The wagering requirements on these used to be a hefty 65x but have now been reduced to 10x and only bonus play counts towards this.  There’s also a max convertible equal to lifetime deposits up to £250 (£50 for accounts that haven’t made a deposit). The spend order is cash first.  A few Jumpman sites have a no wagering spins offer.

Others

Bingo sites on less common bingo platforms often have very lenient wagering requirements.

At tombola, in order to withdraw without penalty you just need to leave at least as much cash as bonus money in your account.  The bonus money is only used to play with if you run out of cash funds.

At bingo.com and Unibet Bingo (Relax Gaming), bingo bonuses are normally given out as a bingo voucher (only to be spent in the bingo rooms), with a bonus first spend order.  The slot wagering requirement is 10x but they often give out cash spins.

Gamesys got rid of all their wagering requirements as long ago as 2018, replacing welcome bonus offers with slot spins and free bingo tickets with winnings paid in cash. You do have to play through your deposit to collect the offer in the first place.

MrQ has no wagering requirements ever but they don’t usually give out any bingo bonuses, rewarding players with free bingo instead.

Sue Dawson

Creating iGaming content since 2013 - bingo and slots specialist

Sue Dawson has been writing about (and playing) online bingo and slots since 2013, putting her unique spin on everything.  She has…

Sue Dawson has been writing about (and playing) online bingo and slots since 2013, putting her unique spin on everything.  She has written pieces for iGaming industry news sites, appeared on and moderated panels at industry events and on podcasts, helped to judge industry awards and is a member of iGB Executive, a high level industry think tank.  In her spare time she enjoys gaming, hiking, dancing, watching motorsport and reading science fiction.

Read more