Best Bingo Sites – Deposit Bonus Offers
This section is where we showcase the best welcome bonus offers currently available at online bingo sites. Although many online bingo sites have experimented with different types of non bonus welcome offer such as slot spins, free bingo tickets for specific games and/or spin the wheel type bonus games, in 2023 most players seem to prefer a good old fashioned deposit bonus they can spend on what they want, when they want. What makes a good offer, you may ask?
- Types of bingo bonus
- What makes a good deposit bonus offer?
- Bonus play – how to read the terms and conditions
Types of bingo bonus
Deposit bonus
In a deposit bonus offer, you will receive the bonus immediately after making the necessary deposit (subject to account/ID/age verification). A deposit bonus offer can be fixed (same amount regardless of how much you deposit) or a percentage deposit match (e.g. 200% of deposit) in which case there will also be an upper limit on what can be claimed. For example – Deposit £10+ Get 300% bonus up to £120. In this particular offer, to get the maximum £120 bonus you’d need to deposit £40.
Deposit bonus offers are not just for new players – reload bonuses are also available at many bingo sites (although in 2023, this is much less common than in the past).
Deposit & spend
A deposit & spend offer requires you to play through your deposit in order to trigger the bonus. This is very common at Virtue Fusion bingo sites and although you might think it is worse for players than a straightforward deposit bonus, it is often associated with a “bonus first” play order which is arguably better for players than the more usual “cash first”.
Again, reload bonuses as well as welcome offers can work in this way.
Stake & get
Stake & get – also very common at Virtue Fusion bingo sites – is basically deposit and spend but with no need to make a deposit if you happen to have the cash in your account already. For obvious reasons, it’s for existing players not new ones.
Mobile bingo bonus
A mobile bingo bonus (or more usually a free spins offer) may be given as a reward for registering a mobile phone number with the bingo site and opting in to SMS marketing messages. The bonus (or spins) can only be claimed via a code or link in a text message sent to the phone number to verify it.
Free bingo tickets
Free bingo ticket offers have their fans, but in our view most offers of this type are vastly inferior to proper bingo bonuses. Free bingo tickets usually have to be used in specific rooms at specific times whereas with a bingo bonus it is almost entirely up to the player where and when they use it (the only constraints being expiry date and whether there are any cash only bingo games). That is why you will only find free bingo ticket offers on this page if they are offered as an extra on top of a sizeable conventional bingo bonus. The exception is free bingo ticket offers at Virtue Fusion sites as these can be redeemed in most bingo rooms with a ticket price of 10p or less and pre-buy is available, making 100 free bingo tickets almost as good an offer as £10 bingo bonus (better if you don’t like wagering requirements, and bingo ticket offers usually have none!).
Free bingo
Free bingo games for new players or for all registered players are also vastly inferior to proper bingo bonuses. It is necessary to be in the bingo room at the time to claim the free tickets, and free bingo games generally either have very small prizes or are so busy that there is only a miniscule chance of winning anything – or worse still, both. Some free bingo games have cash prizes but most pay out in bingo bonus.
Loyalty bonuses
Bingo bonuses – as well as free spins, entry to free bingo rooms and other goodies – can often be claimed as loyalty scheme rewards, whether that’s by redeeming loyalty points, winning them in a bonus game or simply reaching a certain level of play.
What makes a good deposit bonus offer?
High percentage bonus
Who wouldn’t want a huge percentage boost on their first deposit, whether it be for bingo only or a mixture of bingo and slots? Although the truly massive bonuses of a few years ago are gone, there are still a few pretty substantial ones around in 2022. Bingo bonuses are typically much bigger than slot and casino bonuses and a 500% bonus is still possible to find.
High upper limit
Which is better, a bingo site that offers a 500% bonus on a first deposit of £5 only, or a bingo site that offers a 300% bonus on a deposit of up to £25? The second option gives you quite a bit more bonus – up to 3 times as much – to play with if you don’t mind depositing more than £5.
Substantial extras
Many of the best bingo offers include extras as well as (not instead of) bingo bonuses or slot bonuses. These can include:
- Slot spins
- Free bingo tickets
- Access to a newbie room with free bingo
- Loyalty points
- Off site items such as shopping vouchers, cinema tickets or, of course, vouchers to be used in a bricks and mortar bingo hall
Bonus play – how to read the terms and conditions
Big welcome bonus offers are great, but do bear in mind the following and check the terms and conditions BEFORE depositing and playing to see whether any of them are going to be an issue for you:
Qualifying for the bonus
Are there any payment methods which are excluded from the deposit bonus offer? We recommend checking the T&C if you are plaaning to deposit by any means other than a debit card.
In the case of a deposit & spend bonus offer where you need to play through your deposit to trigger it, which games count towards this? There’s quite a few bingo bonus offers where you have to spend your deposit on bingo tickets only – none of it on slots – in order to receive the bonus.
Wagering requirements
What is the wagering requirement? How many times will you have to play through your deposit before you can withdraw any winnings from the bonus? For example, if it is 4 x (deposit + bonus) and you deposit £100 and get a 200% bonus, you’ll have to wager £1200 (the deposit, the bonus plus £900 of winnings) before you can withdraw any winnings from bonus play.
Slot bonuses and multi-game bonuses typically have much higher wagering requirements (we’re talking ten times higher!) than straightforward bingo bonuses.
Bonus expiry
What’s the time limit? We have seen bingo bonus offers (admittedly they were mostly for existing players not newbies) with very short expiry times of just 48 or 72 hours This isn’t much of a problem if the play order is “bonus first” as you can just play with the bonus right away. At a bingo site where the play order is “cash first” you will never get to play with such a bonus unless you first quickly spend any cash which may be in your account.
Play order and further deposits
What will happen if you deposit again while you still have a bonus active (to play a game which requires cash or to take advantage of another promotion)? Obviously if you play a cash only game you’ll be using the fresh deposit, but if you play a game where bonus is valid, will cash or bonus be used first?
Limits on what you can win and/or withdraw
Is there a cap on winnings from bonus money? This could be a simple cap or a “max convertible” / “max conversion”. When a bingo site has a max convertible (which can be a fixed amount or a multiple of the bonus), the limit is applied when you finish playing through the wagering requirement rather than right away; the max convertible amount is transferred to your cash balance and any remaining bonus or bonus winnings are lost. Caps and max convertibles are more commonly applied to slot bonus play rather than bingo bonus play.
Running out of funds
What happens if you run out of both cash and bonus money after taking up a bingo bonus without fulfilling the wagering requirement? Will that void the wagering requirement and wipe the slate clean or will it roll over into future deposits?
Bonus usage restrictions
What restrictions are there concerning where the bonus can be used?
- Valid for one type of game only? – e.g. bingo but not slots
- Exclusions within the type of game? – e.g. not valid for jackpot bingo rooms, not valid for progressive jackpot slots.
- Specific restricted validity? – e.g. can only be used for one named bingo room or one named slot game
Checking all this before you deposit at an online bingo site prevents any unpleasant surprises later on. Happy bingoing! – or if you prefer slots, look in the Best Slot Bonus section for big slot and casino bonus offers.
FAQ's
A bingo bonus is a credit issued to you at a bingo site, usually after making a deposit, that can only be used to buy bingo tickets (not slots or other games). It may be valid in any of their bingo rooms or in specified rooms only. Bingo bonuses usually but not always have time limits and wagering requirements attached. A wagering requirement is an amount of play you must complete before you can withdraw your winnings from playing with the bingo bonus. For example, if you receive a £20 bingo bonus with a 4x wagering requirement you must complete £80 of play on bingo to turn your winnings to cash.
Some bingo bonuses are automatically credited as soon as you make your first deposit (subject to account verification) but at other sites, particularly Virtue Fusion bingo sites, you will need to play through your deposit before the bonus is credited. Make sure you check whether it has to be on specific games – e.g. bingo only, not slots. There is normally no need to use a bonus code to claim a welcome bonus offer, but you may need to use a code if you are claiming one of our exclusive bingo bonus offers.
You normally won’t be allowed to claim a welcome bonus offer if you’ve played at the site before. In the past, some players tried to get round this by creating illicit multiple accounts at bingo sites to claim the welcome bonus more than once, but with the account verification rules that are in place in 2023 it’s easy for bingo sites to prevent this.
The only situation where you may legitimately be able to claim a welcome bonus at the same site twice is where the site has moved to new bingo software; sometimes, the player base doesn’t transfer over automatically and in that case you may have to sign up again and be able to claim the welcome offer again.
Of course, many bingo sites have bingo bonus offers for existing players as well for new ones and some of these can indeed be claimed more than once – even as often as every day for a week.
The best bingo sites regularly run offers and promotions for existing customers, including bingo bonuses as well as slot spin offers, prize draws and the like. Some of these offers are available to all their players and others are sent to selected players via text or email. If you want to take advantage of one of these promotions as an existing player, you will usually need to opt in by using a deposit bonus code or via a button on the promotions page.
At most bingo sites there is no limit on what you can win with a bingo bonus, but a few have a maximum conversion (e.g. 4x bonus) which will be stated in the terms and conditions. If your winnings after completing the wagering requirements of your bingo bonus are greater than the maximum conversion, the excess will be removed from your account.
Bingo bonuses are for playing bingo and most sites give out separate bonuses (with their own much higher wagering requirements) for slot games. A few bingo sites such as Bingo.com have welcome bonuses that can be used on either bingo or slots as you choose, but these are essentially slot bonuses – with slot bonus sized wagering requirements – that can be used on bingo.
