Casino & Slots – Best Deposit Bonuses
These days many casino and slot sites eschew traditional welcome bonus offers in favour of bonus spins, a bonus game of chance or some kind of alternative player reward system. Many players, however, still prefer the old type of offer and in this section we gather the best of them together.
What counts as a good welcome bonus offer?
100% slots bonus up to £200 is a fairly standard sort of offer to find at an online casino and to be included here a casino must improve on that in one of the following ways:
- Enhance it with a substantial number of bonus spins
- Bigger maximum than £200 on a 100% bonus
- Bigger base percentage than 100%
Bonus play and wagering requirements
The main advantage to playing with bonus is obvious – it means more play and that means more entertainment value.
The equally obvious drawback to playing with bonus is that the wagering requirement needs to be completed before any winnings can be withdrawn (although this may not be much of an issue for someone who is playing for entertainment).
It actually goes a bit further than that though. Because the majority of casino and slot sites take wagers from a player’s cash balance first and from the bonus only after the cash is exhausted (Casumo is one that doesn’t), the player has to lose their deposit in order to get started on the bonus (if they win with the cash and withdraw the winnings, they lose the bonus). Of course, the same also applies to winnings from bonus spins (if paid as a bonus) although not the bonus spins themselves which are always used first.
Other things to consider
Many casinos specify a list of games that cannot be played with bonus and this almost always includes all progressive jackpots. Other types of game which may be on the list are:
- Table games (if not excluded completely, they will contribute to wagering requirements at some very small percentage)
- Slots with an unusually high Return to Player – such as Bloodsuckers
- Slots with some sort of collector mechanic for the bonus round – such as Super Monopoly Money and Castle Builder
- Slots with very high variance – such as Dead Or Alive
Further restrictions on bonus play may be in place, for instance
- A maximum bet size while a wagering requirement is in place
- A stipulation that bonus rounds must be played immediately after being awarded, with no other play or deposits allowed in the meantime
It is always a good idea to read the terms and conditions closely before accepting or starting to play with a bonus to ensure that the game you want to play is included and so as not to fall foul of any other restrictions on bonus play.
