The US online casino industry is booming. New markets are opening up, new casinos are launching and new players are entering the fray. It’s a hugely competitive market, which is why you see so many casinos advertising bonuses and giveaways. Casinos use bonuses to attract new US customers, and also to retain existing ones. But at the same time, they cannot afford to simply give money away, so bonuses typically come with strings attached.
Still, if you know what to look for and what to avoid, you can turn casino bonuses to your advantage – and with a little bit of luck, they could even make you some of that fabled free money!
Different types of bonus
Before we get into the details of how to turn bonuses to your advantage, we need to be clear about the three different types of bonus that you are likely to encounter.
- Free spins – casinos will commonly offer free spins to new members on joining. These are typically of low value, perhaps $0.10, and you will usually have a limited choice of slots on which to use them.
- Deposit bonus – when you make a deposit into your gambling account, the casino will either match it (100 percent deposit bonus) or add a percentage such as 50 or 25 percent.
- No deposit bonus – here, the casino adds funds to your gambling account without you having to deposit any money of your own. No deposit bonuses are less common, but they do appear sometimes – right now, US casino players can get bonus from these gambling sites without deposit, for example.
What’s the catch?
We mentioned that bonuses always have strings attached. The biggest obstacle is the wagering requirement. This stipulates how many times your bonus, and any winnings it generates, must be wagered before you can withdraw it as cash. So a 30x wagering requirement on a $100 casino bonus means that you must play through $3,000 before you can withdraw any winnings.
Wagering requirements can be anything from 1x, meaning you can withdraw winnings straight away, to 70x. Obviously you should look for bonuses with as low a wagering requirement as possible. 30x is a common condition, and while it sounds like a lot, you can still see some real winnings if you are both lucky and smart.
The optimum bonus strategy
The trick is to use slot volatility to your advantage. Start out by playing on a high volatility slot game. There’s a high chance you will simply burn through the bonus, but if so, you have lost nothing. There’s a possibility, however, that you will get lucky with a big win.
If you do, the next trick is to switch to a low volatility slot. These tend to pay out smaller rewards but with greater regularity, meaning you’ll stand a better chance of playing through the wagering requirement with at least some of your winnings intact.
This method does not guarantee success – no slots strategy can do that. But when you are playing with bonus cash, there is nothing to lose, so why not give it a try?
