These are few and far between (not to mention relatively small) but they have one important advantage over other kinds of promotions – there is no deposit required!
Even as a risk-free fun money player, you can enjoy these bonus opportunities, which makes them ideal for trying out new casinos. For the biggest rewards, though, there will basically always be some kind of deposit requirement.
No Deposit Bonus
Since most no deposit bonus opportunities are relatively small, let’s use an example of a $20 no deposit bonus offer.
Just sign up with the casino, request the bonus (potentially with a code) and watch it land in your account. Then, feel free to play with this money as if it were cash.
Usually, this $20 would be just the first part of a more comprehensive casino promotion package, and your first deposit would still land you a fixed or matching bonus later on.
How Your Casino Bonus Works
Bonus money isn’t just a gift – if it were, players could easily take advantage of online casino bonus opportunities with no risk. Top casino online sites figured this out a long time ago, so they have a few restrictions in place to make sure you aren’t getting the better of them. The same can also be said for online gambling sites.
With the best sites, these restrictions are very reasonable, but always read the fine print to keep yourself out of any impossible-to-win situations.
First, all 2022 casino promotions are going to come with an expiration date. There’s no way around this one – just make sure you’ll have enough time to meet the other restrictions – namely wagering requirements.
Wagering Requirements
Wagering requirements (also known as playthrough requirements or clearing minimums) are set amounts of cash that you must gamble in order to make your bonus money available for withdrawal. This is primary tool that even the best casino bonus must use to make sure only genuine players are taking part in the action. Luckily, your wagers count whether you win or lose – it simply doesn’t matter.
The wagering requirements for any given casino bonus are generally 
calculated by multiplying the value of the bonus by a set multiplier – usually between 20x and 50x. The value of all of your wagers must meet this value to completely clear the bonus money for withdrawal, and you only have until the expiration date. These vary widely and, as with so many things related to online casino bonuses, the devil is in the details.
How Wagering Requirements Work
For example, some casinos allow you to withdraw your online casino bonus money in smaller, bite-sized chunks. Others, though, put you in an all-or-nothing situation. Some sites, in an effort to offer the best wagering minimums possible, actually count wagers from different games differently.
Slots may count 100% towards your clearing requirements, while the contribution from table games can be as low as 5% with some operators! Before deciding which offer is the best casino bonus for you, read the terms and conditions to see the details for yourself.
Example
To understand this concept, let’s imagine an example with John. John signs up with a new casino, makes a $300 deposit, and receives a $300 online casino bonus. So now he has $600 to play with, but only $300 of it is available for withdrawal.
The rest needs to be “cleared” by meeting the house’s wagering minimum. Only after doing so his bonus money can be pulled out of his account. John’s favorite games are slots, video poker, and especially roulette.
In this case, let’s assume that the bonus carries a 20x wagering requirement. That means the sum of all of John’s bets needs to add up to $6,000 (300 x 20). To meet this, he could make 60 $100 bets, 30 $200 bets, or even 600 $10 bets.
