Have you ever wondered why online casinos have wagering requirements? The short answer is that Casinos have wagering/rollover requirements to prevent players from opening new accounts and simply leaving with the sign up bonuses without even playing.
Before we go further, it's important to understand what wagering requirements are and why it's in your interests to fully understand them. Here we explain in more detail.
What Are Wagering Requirements?
Wagering requirements, also known as rollover requirements, is a criteria you need to fulfil in order to be able to withdraw money from an online casino after you have claimed a bonus - usually a new customer's bonus offer.
The simplest way to explain it is to imagine that you have a £1 bonus that needs to be rolled over 20 times (×20).
In order to make this bonus eligible to be withdrawn you will need to use it 20 times. So on a £1 game of Roulette for example, you would need to gamble your £1 on 20 occasions.
Now, obviously, casinos offer far more that £1 to new players. So it could be that you've found a casino prepared to give you a new players bonus of £100. In this event, you would need to play through the £100 on 20 occasions.
The idea is two-fold.
- As we originally alluded to, the casino doesn't want to give you the bonus money and watch you wander off into the distant sunset with it.
- The casino is hoping that whilst trying to roll the bonus money over 20 times, you will lose it. That, and a lot more.
Why Do Casinos Have Wagering Requirements?
As we've already alluded to, online casinos have wagering requirements to stop players from simply taking the bonus and keeping it without even playing in the casino.
Why Wagering Requirements Are Important?
Wagering requirements are important for a number of reasons.
From the perspective of a casino user, knowing about wagering requirements is extremely important. Why? Well, because if you are looking to open a new casino account you need to know what the rollover requirements are in order to decide if it's worth doing.
Imagine you are choosing from two casinos who are both offering sign up bonuses of £100. One has a rollover requirement of ×20, and one has a rollover requirement of ×50, it's pretty obvious which casino bonus offer you are going to choose.
How To Reduce or Beat Wagering Requirements
It is fair to say that the above may be a slightly misleading headline. There is no way to avoid them, but some handy tips to beat them are as follows:-
- Choose a casino with a low wagering requirement
- Learn what the minimum deposit is
- Check the wagering requirements
- Is there a win cap
- How long do I have to play through the rollover requirements;
- Make sure you play eligible casino games that qualify towards your wagering requirements
- Choose the games that offer the best return on your rollover
The final point on our list requires a bit more flesh on the bone. Some casinos value some games as harder to play than others. So they have a habit of downgrading certain games when it comes to hitting your rollover requirements.
For example, they might say that every pound staked on Pontoon only qualifies as half of your pound towards your rollover requirements. Meaning you have to stake £2 to meet £1 of your rollover requirements. Whereas on a game like Roulette, the casino is happy to let a pound be a pound when it comes to your rollover requirements.
A bit sneaky? Yes, and maybe casinos pulling that stroke are best avoided.
But this just proves that the first and most important thing you can do when it comes to joining a casino is to do your homework.
Always, check the terms and conditions and make sure you fully understand them.