These days, almost all casinos have some form of bonus or promotion to entice players into playing their games. As a punter, you have a large variety of promotions at your disposal to earn money from. While these bonuses are useful in helping you experience a casino’s services, they can be unclear at times.
Take for example, how do you unlock your bonus balance? This is a question that many players have, and one that each website has a different answer to. Generally, all UK casino bonuses have one thing in common: you have to clear some playthrough requirements. And to complete these requirements, you need to wager on bets with some of your own cash.
In addition to withdrawing bonus funds, another issue that confuses players is the difference between a deposit balance and casino balance. In most casinos, this is by design. Some casinos deliberately hide such information from their customers, to ensure they’re not aware of how bonus promotions work.
In simple terms, a bonus balance is the amount of money available on your casino account that your site has credited to you as a reward, either for being a new customer or from depositing some money.
A casino bonus balance is different from a deposit balance. The latter is the amount that you’ve deposited directly to your account and can use it to wager on some games.
Analyze the terms of service
Terms and conditions will explain clearly how a casino’s bonus offers work, and how they are structured. Only after grasping such information will you be able to differentiate a bonus balance from a deposit balance. But you shouldn’t read a site’s terms only when you’re researching for bonus offers, make it a habit to always go through them. You might find it a bit tedious and boring, but this habit may save you from a lot of disappointments in the long run.
What if you’re not finding the terms?
Sometimes you may feel like the T&C are being hidden for some reason. Well, this might be the case. Casino sites intentionally hide this information to ensure amateur players don’t understand how bonus offers operate. When you don’t comprehend the terms, you’re most likely to lose some money, and the casino ends up making more profit.
Untrustworthy casinos hide the terms in hazy corners of their sites, where you’ll have to spend a lot of time searching for them. Luckily, a crackdown by UK’s gambling commission has exposed such shady sites. The commission has strongly opposed unfair practices that are aimed to enrichen casinos at the expense of players.
One of the issues the commission is most concerned with is that of lack of transparency on bonus balances. Companies that made it difficult for you to determine your deposit and bonus balance, have now reduced significantly. In fact, some casinos have entirely stopped rolling out bonus offers entirely. Others have followed suit and improved their policies on bonus offers. This is to, of course, avoid hefty fines from the gambling council.
Are you playing the required games?
You may have problems with your bonus balance when you play the wrong games. In fact, it’s a problem many players experience. What they don’t know is that some games contribute very little to their wagering requirements, while others don’t contribute at all.
Your preferred site should list the games you’re supposed to play, and their total worth when clearing wagering stipulations. If you jump straight to playing games, ignoring these terms, then you may end up disappointed.
Will Writing has been writing about online casinos and casino bonuses for over 9 years. Will prides himself on paying attention to detail when checking out any new casino bonuses that come onto the market. Aside from verifing casino bonuses, Will enjoys playing video games and football. Will currently resides in London, UK.
