Casino Bonuses

With the odds stacked against you at all casinos its important to take advantage of the free bonuses that the casinos offer.

In the real casinos in Vegas its all about getting the house edge back in Gin and Tonics and Bloody Marys (for me anyway) and trying to get the room comped.  In the online world the casinos have none of that expense, and hence use cash offers to try to win over new punters or get old ones to come back.

Sign Up Bonus

Pretty much every casino has a sign up offer that can vary from £20 to several hundred.  Usually it is based on your first deposit, sometimes the bonus can be an equal amount as your deposit (100% match bonus), other times it may be a lower percentage, but maybe with a higher possible maximum.

The first thing to know is that these bonuses come with strings attached, in particular that you are required to bet a reasonable amount (usually a multiple of say 20x the bonus you were given) before you can withdraw the bonus (if you still have it).

For example deposit £50 and get a £50 bonus at a casino.  The situation would normally be

- you can withdraw your £50 at any time

- if you start losing, then you lose your money first then the bonus money

- you need to bet over £1000 before you can withdraw the bonus

- only stakes on certain games count.  This can vary a bit by casino but in general the low house edge unskilled games namely Craps & Baccarat don't count.  Blackjack does count though in every casino we've checked.  This is because the house edge for blackjack is only low if you play well, otherwise its very high!

While betting £1000 seems like a lot, if say you are playing blackjack at £2 per hand (a sensible rule of thumb is to have a bank of 40-50 times your stake) then you'd need to play about 500 hands, ignoring splits and doubles.  If you play 4 hands per minute, which is quite possible in a single player online environment (we've managed 6) then this equates to a couple of hours play. 

If you play multi-hand blackjack then obviously with 3 hands you could get the play done in under an hour but while you would be playing separate hands the volatility would be a bit greater as for example you could lose a lot quickly if the dealer had a good sequence of hands

Monthly Bonuses

Several of the casinos offer monthly cash bonuses to existing players usually if you come back and deposit some more money and play a bit, much like the initial bonus.

This is very much a growing trend as the casino business gets more and more competitive and casinos are realising that their customers often on stick around for a month or two and then try their luck somewhere else, starting off with a big fat bonus at the new place.

However for everyone except the casino "bounty hunters" monthly bonuses are very much a welcome move as we have found that while there are hundreds of casinos out there, there are only a small number that you can be confident and reputable and financially stable.  These are listed on the right, together with details of their latest bonus.