Online Promotions You Can Deeply Regret

Casino players know that there are so many online casino promotions that operators offer, such as free no deposit bonuses (like £10 no deposit bonus or free spins)  or match-up bonuses. The thing is, not all of these bonus offers have the same rules, and not all of them will give you more value for your money. 

Today, we will be taking a look at examples of bonuses that you are likely to regret taking. We will explain why, and what alternatives are better.   

Poker Room Promotions

Not all poker room promotions are about the championship. Some organizations bake in a promotion where the player has to pay a higher entry fee. In exchange, you get to spin a wheel if you ever manage to get a certain hand. As you know, this is still a game of chance. You will never know when you will have a full house, and if that is what it takes to spin the wheel, then you should not be surprised if you never get to spin the wheel at all.

Another kind of poker promotion that you will regret is the Bad Beat Jackpot. In this game, the person who has the most losing number of hands wins the jackpot, not the winner. The jackpot winner, of course, has to lose a significant amount of money because part of the rule is that you lose, which means you have to call on bets and not just fold without a bet. 

While Bad Beat is in great demand, it defeats the purpose of the game. The winner of the game is not likely to get more money than the jackpot winner, and the jackpot winner may lose more money in his calls and raises than the actual jackpot prize. 

Slot Tournaments

This is one promotion that does not make sense because it is a raise. There are two main types of slot tournaments:

1. The first one involves a process where the person who has the highest amount of wins will climb the leaderboard. Now, you cannot win big money in slots if you play with pennies. At best, you have to wager £1 per line to make the best of your winnings and climb the leaderboard. The problem is that even after being on the top, the amount of money you win for the tournament can be smaller than the total amount of money you wagered.

2. The second method is based on money spent. Regardless of how much you won, you will climb the leaderboard if you are the person who spent the most money on the slots. The issue here, again, is that the tournament prizes are not bigger than what you have spent. Just think about it. There are thousands of players online spinning the same slots with you. The only way to climb the leaderboard for you is to spend money. Also, the underlying issue is that the prize, which is supposedly tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, is a shared pot. You will not get all of it. In other promotions, you do not win a pot of money. Instead, you win free spins, which you can use on the slot machines.

Bonuses and Match-Ups

While match-up bonuses are great, not all of them are created equal. The main issue with these bonuses is that there are so many rules. These rules are nothing short of preventing you from taking any wins. 

Let us take a look at the most common rules of deposit match-ups.

• Wagering requirement – usually, you have to wager 35x the total of your bonus and your deposit. If you deposit £100, you will receive an extra £100. This gives you £200 total playing money. Multiply that by 35, and you get a target of £7,000. You have to bet £7,000 before you can withdraw any winnings. 
• Capped betting limit – match-up bonuses from online casinos have a common cap of £5 per bet. This means you cannot wager more than £5 per round. If you do the math, you have to bet 1,400 times, with each bet at £5, to meet the wagering requirement of £7,000. The question is, will all your bets yield a win?  

If you have £200 to start, you can only bet that money 40 times at £5 each bet. What this means is that you have to win one time for every time you lose, which is not likely to happen.

• Expiry date– many casinos impose a rule that you have to meet the wagering requirement within a few hours for days, usually, a seven days period is given. This is close to impossibility, as not every round will yield a win. 
• Wagering contribution – not all games have the same contribution against your wagering requirement. Most slots have a 100% contribution, which means if you bet £5, then £5 will be taken off the £7,000 target.

Now, games like roulette, blackjack, and others have a lower contribution. Commonly, blackjack only has a 10% contribution. What this means is that if you play at £5 on a blackjack round, only £0.5 will be taken off your target of £7,000.

This is insane, to say the least. Even if you win every round of £5 on blackjack, you have to bet 14,000 times, at £5 per bet, to meet the wagering requirement of £7,000. Remember, you have to meet that requirement in seven days! 

• Withdrawal limit – if you ever meet the previous requirements, the casino will limit how much you can withdraw. By some miracle, let us say you won 14,000 times on blackjack at £5 per bet. The total winnings are £70,000, but you cannot withdraw all of that. Casinos usually limit your withdrawal to £2,000. And the rest will go back to the casino or just voided. For no deposit bonuses, the max cash out limit can be set at x5 or x10 of the bonus received.

The Best Bonus

Since we discussed the promotions that you can regret, what is a kind of promotion that you will not regret? What we recommend is something called free no deposit bonuses.

In this kind of casino promo, you will receive free money or free spins without investing your own money. All it takes is for you to register for an account. While the rules are the same with match-up bonuses, you do not have to pay from your own pocket to play. If you are lucky, you will also find casinos that offer free money that have no wagering requirements. Some casinos will allow you to withdraw that money as if it was really your own.   

Summary

Casino bonuses are great, provided that you know which ones to choose. To understand how they work, you have to read the terms and conditions carefully, and then decide if these bonuses are worth your time. 

If you have been a gamer for a while, then free bonuses may be okay, especially if you are just looking for a casual gambling experience to pass the time. But if you are a professional who wants to make more bang for your buck, you are better off looking for casino bonuses with not so strict restrictions.