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The main reason a casino will offer a bonus is to basically entice people through their doors. As you’ll probably be aware, the online casino industry is ultra competitive and there are dozens if not hundreds of casinos all trying to get players to sign up. The easiest way to do this, for most, is to offer a player some sort of promotion where you get rewarded for playing at their casino.

Bonuses are often the best place to start for many casinos because a lot of casinos are very similar in terms of features and games that are on offer. You can often go to multiple casinos to play the same game, but you can only claim one bonus from each casino, making them unique to that site.

You’ll often find a number of different types of bonus on offer, with the method, rules and value varying depending on the casino you choose. In the grand scheme of things though, there are two main types: no deposit bonuses and deposit bonuses.

No deposit bonuses are where the casino will give you something for simply registering a new account and it does not require you to make an initial deposit. Usually this either takes the form of some free casino money or free spins. 

Deposit bonuses are given after you first make a qualifying deposit, with the value of the bonus often being connected to the value of your initial purchase. For example, you could receive a 100% match on your opening deposit up to £100, or £50 free when you deposit £10. 

Casino bonuses are often given up front and can be played with immediately, but sometimes the bonus is awarded after you have met the wagering requirements (known as a post-wager bonus). Whilst this might not appeal to all players, it does have its advantages - the bonus is usually awarded as cash (or with a one time rollover) and you're normally not locked in, so if you hit a big win you can cash out before meeting the WR.

It's also fairly common to receive free spins when you make a deposit, either as an added bonus (eg: deposit £100 for a £100 bonus plus 20 free spins on top) or as the bonus itself (eg: deposit £100 for 1000 free spins).

A sticky bonus is one that cannot be withdrawn from your account, even after the wagering requirements have been met. There are actually two different forms this type of bonus can take, a true sticky bonus and a phantom sticky bonus:

True sticky bonuses remain in your account after making a withdrawal and you can continue to play with the funds after your winnings have been withdraw. So if you have a £200 sticky bonus and a balance of £500, you can withdraw £300 and the remaining £200 will 'stick' in your account. Any winnings you make from these stuck funds can be withdrawn, the they themselves cannot.

Phantom sticky bonuses are the more common type, and the one that you'll see in most cases. Here the bonus also cannot be withdrawn, but instead of remaining in your account it is removed when you request a withdrawal. Using our example above, if you have a £200 phantom bonus and a balance of £500, you can withdraw £300 and the £200 would be removed leaving a balance of zero.

Understanding wagering requirements can be one of the most important features to a casino bonus. They often range massively from one casino to another and whilst they are often overlooked by many when choosing a casino to claim their bonus, the wagering requirements should be the first port of all before taking any kind of offer.

The wagering requirement is the amount that the casino requires you to play through before being able to withdraw your bonus amount and/or your winnings from the bonus. A typical example would be for a casino to play through both your deposit and bonus 30 times (although the actual multiplier will vary from casino to casino).

Another important thing to note is that not all games will count the same amount towards clearing a bonus. For example, a casino may allow 100% of slots play to contribute to the WR but only 20% of roulette, blackjack and other table games. Whilst this will again vary, you’ll often find that table games will contribute much less than say slots and some may be excluded entirely. This is because the house has a much smaller edge over the likes of roulette and blackjack, than slots.

Another important term to look out for is whether there are maximum/minimum bets that contribute towards clearing your bonus. What most online casinos will do is limit the size of bets that are permitted when using the bonus. This is to stop players bettig big to double up early on and then dropping their bet to 'grind out the WR'. Minimum bets work in very much the same way and will be set at the casinos discrepancy.

Minimum and maximum bets can either bet set as a fixed amount (eg: £10) or as a percentage of your bonus (eg: 10%). If such a condition is enforced it should be clearly listed in the terms and conditions of the offer and must be obeyed - if you break this rule you could find yourself having your winnings voided.

It’s also important to know which deposit methods are allowed when claiming a bonus as some online casinos will not award bonuses when the deposit has been made using a certain payment methods (usually ewallets) such as Neteller, Skrill and PayPal. Conversely (and confusingly) some casinos will offer extra bonuses for using the very same ewallets.

Finally, you will probably be aware that most online casinos will only allow one bonus per account. But you may not realise that some casinos are actually part of the same ‘group’ where restrictions may be involved for these as well. An example would be that Casino A and Casino B are both part of the same casino group which only allow one bonus per player between all casinos, thus limiting your bonus to either Casino A or Casino B.

As you may be starting to realise, it’s not that hard to break one of the extensive terms and conditions that some casinos have in place for their bonuses. If you do accidentally violate a term the best course of action is to stop playing and contact customer support. The support team in place should be able to see if or what you have done from your gaming history and be able to advise you with the best course of action going forward. Be sure to keep copies of all chat conversations and emails for future reference, just in case you run into related difficulties further down the line.

One very common practice among online casinos is for progressive jackpot games to be exluded when playing with a bonus. The reason for this is when playing a game with a pooled jackpot, a portion of your bet goes into the pot for the lucky so and so that wins it. Because when you have a bonus you're effectively playing with the casinos money, allowing you to play jackpot games invovles the casino making contributions to the jackpot out of their own pocket - meaning that even if you lost your deposit and bonus, the casino might have also still lost money.

This is probably one of the most common questions for online casinos players and the answer may not be as black and white as it seems. A lot of players will just see the fact that you are getting free money from the casino in terms of your bonus and that it’s always going to be a positive to have the bonus. And whilst free money is great, there are actually a lot of examples when it will be better for players to play without the bonus.

Playing with a bonus will increase the time that you can play on the site because of the fact that the casino is essentially giving you extra funds. They might mean that you can play slightly higher stakes than you are used to which all combines in giving you a better chance of winning. If you can find a bonus that will give you a low wagering requirement for the game and stakes that you are looking to play, then this will be a good option.

On the other hand, having no bonus will give you no restrictions as to which games you can play and have to be concerned about breaching any terms and conditions for your bonus. It’s ideal for people who are looking to cash out frequently or just simply want to have immediate access to their funds for the whole time they are at a certain online casino. At the end of the day it's down to the individual player and your playing style.