- Saturday, April 27, 2024
By: Eastern Eye Staff
You spot a bonus offered by an online casino encouraging you to play bingo. Before you sign up you notice that there is something called wagering requirements that apply to your bonus. You are right to ask the question: how do bingo wagering requirements work? The truth is that these terms and conditions applied to your bonus can make it feel like you have been tricked a little. However, if you go in with your eyes open, you can get the most out of the bonus and have some fun at the same time.
Here we offer a complete guide to how bingo wagering requirements work.
What are wagering requirements?
Let’s start at the beginning with a clear definition. A wagering requirement is used when a bonus is offered by a casino site. These welcome offers can be enticing, suggesting that you could get as much as £2000 for signing up. You must have wondered why someone hasn’t gone around signing up for all the casinos and getting the bonus and running off with those riches. Well, the answer is the wagering requirement.
The site is trying to entice you to the site to play and stay long enough to form a habit. Therefore, they need to make it necessary to spend the whole of the bonus on the site – including a lot of the winnings you get from this bonus. They are in it for a profit – don’t judge them for this.
Therefore, they say they will match your deposit up to a set sum. So, let’s say you put £100 into your account, the site will then double this in your account. Amazing, you think. However, they will then say there is a 10x wagering requirement on this £100. What this means is you will need to deposit £1000 more before you can start to withdraw any of your winnings. Until you do this, the £100 and attached winnings will remain as pending.
The amount you have to deposit – the wagering requirement – is usually a multiplier such as 25x or 35x or 40x. Therefore, it will always be proportional to the amount you first deposit. How much you deposit decides the size of the bonus but also how much you will end up spending to get that money in your pocket.
How does this work?
Imagine a bingo site offers you a £20 sign up bonus. So, just for putting in your details and depositing the minimum deposit for sign up, they will give you twenty quid. Seems generous and is meant to, as they are looking for new customers. However, they have put a 4x wagering requirement on that £20. Well, now as you play with your bonus money and you will win some games, you won’t be able to withdraw your prize. The site will be monitoring your deposits, waiting for you to meet the wagering requirements. Once you have spent 4x £20 or £80 on the site, the label will move from pending to your deposited account total.
What makes this harsher is that there is usually a time limit within which you have to fulfil this wagering requirement – usually 28 days from start up. Therefore, you will be making quite the commitment to the site to get your bonus money as real money. You can view the wagering requirements for your bonuses and your progress towards this on your accounts page.
Are we being tricked?
If you are new to online gambling, the bonuses can feel like a trick. You are promised what feels like real cash and it turns out that this is really illusionary. The likelihood that you will get to spend this money on anything other than games on the site are low.
However, if you view it as the site giving you some free games to have fun on the site, then there is no trick here. Of course, the bingo site is looking to make money. The longer they keep you playing, the more likely you will become a regular. So, in order to keep you playing, they pay for the games for a while.
In short, the wagering requirements are a sensible business move by online bingo sites. They want you to love them and come back time and again – so they give you some money to play for a while and learn why you love it.
