Casino bonus types, September 2026

A casino bonus is a loan of house money with a repayment schedule written in turnover. That is the whole thing. Everything else, the percentages, the spin counts, the countdown timers on the promotions page, is presentation layered on top of a very simple trade: the operator fronts you money you cannot withdraw, and you agree to bet a multiple of it before any of it becomes yours.

Understanding a bonus means understanding that multiple, and almost nothing on an operator's promotions page is designed to help you find it. The headline is enormous and the terms are a link. That asymmetry is the point.

Each of the offer-type pages covers one kind of promotion and lists the operators running it, and every offer live right now sits on one page with its terms beside it. This page covers what sits underneath all of them, because the mechanics are shared: a welcome offer, a reload and a no deposit bonus differ in how they are funded, not in how they are repaid.

The only formula that matters

Turnover requirement = bonus amount × wagering multiplier, or (deposit + bonus) × wagering multiplier, depending on a single word in the terms.

Take a 100% up to 500 € offer with 35x wagering. Deposit 200 €, receive 200 € in bonus funds. If wagering applies to the bonus alone, you must bet 200 × 35 = 7,000 € before withdrawing. If it applies to deposit plus bonus, the phrasing is usually "35x (D+B)" and it is easy to miss, the figure is 400 × 35 = 14,000 €. Same headline, same deposit, double the obligation.

Nothing else in the terms changes the number by as much as that one distinction, and it is the first thing we check when we score an offer. Our casino reviews state which model applies in the bonus section of every review, and the wagering calculator on each review page runs the sum with that operator's own figures rather than a generic example.

Put the turnover figure next to what you actually intend to stake. If you were going to play 300 € across an evening and the requirement is 14,000 €, the offer is not a bonus you are claiming, it is a playing schedule you are agreeing to, roughly forty-five times longer than the one you had in mind.

Wagering: on bonus, or on deposit plus bonus?

The industry standard has drifted. Ten years ago wagering on the bonus alone was normal; today "D+B" is common enough that assuming either way is a mistake. Read the phrase, not the number. A 25x (D+B) offer is worse than a 40x bonus-only offer at the same deposit, and the 25x will be the one printed in larger type.

There is a third variant worth knowing: some operators apply wagering to the bonus but only release winnings proportionally, so partial completion yields partial access. It is rare and it is player-friendly. When we find it we say so.

Zero-wagering offers exist and they are exactly what the name says: winnings are cash, withdrawable immediately. They are almost always smaller, because the operator is giving away real money rather than lending it. Whether a small unconditional offer beats a large conditional one depends entirely on how much you were going to play anyway, which is the calculation the no-wagering casinos page exists to make easy.

Game weighting, and why your blackjack session did not count

Not every euro you stake counts as a euro of wagering. Each game category carries a weighting, and it is set by how much the operator expects to lose on it.

Slots almost always count 100%. Table games with a low house edge count 10%, 5%, or nothing at all, blackjack played well returns over 99% to the player, so a casino that let it clear a bonus at full weight would be handing money away. Live dealer tables are frequently excluded outright. Video poker, roulette and baccarat sit somewhere in between and vary by operator.

The practical consequence: a 7,000 € requirement cleared on 10%-weighted roulette is a 70,000 € requirement. Players who clear bonuses on table games and then complain the balance never moved have usually met a weighting clause rather than bad luck.

Some operators go further and exclude specific slots, typically high-RTP titles and anything with a bonus-buy feature. The excluded list is a separate document from the bonus terms at many casinos, and it changes. If you have a game you intend to play, check it against that list before you deposit rather than after. Our free game pages note the RTP for every title we cover, which is a reasonable proxy for whether a slot is likely to appear on an exclusion list.

Sticky and non-sticky, and why the difference is the whole game

A non-sticky bonus keeps your deposit and the bonus in separate balances and plays the deposit first. Until you touch the bonus, no bonus terms bind you: you can withdraw at any moment, no wagering, no maximum bet, no cap. If you deposit 200 €, run it to 900 € and cash out before the bonus activates, you are simply a player who won.

A sticky bonus merges the two on credit. Every term applies from the first spin, and your own deposit is inside the wagering requirement whether you wanted the bonus or not.

Non-sticky is dramatically better and considerably rarer, and it is one of the few structural features worth choosing an operator over. Operators that offer it tend to be the same ones that pay fast and hold no funds pending, because both decisions come from the same commercial posture. You will find the overlap on the fast-payout list.

Nearly every bonus carries a maximum stake per spin while wagering is active. Five euros is the most common figure; some operators set it lower, and a few express it as a percentage of the bonus.

Breach it once, including by a bonus-buy, an autoplay setting you forgot, or a feature that stakes more than the base spin, and the operator is entitled to void the bonus and every euro of winnings attached to it. Not reduce. Void.

This clause is responsible for more confiscated balances than any other single term, and it is enforced retroactively at withdrawal, which is the worst possible moment to discover it. Reputable operators block the oversized bet at the point of placement instead of allowing it and voiding later. That behaviour is a genuine quality signal and we record it in the bonus section of every review.

The defence is simple and boring: set your stake once at the start of the session, below the cap, and do not touch it. The upside of a larger spin during a wagering run is trivial. The downside is everything.

Cashout caps, and the clause that turns a big win into a small one

Winnings from bonus funds are frequently capped, and the cap is often expressed as a multiple of the bonus rather than a flat figure. "Maximum conversion 5x bonus" on a 50 € bonus means 250 € is the most you can ever take out of it, whatever the slot does.

The cap matters most on exactly the occasion you would most want it not to. If a 50 € bonus produces a 6,000 € win and the cap is 250 €, the other 5,750 € is removed from your balance at the moment wagering completes. Everything up to that point was real on screen.

Caps are near-universal on no deposit offers, which is the honest answer to why an operator can afford to give money away, and common on free spin packages. They appear less often on deposit matches, where the operator has your money and the risk profile is different. When a deposit match does carry one, that is worth noticing, and we flag it.

Expiry, and the clock you did not notice starting

Bonuses expire. Free spins expire faster, and often separately from the bonus funds they produce. Three dates are in play and they are rarely the same one: the deadline to claim, the deadline to use the spins, and the deadline to finish wagering whatever the spins won.

Seven days is the common wagering window at the aggressive end, thirty at the reasonable end. A 14,000 € requirement inside seven days is not a bonus for a casual player; it is a bonus for someone who plays several hours a day, which is exactly the audience it was priced for.

When the clock runs out, the bonus and everything traceable to it is removed. Deposit funds remain. That is the one piece of good news in this paragraph, but only at operators that keep the two balances separate, which brings us to the distinction that determines whether you can walk away at all.

The excluded-payment-method clause

Deposits made with certain methods do not qualify for bonuses. Skrill and Neteller are excluded almost universally; PayPal frequently; prepaid options such as paysafecard sometimes.

The reason is arbitrage rather than principle. Wallets historically allowed players to churn deposits across operators to collect welcome offers, and the exclusion is a blunt fix that has outlived its cause.

The consequence is that the deposit clears, the account is funded, and no bonus appears, and most operators will not retroactively apply one. If you intend to claim an offer, fund it with a debit card or a bank transfer. The full picture of which rails carry which restrictions is on the payment methods hub, and the eligibility clause is one of the few places where the choice of cashier option changes what you receive rather than merely how fast it arrives.

Bonus abuse: the clauses that decide whether you are a customer or a problem

Operators reserve the right to void bonuses for "bonus abuse", and the definition is written broadly enough to cover a range of behaviour from outright fraud to ordinary caution.

Things genuinely treated as abuse across the industry: multiple accounts, whether under your own name or a relative's; low-risk betting patterns designed to grind wagering with minimal variance, such as covering both sides of a roulette table; and coordinated play across accounts.

Things that are not abuse but are sometimes treated as such: playing only when a promotion is running, withdrawing promptly after a win, and depositing the minimum. If an operator's terms describe any of those as abuse, that tells you what kind of customer it wants and you are not it.

The clause worth checking before you deposit is whether the operator reserves the right to void winnings at its "sole discretion" without stating a reason. That phrasing exists at licensed operators and it is the point at which the licensing pages stop being background reading, because your only recourse against a discretionary decision is the regulator's complaints process.

Terms change, and the version that binds you

Bonus terms are not fixed. Operators revise them, and the promotions page you read last month may not be the one attached to the offer you claim today.

What binds you is the version in force when you accepted the offer. That is the legal position at every licensed operator and it is also the position you will need to be able to evidence, because the operator's live page will show the current version and nothing else.

So screenshot the terms at the moment you claim. Not the promotions banner, the full terms page, with the wagering multiplier, the maximum bet, the cap and the expiry visible. It takes five seconds and it is the difference between a complaint you can substantiate and one that is your word against a page that has since changed.

Operators are generally required to notify material changes to active bonuses, and reputable ones honour the original terms for offers already claimed. Where they do not, that is precisely the sort of dispute the ADR process on the licensing hub exists for, and it is winnable with a screenshot and unwinnable without one.

Rank four offers by headline and you will get the ranking exactly backwards more often than not, because the percentage is the one figure with no cost attached to inflating it.

Compare, at a 100 € deposit:

• 200% up to 1,000 €, 50x (D+B), 5x cap, 7 days. Turnover 15,000 €, maximum withdrawal 1,000 €, one week.
• 100% up to 200 €, 30x bonus, no cap, 30 days. Turnover 3,000 €, no ceiling, a month.
• 50% up to 100 €, zero wagering. 50 € of cash, withdrawable now.

The first is five times the second by headline and roughly a fifth of it by value. The third is the smallest number on the page and the only one whose value is certain.

This is why every offer we list carries its turnover figure, its cap and its expiry next to the headline, and why the comparison tables on the offer type pages sort on those rather than on the percentage.

Free spins: reading the number that is not printed

"200 free spins" tells you almost nothing. The figure that matters is the spin value, and it is usually 0.10 €. Two hundred spins at 0.10 € is 20 € of play, which is a modest offer wearing a large hat.

Three further details decide whether the package is worth anything. First, spins are normally locked to one slot or a short list, chosen by the operator, usually a high-volatility title where most sessions end at zero and the occasional one pays for the promotion's press coverage. Second, winnings from spins are typically bonus funds subject to their own wagering, not cash. Third, spins are often released in daily tranches of twenty over ten days, which means the package has a ten-day tail and an expiry on each tranche.

Multiply spins by value, apply the wagering to whatever they win, and check the cap. A 20 € package with 40x wagering on winnings and a 100 € cap is worth having and is not worth choosing an operator over. The free spins page lists which operators run them and at what value; the free game library lets you play the same slots at zero stake if what you wanted was to try the game rather than to chase the offer.

No deposit offers: what they are actually for

A no deposit bonus is a customer acquisition cost, and it is priced as one. Ten or twenty euros of bonus funds, or a small spin package, in exchange for a registered and usually verified account.

The terms are the tightest in the industry because they have to be: heavy wagering, a hard cashout cap, a short window, and frequently a requirement to make a deposit before any withdrawal is processed at all. That last clause converts a "no deposit" offer into a deposit offer with extra steps, and it appears more often than the marketing suggests.

None of that makes them worthless. It makes them a way to look around an operator's lobby, test the cashier, and see how support responds, at a cost of your time and your identity documents rather than your money. Treat the bonus as a trial and any withdrawal as a bonus on the bonus. What you should not do is choose a casino because of one, because the operators running the largest no-deposit offers are frequently the ones with the least to recommend them once you are inside.

Cashback: the only offer whose value you can calculate in advance

Cashback returns a percentage of net losses over a period, usually 10% to 25%, usually weekly. It is the one offer type where the value is not a probability.

The question is whether the return is cash or bonus. Cash cashback is unconditional money and functionally a small reduction in the house edge for the period. Bonus cashback carries wagering and is worth a fraction of its face value. Operators frequently advertise both with the same word.

Ask two more things: is cashback calculated on net losses or gross stakes, and is there a cap? Net losses is the honest basis. A cap turns a headline percentage into a fixed maximum that a losing session will hit quickly.

Structurally, cashback is the most defensible promotion in the industry, because it pays out when you lose rather than when you deposit, which means it does not encourage a larger deposit to unlock a larger match. That is a genuinely different incentive from every other offer on this page.

Reload offers and reward clubs

A reload bonus is a welcome offer for an existing customer: smaller percentage, lower cap, similar wagering. Their function is to convert a dormant account into an active one, which is why they arrive by email on a Friday.

Reward clubs and VIP tiers work differently and deserve more scepticism. The stated benefits, a personal manager, higher withdrawal limits, faster processing, birthday bonuses, describe service levels that a well-run casino would provide to everyone. "Faster withdrawals for VIPs" is an admission that the standard queue is slower than it needs to be.

The exception is the withdrawal-limit uplift, which is real and matters if you play at high-roller stakes, where a standard monthly cap can take months to release a single large win. Read that clause specifically rather than the tier benefits as a whole.

"Exclusive" offers, and what the word means when an affiliate says it

An exclusive bonus is a deal negotiated between an operator and a specific site, usually offering better terms than the public one, a larger match, lower wagering, or extra spins.

Some are genuine. Many are the public offer with a tracking code attached. The test is simple and you can run it in thirty seconds: open the operator's own promotions page in a private window and compare the terms. If the wagering multiplier, the cap and the maximum bet are identical, the word "exclusive" is decorating a referral link.

We will tell you when an offer we list is the standard public one, because a site that calls everything exclusive has spent the word. Our methodology page goes further into how affiliate deals are structured and what that means for the rankings you read anywhere, including here.

You can put an approximate number on a bonus, and it is worth doing once so you have a reference point.

Take a 100 € bonus at 35x on the bonus alone, cleared on slots averaging 96% RTP. Required turnover is 3,500 €. Expected loss over that turnover is 4% of 3,500 €, or 140 €. Against 100 € of bonus funds, the expected outcome is a loss of roughly 40 €, before the cashout cap does anything, and before variance decides what actually happens to you specifically.

Run the same sum at 25x: turnover 2,500 €, expected loss 100 €, expected outcome zero. At 20x it turns positive. This is why the wagering multiplier is the number to look at and why the industry has settled around 35x, it is comfortably above the break-even line for the games the offer is designed to be cleared on.

Two things this calculation does not capture. It assumes you play the requirement and stop, which very few people do; and it is an average across a distribution whose most common single outcome is losing the deposit. Expected value describes the operator's position across thousands of players far better than it describes yours across one bonus.

What it is genuinely useful for: comparing two offers. The one with the lower multiplier on the higher-RTP games is better, and now you can say by roughly how much. Every review on this site runs this sum with the operator's own figures in the wagering calculator, and the casino list can be sorted by the offers attached to each.

So should you take a bonus at all?

Often, no, and that is not the answer any casino site is paid to give.

Decline the bonus when you intend to play a short session, when you want the freedom to stop and withdraw at any point, when you play table games or live dealer, or when the requirement is more than a few times what you were planning to stake. In all four cases the bonus converts a casual session into an obligation, and the obligation is the product.

Take the bonus when the wagering is genuinely low, under 30x on the bonus alone, when it is non-sticky, when the games you already play count at full weight, and when the cap is high enough that a good session is not confiscated at the end of it.

Take a zero-wagering offer essentially always. There is no obligation attached, so there is nothing to weigh.

Every licensed operator lets you decline a bonus at deposit, and most let you cancel an active one, usually forfeiting the bonus funds and any winnings from them while keeping your deposit. If you find yourself playing to clear a requirement rather than because you want to play, cancelling is the correct move and it is available in the account settings rather than through support at any operator worth using.

Reading a promotions page in ninety seconds

You do not need to read the full terms document. You need six numbers, and they are all findable quickly if you know what you are looking for.

1. The multiplier and its basis. Search the page for "x" and for "(D+B)". Multiply out the actual turnover before anything else.
2. The maximum bet. Search for "maximum bet" or "max stake". Note it and set your stake below it before your first spin.
3. The cap. Search for "maximum conversion", "max cashout" or "winnings capped". If it is a multiple, work out the euro figure.
4. The expiry. Search for "days". Check whether the count starts at claim or at first use.
5. Game weighting. Search for "contribute" or "%". Confirm the games you play count.
6. Excluded methods. Search for your payment method by name before you deposit, not after.

Six searches, ninety seconds, and you now know more about the offer than the marketing page was designed to tell you. If any of the six is not findable on the operator's site, that is information as well, and it is the reason our casino reviews record all six in a table for every offer we list, alongside the turnover figure worked out in full.

How we score an offer

Every bonus in our database is recorded with the same eight fields, so that comparison is possible at all: headline, maximum bonus, wagering multiplier, whether the multiplier applies to the bonus or to deposit plus bonus, game weighting for slots and tables, maximum bet while wagering, cashout cap, and expiry in days.

We weight the multiplier and its basis most heavily, because those two together determine the turnover figure. Then the cap, because it decides the ceiling on a good outcome. Then expiry, then maximum bet, then weighting. Headline percentage carries the least weight of any field we record, which inverts the way almost every affiliate site presents the same data.

We also record whether the operator blocks an over-limit bet or allows it and voids later, and whether the bonus is sticky or non-sticky. Neither is a number, both change the outcome more than most of the numbers do.

Where an operator's terms are ambiguous, we ask support and record the answer with the date. Where support cannot answer a question about their own terms, that is itself a finding and it appears in the review.

It would be dishonest to run several thousand words on maximising bonus value without saying what a bonus is for. It is a retention product. Wagering requirements exist to keep money in play, expiry windows exist to concentrate that play into a short period, and the two together are extremely effective at producing longer sessions than the player planned.

That is not a moral failing on the operator's part, it is a promotion doing its job, but it means the risk profile of playing with a bonus is different from playing without one. Deposit limits set before you claim are the effective control here, because they bind at the cashier rather than relying on a decision made mid-session. Every licensed casino has them, and the licensing pages set out which regulators require the limit to be offered before your first deposit rather than buried in settings.

If clearing a requirement has stopped being enjoyable, the requirement is not worth clearing. Forfeit it. Free, confidential support is available through GamCare, Gambling Therapy and BeGambleAware, and none of them require you to identify as having a problem before you are allowed to talk to someone.

Why the offer you see depends on where you live

Bonus regulation has diverged sharply and the same operator will show you a different promotions page in different markets.

In Germany, the regime is among the strictest in Europe: a monthly deposit ceiling across all licensed operators, a nationwide slot stake limit, and heavy constraints on how promotions can be presented. In the Netherlands, untargeted bonus advertising is prohibited and offers cannot be directed at younger age groups. In Sweden, licensees may offer a bonus only on first contact with a customer, one welcome offer, and then nothing, which removes reload offers entirely.

The UK has not banned bonuses but has removed the sharpest edges: the previous practice of tying withdrawal of a player's own deposit to bonus wagering was outlawed, which is the rule that made non-sticky the default in that market.

Offshore licensing, Curaçao, Anjouan, imposes no equivalent restrictions, which is precisely why the largest headline percentages cluster there. A 400% match is not evidence of generosity; it is evidence of a regulator that does not require the terms underneath it to be reasonable.

If a bonus is voided and you disagree

Voided bonuses are the most common serious dispute in online gambling, and the outcome usually turns on documentation rather than argument.

Ask the operator, in writing, for the specific clause relied on and the specific transaction that breached it, the spin, the timestamp, the stake. A well-run operator can produce all three within a day, because the decision was made from a log. An operator that answers with the general terms and no specifics has not made a decision so much as applied a default, and that distinction matters at the next stage.

Then compare it against the terms you screenshotted at claim. If the clause cited is not in your version, say so and attach it. If it is, and the breach is real, the bonus is gone and pressing further will not change it, but check whether your own deposit was returned, because deposit funds are usually not forfeit even when bonus funds are.

If the operator's licence carries an ADR requirement, escalate there rather than continuing in chat. It is free, it is independent, and the operator is required to participate. The routes are set out per regulator on the licensing hub.

Our points are not a casino bonus

Worth stating plainly, because the vocabulary overlaps and the mechanics do not. The points you earn here for writing a review, posting a big win or taking part in the leaderboards carry no wagering requirement, no expiry pressure and no maximum bet clause, because they are not gambling funds. They convert to items in the points store and to entries in giveaways, and the rate is published on the leaderboard page rather than negotiated per promotion.

We mention it here because "bonus" has been stretched to cover both, and the difference is the presence or absence of an obligation. A casino bonus is money you must play through. Points are a thank-you for contributing something other people read. Nothing on this site requires you to deposit anywhere to earn them.

The terms, in plain words

Wagering requirement

The turnover you must stake before bonus funds convert to withdrawable cash, expressed as a multiple of the bonus or of deposit plus bonus.

Sticky bonus

An offer where deposit and bonus are merged into one balance, so bonus terms apply to your own money too.

Non-sticky bonus

An offer where the deposit is played first and kept separate, so you can withdraw freely until the bonus is activated.

Game weighting

The percentage of each stake that counts toward wagering, set per game category. Slots typically 100%, table games often 10% or less.

Maximum bet

The largest stake permitted per spin or hand while a wagering requirement is active. Breaching it usually voids the bonus and its winnings.

Cashout cap

The maximum that can be withdrawn from bonus winnings, often expressed as a multiple of the bonus amount.

Conversion

The moment bonus funds become cash, after wagering completes and any cap is applied.

Forfeit

Cancelling an active bonus. Bonus funds and their winnings are removed; the remaining deposit balance stays.

Qualifying deposit

The minimum deposit that triggers an offer, made with an eligible payment method within the claim window.

Where to go next

Start with the offer type you were actually looking for: welcome bonuses, no deposit offers, free spins, cashback, reload offers or exclusive deals. Each page lists the operators running that type with the turnover figure, cap and expiry in the table rather than in a footnote.

If the wagering is what put you off, the no-wagering casinos page lists operators whose offers carry no requirement at all. If you would rather start from the operator, the full casino list filters by bonus type alongside licence and payment method, and every review runs the turnover arithmetic on that operator's own figures.

The payment methods hub covers which rails are excluded from bonus eligibility and how long the money takes on the way back out; the licensing hub covers what happens when an operator voids a bonus and you disagree. For the wider background, the wagering guide works the arithmetic through in full and our casino guides go further into individual mechanics, and the free game library lets you play the slots these offers are built around at no stake at all.