Even though there are many different bonus types, they all work on the same principle, welcome bonuses included. When players make the first deposit at an online casino, that casino will award the players with a deposit bonus in form of bonus money, free spins, and other benefits. The majority of online casino bonuses will give you a percentage bonus based on your deposit amount. They look something like this example (we’ll be coming back to this example during this lesson):
- First deposit bonus: 100% (up to $300) + 100 free spins
Now please pay attention because this part is important. For our example, you may be led to believe that if you deposit softswiss casino $300 you will get another $300 and end up with $600 (and 100 free spins) but that’s just not the case.
The extra $300 you would get from this example is, in fact, bonus money or casino money. Outside of the casino, these bonus funds are useless. To turn it into real money, you’ll have to play some casino games with it but we will get to that part later.
For now, keep this in mind: when you get online casino bonuses (like the welcome bonus) you’ll only get casino bonus money that you can spend inside the online casino. Until you play with that bonus a little, it’s worthless outside the online casino.
So now that you know the harsh truth about sign-up bonuses, let’s actually take a look at some bonus offers, particularly those that online casinos offer to their new customers.
Percentage bonuses
The most common form of welcome bonuses is the percentage bonus. This is the bonus that seemingly doubles the amount of your first deposit. Again, this is in form of bonus money, not real money. In our example, the percentage bonus can give you a 100% bonus with the max bonus being $300. This means that if you deposit, for example, $400, you’ll still get $300.
Free spins bonuses
Free spins bonuses give you free turns on specific games in online casinos. This is considered a smaller bonus and is more often than not given as an extra bit with the 100% deposit bonuses. However, some online casinos will only offer you free spins as part of the welcome bonus.
Cashback bonuses
While it’s relatively rare to find a sign-up bonus like this, some online casinos will offer you a money-back guarantee with your first deposit. A cashback bonus always has a limit (usually $50-$100). Unlike other online casino bonuses, there usually isn’t a catch with this one.
Multiple-deposit welcome bonuses
It’s pretty common for seasoned casino players to hop from one casino to the other, only to stay long enough to collect the bonuses (welcome bonuses) and never to come back. To prevent this from happening, some better online casinos offer multiple-deposit welcome bonuses.
A multiple-deposit bonus work just like a normal welcome deposit bonus, but it ranges to up to four separate deposit bonuses. These are often called the second, third and fourth deposit bonuses. Each consecutive deposit tends to be a little less generous than the last one. Here’s an example:
- First deposit: 100% (up to $300) +100 Free spins
- Second deposit: 75% (up to $200)
- Third deposit: 50% (up to $400) + 20 Free Spins
- Fourth deposit: 50 Free spins
As you can see, the bonus offers get less valuable with each deposit but if customers have already made the first deposit, they are more likely to go for even the less valuable casino bonuses.