Free spins

A "free spin" is a bet of a fixed size, on a slot named by the casino, that the casino pays for instead of the player, and the only thing "free" about it is the stake. The winnings it produces are often paid as "bonus money" (a balance that can be staked but not cashed out), with conditions attached, and those conditions decide what the spin is worth.

We read an offer of free spins the way we read any bonus, by turning its terms into dollars, and the player of our example receives 50 spins at $0.10 on a slot whose installed version returns 96 per cent. The numbers are ours; the conditions are of the kinds that the terms of real offers contain, and we describe them by type, never by amount.

Five details that make an offer

Five details define a free spin offer, and its terms should give all of them, even if they sometimes sit in different places. The first is the "coin value" (the stake of each spin, fixed by the casino and not by the player), the second is the slot to which the spins are locked, and the third is the "wagering" (how many times the winnings have to be staked before any of them can leave the account).

The fourth is the "max cashout" (the largest sum that the winnings can become in withdrawable money), and the fifth is the "expiry", which can come twice, once for using the spins and once for completing the wagering. A missing figure is information too. When the terms do not state the coin value, the face value of the offer cannot be known, and in our view that is reason enough to leave it.

Face value and expected winnings

The "face value" of the offer is the number of spins multiplied by the coin value. For our player that is 50 times $0.10, or $5, and since the slot pays back 96 cents of every dollar staked, the "expected winnings" of the 50 spins are $4.80 (before any condition has been applied to them).

The slot matters as much as the count, because a casino may install a version of the same game set at a lower return. At 92 per cent the 50 spins are worth $4.60 instead, and the game's own panel, opened at that casino, is the only place where you can read the installed version (our guide to online slots explains why studios release several versions).

Expected winnings are an average, and most players will finish the 50 spins with a few dollars, some with nothing and a few with much more, because a free spin has the volatility of the slot it is played on (the spread is measured in our guide to RTP and volatility). The terms that follow the spins treat each of those outcomes in a different way.

The wagering that follows the winnings

Here the arithmetic turns. Suppose the terms require the winnings to be wagered 40 times before withdrawal: on $4.80 of winnings that means about $192 of further bets (40 times $4.80), and at the slot's edge of 4 per cent those bets cost an expected $7.68, which is more than the winnings themselves!

The expected cash at the end is therefore close to zero, and it stays above zero only because a balance of bonus money cannot fall below nothing; the players whose spins land a large win carry part of it through the wagering, while for most players the winnings run out somewhere inside the $192 of bets. The general method, with its other variables ("game weighting", the part of each stake that counts, and the "maximum bet" allowed while wagering), is set out in our page on wagering requirements.

Maximum cashout and expiry

The max cashout cuts the only "tail" of the distribution (the rare large outcomes) that keeps the expected cash above zero. If the terms you are reading cap the withdrawal at, say, $50, a player whose balance comes out of the wagering at $300 withdraws $50, and the rare outcome that kept the average above zero is trimmed to a size that hardly moves it.

Expiry works in the same direction, and with the same effect on the average. Spins that must be used within a day or two, and winnings that must be wagered within a week, push you towards long sessions at short notice (the deadline, not the player, sets the pace), which is the opposite of what we would advise; a condition of time is a condition of cost, and we read it with the same attention as the multiple.

Deposit spins and no-deposit spins

Free spins come in two families. "No-deposit" spins are credited on registration (often only after the account has been verified) and cost the player nothing but time and personal data, so the cap and the wagering are the whole of their price.

Deposit spins are tied to a payment (usually the first), often beside a "match bonus" (a percentage added to the deposit), and the deposit is real money whose own conditions, if the bonus attaches to it, must be read as well; our page on welcome bonuses reads that kind of "welcome package". A deposit offer has to be judged on the deposit it asks for, because a player who would not otherwise have paid that sum has bought the spins.

Spins without wagering

Some offers credit the winnings of free spins as cash, with "no wagering" at all, and for those the arithmetic of this page shrinks to one line: the expected value is the $4.80 itself, less whatever a cap removes. Between a no-wagering offer of 20 spins and a 40 times offer of 50 spins at equal coin value, the smaller is worth more ($1.92 against almost nothing)!

The comparison is worth making whenever two offers sit side by side, since the count of spins, the figure in the largest type, says the least about value. Fifty spins at 40 times and twenty spins at none are both described as free, and only the second is close to its face value. The multiple deserves the first reading, then the cap, and only then the number.

Where the value really lies

The money in a wagered free spin offer is small, and in expectation close to nothing. The value lies elsewhere, in a "trial" of the casino at its own expense (on a no-deposit offer the player risks time and personal data, not money), which lets you see the lobby, the cashier and the account checks before deciding whether a deposit is worth making there at all.

We would therefore read an offer in this order: the coin value and the slot (with its installed RTP), the wagering on the winnings, the cap, the two expiry dates, and last the number of spins, which is the figure the offer is named after and the one that matters least. A free spin read this way is neither a "gift" nor a "trap", only a small and honest piece of arithmetic that the casino has chosen to print in large type.

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By the Rand Casinos editorial team · Last updated October 2026 · Online since 2007