Welcome bonuses: the types, and what each asks in return

A "welcome bonus" is the offer that a casino reserves for a new account, and behind the words that announce it (a "match", "spins", "cashback", a "package") there is always the same exchange. The casino gives money or bets, and the player accepts conditions that limit what can be withdrawn, and when.

We describe the types one by one, with what each asks in return, since the type of an offer says more about its value than its size. The amounts of real offers are not printed on this site (the last section explains why), so every figure below belongs to a hypothetical player, while the sums of the requirement itself are worked out on the wagering requirements page, which this one takes as read.

Matches on the first deposit

The commonest type is the "deposit match", in which the casino adds a percentage of the first deposit as "bonus money", up to a ceiling stated in the terms. A player who deposits $120 and receives a match of 50 per cent has $60 of bonus (half the deposit), and at 25 times the bonus he must place $1,500 in bets.

On a slot that keeps 3 per cent of each bet (a return of 97 per cent), those bets cost him $45 on average, so the bonus is worth about $15 before luck. The same deposit with a match of 200 per cent would bring $240 of bonus at 50 times, or $12,000 of bets ($240 times 50) and $360 of expected cost: the larger match is worth $120 less than nothing!

This is why we read the multiple before the percentage. A match is judged by the cost of its requirement and by the games that count towards it, rather than by the figure in the headline; a modest match with a light requirement can be worth more than a generous one, as the two examples above show.

Offers spread over several deposits

A "welcome package" spreads the offer over several deposits, often three or four, each with its own match (and sometimes its own spins), and the figure in the advertising is the sum of every stage, which a player collects only by making every deposit within the time allowed. The conditions usually apply stage by stage, so that each part has its own requirement and its own expiry.

Consider a package of four stages of $50 each, every one at 30 times its own bonus. The headline speaks of $200, but the work is $1,500 of bets per stage ($50 times 30) and $6,000 in all, thirty times the headline! A player who meant to deposit once finds himself committed to a rhythm of deposits chosen by the casino.

In our view a package deserves to be read as four separate offers, each of which is accepted or declined on its own terms. Some casinos let a player skip a stage or stop after the first (the terms say whether they do); a player who stops at the second deposit has received the first two parts of the total and nothing more.

Spins on a deposit, and offers without one

Spins on deposit are a number of bets of fixed value on a named slot (the terms name it, and another slot cannot be chosen), and their "face value" is easy to compute: 30 spins at $0.20 are worth $6 of bets, and on a slot that pays back 96 per cent they produce about $5.76 of winnings on average. Those winnings carry a requirement of their own, which we work out on the free spins page.

An offer "without deposit" (a small credit or a handful of spins given at registration) asks the most in proportion, since the casino gives money to a player who has paid nothing yet. The requirement is usually high and the "max cashout" low (a limit on the withdrawable part of the winnings, often a small multiple of the credit); the terms often add a rule of "one per household", or per person or address.

It is a trial of the casino, not a source of income. The identity documents of the "KYC" checks (from "know your customer") are asked before the first withdrawal, as with any account, and we would advise sending them early, since the way an operator handles them says something useful about it whatever the bonus yields.

Cashback, and offers on a very small first deposit

"Cashback" returns a share of the "net losses" of a period (a day, a week, the first days of the account), and it differs from the other types because it is paid after the result rather than before the bets. A player who loses $300 net in a week with a cashback of 10 per cent receives $30, sometimes as cash and sometimes as a bonus with a requirement of its own, and the terms say which.

It lowers the cost of play without changing its sign. "Low-entry" offers ask a very small first deposit (one dollar, or a few) in exchange for spins or a small credit, and they work as a door rather than a gift: the offers on the second and third deposits are the ones on which the casino counts, and their conditions can be heavier.

Offers tied to a loyalty programme

Where the brands of a group share a loyalty programme, as the Casino Rewards brands do, the welcome period is also the moment when a new player enters it, and the points earned on the first bets count towards a "status" recognised across the group's casinos. The VIP programmes page puts a value on those points as a share of the money wagered, and it shows that the share is small.

Whether bets placed with bonus money earn points at all is a matter for the programme's own terms, which we would advise reading next to the bonus terms. A player who joins a group through one brand should also know that his self-exclusion, his bonus history and his account checks may follow him to the "sister brands".

Opting in, and opting out

A bonus is credited in one of two ways, automatically with the deposit or only if the player opts in (a box ticked in the cashier, a "bonus code" entered, a request to support). Where it is automatic, the terms usually allow a player to refuse it before the first bet or to have support remove it.

The clause is worth reading before you deposit, since a bonus removed once play has begun can take the winnings with it (the terms say "forfeited"). Playing without a bonus is often the better choice, and in our view the right one whenever the expected cost of the requirement exceeds the bonus, when your games count for little in the weighting, or when you expect to withdraw soon.

A deposit played as "real money" can be withdrawn at any moment, subject to the identity checks and, at some casinos, to a rule that the deposit be wagered once (a turnover of one times the deposit) before it is withdrawn. That rule is not a bonus condition, and we mention it because players who decline a bonus sometimes expect no condition at all.

Why we print the type and not the amount

Offers differ by country, because operators adapt them to the rules of each market and to their commercial choices, and the readers of this site arrive from many countries. The offer pages of the affiliate panels that sites like ours draw on are, moreover, not kept up to date; a figure printed here would be true for some readers, false for others and, after a few weeks, possibly false for everyone.

An amount means something only when four facts travel with it (the minimum deposit, the requirement, the term within which it must be met and the share of the winnings that can be withdrawn). We do not hold those four facts for every country, so our cards and boxes describe each offer by its type and point to the condition to read first, and the method page sets out the choice together with the rest of our work.

Questions

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