What is Wagering

1. What Is Wagering Requirements Mean
2. What Is Wagering Requirements Definition
3. What Is Wagering Requirements In Bet9ja
4. Free Spins No Wagering Requirements
5. What Is Wagering Requirements Vs

Online gambling is one of the fastest-growing industries in the digital world. That also means it is one of the most competitive ones. Both old, established, and new casinos are facing fierce competition on all fronts. Perhaps the field they all clash the most is players’ acquisition. The need for a constant influx of new players has been a sore spot of many casinos and they will stoop from nothing to get them. One of the most popular measures were signing bonuses. Often, they look incredibly tempting, even exorbitant. Things like 100% matching bonuses, even 100% in some cases, are very appealing to new players, as they look like free money. And they would be, if it not for one pesky detail, called waging requirements. This proverbial fly in the ointment is often written in very small letters at the bottom of the terms and conditions page and people tend to overlook it. However, they are the most important thing in the whole scheme.

Wager vs Bet

The term wager is often used by the casinos and if you are not a frequent visitor of one of them, you may have trouble understanding it. To put it bluntly, a wager is a synonym for a casino bet. Casinos use it because it sounds fancier, despite the fact that it may confuse some of their patrons, especially those for whom English isn’t the first language. Another reason for using wager instead of bet is that betting has a negative connotation for some people, while wagering doesn’t. To further muddy the waters, the casinos also use terms like rollover requirements or playthrough requirements. Both of these terms mean the same, wagering requirements. Don’t let them confuse you or hide their true nature. Whatever the name they use, you will still have to honor them before you can see your money in the bank.

Understanding wagering requirements When it comes to casino bonuses at casinos, one thing players have to be ready for is wagering requirements. This can also be called a playthrough requirement and is standard practice for casinos sites, and indeed throughout the world. Executive Order 2020-41 states in pertinent part that “During the duration of the Gubernatorial Disaster Proclamations, the provisions in the Sports Wagering Act, 230 ILCS 45/25-30(f), 25-35(f), and 25-40(i) requiring in-person creation of a sports wagering account at a facility authorized pursuant to the Act in order to participate in sports. A wagering requirement is a number that represents the number of times you have to playthough either the bonus or the bonus + the deposit at an online casino before you are eligible to cash out. The number that represents the amount of playthough required for a bonus is typically assigned by the risk management team representing the casino.

What Are Wagering Requirements

Wagering requirements are a way for casinos to prevent people from just cashing in their bonuses and leaving. Let’s say that they are offering a matching bonus on your deposit. When you deposit $100, the casino will give you another $100. So, why not just take the money, and repeat the process? Because of wagering requirements. They specify how many times you have to wager your bonus before being able to make a withdrawal. If the wagering requirement is x10, that means you have to wager the bonus 10 times. To put it simply, you have to make bets in the total value of $1000 (your bonus times the wagering requirement) before being able to withdraw your winnings. All of a sudden, that great bonus you got doesn’t look so generous after all, does it?

Types of Wagering Requirements

Generally speaking, there are two types of wagering requirements. The first type is the one we explained above. It only applies to the bonus, not your deposit. The second type, albeit much rarer, covers your bonus plus your deposit. So, in our previous example, that would mean that the total amount of your required bets isn’t $1000 anymore, but $2000 (your deposit plus bonus times 10). Most established casinos don’t use this second type, but there are those that do. Of course, it is up to you where you decide to bet, but we would strongly recommend staying away from them. If they are ready to do that to their customers, you can bet there are other shenanigans in play as well.

Can Wagering Requirements Be Avoided?

Yes, wagering requirements can be, and often are, avoided. Your money is subject to them only if you accept the bonus casino is offering, which you don’t have to. You can decline it and be free to withdraw your money whenever you want to. The tricky part is that some casino insists on wagering requirements for all bonuses they offer. You can accept some free spins as part of a promotion for a new online slot game and suddenly, your withdrawal is blocked because you are now subject to wagering requirements. Mind you, this is not a practice in most casinos, so make sure to read carefully the terms and conditions of every bonus before accepting it, regardless of how boring they look. A few minutes of reading can save you a lot of headaches later on.

Wager-Free Casino Bonuses

Wager-free casino bonuses are just that, bonuses with no strings attached. You can use them however you like and don’t have to play through wagering requirements to transfer winnings to your bank account. The downside is that they are usually worth a lot less than the ones that come with requirements. These are usually things like free spins or free hands. Even if some casinos offer cash bonuses, the amounts are often quite small, like $5 or $10. But since they are basically free money, there is absolutely no reason to turn them down. A careful reading of terms and conditions is still warranted, just in case.

Whether you agree with them or not, wagering requirements are the reality of online gambling and aren’t going anywhere soon. The logic behind them is understandable since without them it would be impossible for casinos to offer bonuses. And since you have the option of avoiding them, they aren’t that big of a deal. The key is understanding them so you can be 100% sure what is in store for you in either case.

A wagering requirement is a condition that an online casino attaches to your use of their promotions or signup bonuses.

Here’s an example:

When you join an online casino for the first time, you’re usually eligible for a welcome bonus. For this example, let’s assume the bonus is $1,000 as a 100% match on your first 4 deposits of $250 each.

On each of your first 4 deposits the casino gives you credit equal to what you deposit, up to a limit of $250 per deposit.

But even though you can play with the money, you cannot withdraw it–not yet.

To earn that bonus and to keep whatever remains of it and any possible winnings, you’re required to make a number of bets or wagers whose total cash value is a multiple of either the bonus ($250) or the deposit plus the bonus ($500).

Wagering requirements vary across casinos. Common multiples include 25 times (deposit plus bonus), 30 times (deposit plus bonus), and 40 times (deposit plus bonus).

These X times ((deposit plus) bonus) requirements are often referred to as playthrough or rollover.

You’ll often see new players in gambling forums asking questions like this:

• “What does wagered 10 times mean?”
• “20X wagering requirements?”
• “What does 30X wagering requirements mean?”

I’ll explain more below.

That might seem like a lot of gambling.

But there are 2 things to remember:

1. A good gambling site will offer you games with a reasonable theoretical return to player and low volatility. It’s your responsibility to recognize the games that are best suited for meeting wagering requirements. These are almost always slot machine games–even though there are some exceptions.
2. You won’t lose every bet you place. It sounds like $12,500 is impossible to wager when you’re starting with $500, but on many of these bets, you’ll win some money. The house edge will whittle away at your bankroll slowly but surely, but it’s still possible to get lucky and have a winning streak when fulfilling your wagering requirements.

Online casinos often attach other conditions to those promotions.

Here are some examples:

• You might have to fulfill your wagering requirement within 30 to 90 days after you receive each promotional credit.
• Some games will be ineligible.
• Some games won’t reward you with credit toward your fulfillment obligation as much as the slot games do. (They’ll apply at a discounted rate, like at 10% or 20%.)

Also, online casinos often offer multiple welcome bonus promotions. You might see larger promotions for slot games and smaller promotions for table games. You have to apply the credit appropriately.

At online casinos that allow you to accept multiple credits at the same time, you’ll see separate bonus balances in your account dashboard. The casinos’ software does the accounting math for you, and your wagers are deducted from the appropriate bonus accounts first.

How Does Playthrough or Rollover Work?

The “playthrough” (or “rollover”) is just a multiple of your initial deposit or credit or both. You have to gamble that much money before the casino agrees to let you keep some or all of the credit (if any remains) and your winnings. Many no deposit welcome bonus offers place a limit on how much of the credit plus winnings you can withdraw.

Always be sure to print out a copy of the terms and conditions of the offers you accept so that you can refer back to them when you want to withdraw money.

Once you have the money in your account, you transfer some of it to a game and start playing. Assume you’ve chosen a slot game that pays reasonably well, doesn’t offer big prizes, and for which you will gamble no more than $5 per spin. This is conservative betting, and it gives you a chance for hanging onto your money and even to play it up in substantial winnings.

The average slot game player makes about 10 spins per minute. That allows for the occasional free spins or other type of bonus game. At $5 per spin, you’ll gamble about $50 per minute.

That might seem like a lot of money, given you just deposited $250, but on a low volatility game paying relatively smaller prizes, you should win back most of that $50. Assume you have 80% of what you gambled at the end of each minute. That means you still have $40 out of that $50. And assume further that every 10 minutes, you win an average prize about of $100.

If your playthrough or wagering requirement is 40 times (deposit plus bonus), you’ll have to make $20,000 in wagers to fulfill the rollover requirement on your first deposit. You’ll have to gamble for about 400 minutes (about 6 and 2/3 hours) to fulfill your obligation.

You don’t have to do this all at once, though. You can (and probably should) stretch it out over several gaming sessions. You should also take a break at least once an hour. Get up and walk around, get a drink, relax, stretch, etc.

If you’re losing $10 per minute, and you only have $500 to gamble with, you’ll run out of money in about 50 minutes.

But you should win some nice prizes across 500 spins. The theoretical return to player rating per game (if you can find it) helps you to visualize what you might win back. In fact, it’s possible to be ahead within a few minutes of starting a game.

But I’m assuming you’ll win an average “big” prize of about $100 (20 to 1 odds on a $5 bet) every 10 minutes or so, which means you’ll get back back about $500 after 50 minutes of play. In other words, there’s a chance that with conservative betting you’ll have more than your initial $500 deposit plus bonus credit at the end of your first 50 minutes of play.

This doesn’t always happen, but most people can stay in the game at least that long.

Slot games and a few other games are usually given full playthrough credit. In other words, for every dollar you bet on these games your wagering requirement is reduced by one dollar. But table games like blackjack and roulette may award you with less credit. You might be credited only 40 cents or 10 cents per dollar wagered on these kinds of games, and that is why we recommend you stick with the slots. Also, some casinos require that you only play slots to earn their bonus credits.

There are several types of welcome bonus promotions, too. Some online casinos offer you a “table games bonus,” which may be less than the “slot games bonus” and have a less overwhelming rollover requirement. If you enjoy playing poker, and if your casino offers poker, it might only provide relatively modest credits of $100 to $250 to poker players. The wagering requirements on poker welcome bonuses are adjusted to this game’s style of play.

How to Beat Wagering Requirements?

What Is Wagering Requirements Mean

The wagering requirements are there to make sure you can’t take advantage of the casino and walk away with free money. Think about it. Without any kind of rollover requirement, you could deposit $250, claim a $250 bonus, place a single $5 bet, lose, and then withdraw $495.

It wouldn’t take long for these online gambling sites to go out of business that way.

But when you combine a requirement for a certain amount of action before allowing a withdrawal, the casino gives the house edge a chance to whittle away your bankroll. Most of the time, the playthrough requirements are set up in such a way that the probability of walking away a winner is minimal.

Here’s an example:

You sign up, deposit $250, get a $250 deposit bonus, and decide to play slots with your $500 at $5/spin.

Most online slot machines have a better payback percentage than brick and mortar slots, but you can assume the house edge is probably still at least 6%.

If you’re required to make bets equal to 25X your deposit plus bonus, you’re looking at $12,500 in action.

If the house edge holds true, your expected loss on that much action is 6% X $12,500, or $750.

That’s $250 more than your bankroll.

Of course, that’s a long term expectation, so in the short run, you might do a lot better than that.

But how do you increase your chances of beating the long term expectation?

How do you beat the wagering requirements and walk away a winner?

The first thing you need to understand is the difference between the short term and the long run. In the short term, anything can happen. In fact, it’s next to impossible to see results similar to the mathematical expectation in the short term.

Think about it this way. The ultimate version of the short run is a single bet. If you bet $100 on a single spin of a slot machine game, you’re not likely to lose $6 and get $94 back, even if the house edge is 6%.

That expected loss is an average over time.

So your best chance of seeing a result different from the average over time is to place fewer bets and hope to get lucky.

If you want to beat the wagering requirements, you should make as few big bets as you possibly can. You’ll still probably lose, because the odds are against you.

But when you win, you’ll hit a larger prize amount. Once you’re far enough ahead, you can revert to a smaller bet size and make larger bets in an effort to preserve your winnings.

Here’s what happened to me once:

I had $500 in my account, and I needed to place $12,500 in wagers before cashing out. I bet $25 on a slot machine game, and on the 3rd spin, I won $6000.

At this point, I had $6425 in my account.

Now my goal is to get my $12,500 in wagers in while losing as little as possible. 6% of $12,500 is $750. If I can get close to that, I’ll have $6425 – $750, or $5675 left.

The best way to improve my chances of just losing $750 is to place as many small bets as possible.

And that’s what I did. I cashed out with over $4000. I used the money to buy a jukebox, in fact.

What Is Wagering Requirements Definition

That’s how you beat the wagering requirements–you place big bets and hope to get lucky early. This also requires accepting the fact that you might go broke early.

What Is Wagering Requirements In Bet9ja

That’s okay. If you go broke early, you can just switch to the free games. Your goal isn’t to maximize the amount of time you’re playing on the machines. It’s to maximize the amount of money you might win.

Why Won’t The Casino Let Me Withdraw My Money?

Early withdrawals usually void the welcome bonus offer. Players sometimes become upset with the online casinos when they won’t allow early withdrawal. Good gambling sites always warn you if you are about to void their offers with a withdrawal. Some gambling sites might automatically deduct your bonus credit when you make the withdrawal, which could wipe out the withdrawal amount. You don’t want to do that.

Getting angry with the casino won’t help you, either. You agreed to play by their rules when you accepted the bonus offer.

But other conditions may apply, too. Say you have fulfilled the wagering requirement, and you came out ahead. On your initial $500 deposit plus bonus you won $2000. You want to withdraw that $2000, but the casino cashier says the amount is too high.

What’s up with that?

Some casinos have a daily withdrawal limit. Check the terms and conditions to learn how much you can withdraw per day. Some casinos allow you to make deposits with credit cards but require that you withdraw to some other account, too. Some casinos are now offering Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals, too. You’ll have to set up your own Bitcoin wallets and find exchanges where you can buy and sell the Bitcoins on the open market.

The casinos don’t help much with any of that.

Casinos place these limits to manage cash flow. Sure, there may be an incentive for you to stay around and keep playing their games if it takes a long time for you to get your money.

But the typical casino has to be careful that players don’t load up on it and demand all their money at once.

That would be like depositors making a run on their local bank. The bank’s (and casinos) cash reserves could be quickly depleted, leaving some depositors without any way of withdrawing their money.

And don’t forget that online casinos have employees and expenses. They have to pay their bills just like everyone else.

Conclusion

Free Spins No Wagering Requirements

“Wagering requirements,” “playthrough requirements,” and “rollover requirements” are 3 different phrases describing the same thing:

How much you’re required to bet before making a withdrawal from an online casino.

These wagering requirements are usually attached to your redemption of a signup bonus or other promotion. Most online casinos only count wagering on slot machines toward the fulfillment of these requirements.

What Is Wagering Requirements Vs

But some casinos count wagering on other games, especially table games with a low house edge, at a discounted rate toward the fulfillment of those wagering requirements.