An online casino bonus might not be as good as it seems at first glance

Not surprisingly online casinos lose customers on a regular basis for various reasons that do not necessarily reflect the performance of the casino so it is imperative that they attract new customers all the time to replace those that they have lost and indeed of course increase their numbers. The large majority of online casinos as well as other online gambling sites do this by offering special incentives to new players which for sports gambling is often free bets but for online casino gambling is more likely to be free money. This sounds very good but of course it is not entirely free money which is being offered. The casino bonus mostly comes in the form of what is called a deposit matching bonus whereby the online casino promises to match your first ever deposit into the casino usually by 100% so if you, for example, deposit €100 into your account then the online casino will give you another €100 to play with. Some online casinos will even match your second or even third deposits as well but generally to a lesser percentage such as 50%. Although this casino bonus money is available to play casino games with it cannot be withdrawn until certain conditions have been fulfilled and this really is the catch about such a casino bonus.

Your deposit is placed into your playing account but any casino bonus money is placed into a bonus account. Money from your playing account can be withdrawn at any time but money in your bonus account cannot be withdrawn at all so in order to get your hands on any winnings that you might generate from the casino bonus money you must first get it into your playing account and the rules about doing this can be quite severe. For example it is not unusual for the online casino to say that you must stake the bonus money 40 times before any money can be transferred so if your bonus was €100 you will need to place stakes to the value of €4000. In addition to this not all casino games will qualify as counting towards the staking requirement. Casino slots will always count but it is not unusual for casino games such as roulette or blackjack not to count or if they do then to a far lesser percentage such as 10%. This means that if you have an online casino where roulette counts for 10% then following the same example above you would need to stake €40000 before any winnings could be transferred to your playing account. Beware the online casinos that quote a headline number of 20 times instead of 40 times as you will almost certainly find that the 20 times applies to your bonus as well as your original deposit which at a 100% match is the same as 40 times the casino bonus.

There are other regulations which apply to a casino bonus so you are advised to read the terms and conditions carefully. This type of casino bonus is generally not a bad thing as it enables a new Irish casino player to play for much longer than would otherwise be the case but if you think it is a way of making quick money you may be disappointed. This type of casino bonus also does nothing for existing casino players and certainly does not reward loyalty. Fortunately there are alternatives available to Irish casino players such as the online casino called No Bonus Casino which is listed among the top online casinos at casinos.ie and is available directly by clicking through on this site. No Bonus Casino makes no secret of the fact that it does not offer any casino bonus at all to new players or existing players so it is reasonable to wonder why you would want to play there. The answer is cash back if you lose. No bonus casino has a very simple arrangement whereby if you make a deposit into your casino account on any given day and manage to play any of the casino games and lose your whole deposit on the same day then 10% will be returned the very next day. There is no need to make a claim as the refund happens automatically. What is even more attractive is that instead of the cash back being placed in a bonus account where you cannot get at it, it is placed directly into your playing account leaving you free to do what you want with it. You could even take it out of your account straightway if you so wished. Even better is that the offer is available to all players on every deposit no matter how long you have been a customer. Casinos.ie thinks this has got to be a better deal that a difficult to get your hands on casino bonus which matches only your first ever deposit.

Cash back is not the only alternative to a deposit match bonus as at freespins casino every deposit entitles the player to a number of free spins on a selection of casinos slots. The precise number of free spins depends on the size of your deposit with larger deposits attracting proportionally a larger number of free spins and of course which of the casino slots you choose to play as different casino slots have different stakes per line but this is all explained when you make a deposit. Free spins are great as it is impossible to lose money which means that at the end of playing the free spins through once you are very likely to be in profit. For this reason free spins casino does insist that you stake the winnings a number of times more before any cash can be withdrawn but note that it is the winnings only that are subject to this requirement so there is still nothing to lose and you will have fun doing it.

Online casino bonuses which match your first deposit seem attractive as advertised but closer examination might lead you to consider alternatives such as No Bonus Casino and Freespins Casino.