There is not much news about in the Irish casino news this week as it seems that all the talk about mergers and acquisitions of online casino operators has died down over the holiday period so we are left wondering what will happen in the new year. Online casinos generally attract new players over the Christmas and New Year period so it is no surprise to see that Irish casino operator Paddy Power continues to offer attractive bonuses to new players which includes a free €5 and there is not even a need to make a deposit although you may want to in order to collect on the second part of the online casino bonus which is a match of your first deposit up to a maximum of €300. The play through requirement for the free €5 is 50 times before any withdrawal can be made and for the matching bonus it is 40 times the bonus which is actually not that great when others such as All Irish Casino are offering a matching deposit bonus of up to €50 with a play through requirement of only 35 times the casino bonus. Irish casino news has also noticed that the Paddy Power promotion is not available for deposits made using Skrill or Neteller so if you want to take advantage of this promotion then choose a different casino deposit method. Nearly all online casinos offer a 100% matching bonus for new casino registrations so the difference is in the staking requirements before winnings can be withdrawn but of course they will all enable you to play the casino games for longer than without the bonus which is a good thing. This is the last article from Irish casino news at casinos.ie this year so we sign off by wishing you a happy and hopefully prosperous 2016.