Some casino bonuses are available all year not just at Christmas

Online casinos nearly always have some sort of promotion around the time of Christmas so today could be a good time to take a look at what is available in terms of bonuses for new players or indeed some special offer for existing players. Any casino bonus will not however be made out of the goodness of the heart from the online casinos and there will always be strings attached. This is not to say that you should never take a casino bonus when it is offered but reading the small print or at least making sure that you understand what is being offered is certainly advisable. Most online casino bonuses available to new players are for example what they call deposit matching bonuses. This means that the size of the casino bonus is determined by the size of your first ever deposit into your online casino account and generally is a 100% match which means that if you deposit €100 the online casino will give you €100 as well. There will be a maximum attached to this and sometimes an online casino will also match your second and third deposits as well although this will almost certainly be at a lower percentage such as 50%. An important point to note is that whereas your deposit is in your playing account the money which has come from the online casino is in a separate account called your bonus account or something similar. Money in that account can be used to play the various casino games but it cannot be removed from the account before certain conditions have been met.

These conditions are usually called “play through requirements” which in effect says that you must stake the bonus a number of times on certain casino games before the cash can be transferred into your playing account and be withdrawn. The number of times the money must be staked can be quite large and is often up to 40 times or more. Some casino games which are considered low risk such as roulette or blackjack are also often excluded from qualifying for the play through requirement. This is of course all designed to give the online casino the maximum chance of winning the money back before you get the chance to withdraw the cash. Beware the online casinos that seem to quote a lower than normal number of times that the bonus money must be played such as 20 times as this will almost certainly apply to the bonus money plus your original deposit which if the match as 100% in the first place is exactly the same as 40 times the bonus. You can of course play for twice as long as would be the case without a bonus which can be an attraction but do not expect to be able to get the bonus money out anytime soon. The other drawback to this sort of promotion is that it is available only to new casino players so if you have already created an account you no longer qualify.

There are one or two online casinos available to Irish casino players which offer an alternative to this casino bonus system and one such casino is aptly named www.nobonuscasino.com. No bonus casino works on the principle that existing players are just as valuable if not more valuable than new players so any casino bonus should be for all players. The system at No Bonus Casino is not a bonus at all but rather a cash back system and it works very simply which is another thing in favour of no bonus casino. If you make a deposit into your online casino account subject to certain upper limits and play any of the casino games and end up losing the whole deposit on the same day then the online casino will refund 10% of your losses the very next day. There are no claim forms to be filled in and the cash is refunded into your playing account rather than a bonus account which means that you are free to do what you like with it. You can use it to play again or you can just leave it there or you can take it out. You have full flexibility unlike with a deposit matching bonus. Even without this promotion No Bonus casino is also an excellent online casino with a terrific range of casino games provided by the well known casino software supplier NetEnt and it is registered and licensed in Malta by the Malta Gaming Authority and for UK players it also has a UK license and just to repeat this offer is for all players on every deposit they make into their online casino account.

Another alternative which you might want to consider can be found at www.freespinscasino.com. Here again there is no matching bonus but instead each casino deposit attracts a number of free spins on a range of casino slots. The number of free spins awarded depends on the size of your deposit and the casino slot which you select to play them at. The larger your deposit the greater is the proportionate value of the free spins that you receive and from there the number of free spins depends on the value of each spin which is a function of the casino slot selected. Once again this promotion is available to any player on any deposit made into the casino although you can of course opt out if you so wish. Using the free spins will inevitably result in a profit being made as it is virtually impossible to play even a small number of free spins without winning something. Free Spins Casino therefore does have staking requirements for the cash won using free spins before it can be taken from your account but only for the cash won and not for your original stake so there is basically nothing to lose.

A casino bonus is not for everybody so opt outs are always available but there are alternatives to the standard deposit matching casino bonus if you look around.