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Playthrough Requirements – If It’s Too Good to Be True, It Usually Is! /

Playthrough Requirements – If It’s Too Good to Be True, It Usually Is!

The playthrough requirements used to be often hidden away for a reason. That's because the online casinos didn't want players to know that they were being two-faced about their generous bonuses. After all, if you offer a new player a huge welcome bonus, he'll be happy to spend his money with you. But if he knows that you have a cunning plan to grab it all back, he might not be so quick to sign up. These requirements make it almost impossible for a player to cash out their initial welcome bonus.

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Are Slots As Generous As They First Appear?

If you do a Google search for online casinos, you’ll find hundreds upon hundreds of them. Looking through each one of them, probably the first thing you notice is that their landing pages will all have a fantastic welcome bonus. This is always the most prominent feature on the page. Many of these will promise hundreds of dollars in bonus cash. Along with any number of free spins. All you have to do is sign up and make a minimum deposit. And this can often be as little as $10. But lurking just beneath the surface are the wagering or playthrough requirements.

All That Glitters Is Not Gold

But the question here is how are the casinos offering such huge sums of cash? How are they able to make money for themselves? So the bottom line is, whether these generous offers are really what they’re cracked up to be? Yes, they do look fantastic at first glance. After all, they’re offering all gamblers the chance to get ahead before they even place their first bet. Surely they help increase your jackpot winning chances? And everyone loves a freebie. But no matter how good they look, they always come with a hidden caveat. Something cleverly designed to bring you back down to earth with a bump. Simply put, these are the playthrough requirements.

Playthrough Requirements – How Do They Work?

To explain it in its simplest terms, these are restrictions that are designed to stop players from quickly withdrawing any money made off of the initial welcome bonus. The wagering requirements are an additional risk that the casinos place in front of the player. The idea here is to minimise the possibility of a player walking from the casino with any of the casino’s money. So, though the casino may appear to give you free cash with one hand, whilst with the other hand, they’re doing everything possible to ensure you can’t take it home with you.

Playthrough Requirements Are Not There To Help You

An example would be that you’ll often see casinos offering $100 in bonus cash. But if you read through the small print you’ll see that it comes with a 50x playthrough requirement. In real terms this means there’s in order to benefit from the bonus, you would need to spend $5,000 in bets. That seems crazy. But it’s by design. Virtually all players will lose their bankroll long before they reach the $5,000 threshold necessary in order to make a withdrawal. And before they have a chance to win the jackpot online. On the whole, you find that the larger the bonus on offer, then the higher the playthrough requirements will be. That’s why we stick with Bodog Casino as their requirements are just 25x, which is one of the smallest in the industry.

Why do Playthrough Requirements Exist?

When online casinos to win the jackpot first started popping up across the internet, players would utilize the casino’s generous bonuses designed to attract new customers. But many players would convene in private forums to discover which operators were offering the most generous bonuses. Gradually this led to a form of bonus abuse. So it was no surprise that the casinos began adding wager requirements to their offers. In the beginning, they were not very transparent about this. The fact that playthrough requirements existed at all was well hidden deep within the terms and conditions. And nobody bothers to read those! As you can imagine, when players realized this was the case, they were not too happy.

The Casinos Were Being Underhand

It didn’t take long for players to understand, that because the playthrough requirements were so high, they were simply giving their money to the online casino. This led to many complaints. Finally, in 2014, the government stepped in and the Gambling Act 2014 was amended. This was mainly to protect players from predatory casinos. It forces casinos to be more transparent with potential customers. Today, all online casinos must clearly state the playthrough requirements next to any bonus offers. To that end, the casinos cannot ask for massive amounts.

The Playthrough Requirements: Do Your Homework

On the whole, most playthrough requirements we’ll have around the 30x mark. Anything above this is going to be uncomfortably high. And very expensive to play through. So whenever you see a welcome bonus from a new online casino you fancy, always take your time to check out the playthrough requirements. It will literally take you 5 seconds to multiply the bonus amount by the playthrough requirement. This way you’ll be able to see whether the bonus sums are attainable or not. We suggest that you never make the bonuses part of your jackpot winning strategies. our favourite online casino, Bodog Casino has one of the lowest playthrough requirements of any online casino at just 25x. This makes their welcome bonus great value for money.