Since the first online casinos started to emerge in the mid-1990s bonuses have been widely offered to new and existing players and can be in the form of credits or free spins.
In fact online casinos and bonuses go hand in hand, and only in rare cases will you encounter casino sites that don’t offer bonuses of any kind.
New player bonuses are designed to encourage first time players to sign up at a casino, while existing player bonuses (commonly known as reload bonuses) are designed to retain players i.e. to keep them depositing and playing and loyal.
From an online casino standpoint, bonuses are undisputedly the most powerful and successful marketing tool they have. They’re collectively responsible for tens of thousands of new player registrations every day.
From a player point of view, online casino bonuses are a great means to boost their deposited funds and in the case of no deposit casinos free spins / credit bonuses, to play eligible games for real money and cash out what they win – 100% free.
In this article we’ll explain how online casino bonuses work, what types there are, how easy it is to claim them, how their wagering requirements and other terms and conditions (T&Cs) work, and most importantly, where you can claim the very best Australian-friendly online casino bonuses right now.
Think of a casino bonus as an incentive or ‘up-front’ reward. Where land casinos reward players with a proven track record in the form of free or complimentary items (comps) such as meals, rooms, tickets, transfers etc., online casinos work differently in that they reward players up front.
In the case of new player bonuses, for instance, you can claim any number of bonuses from any number of online casinos as long as you meet three basic requirements:
Bonuses can be in the form of extra credits, extra spins, 100% free credits or 100% free spins depending on the bonus type and the respective casino.
Note: It’s important to note that every bonus under the sun has its own T&Cs which you have to adhere to in full or risk having your bonus cancelled, your bonus winnings removed, and even your membership permanently revoked.
There are a handful of bonus types you’ll come across at the very best Australian online casinos which are all explained below:
A 100% Sign Up Bonus of up to $200 is a common example of a Welcome Bonus, where whatever you deposit will automatically be doubled up to a maximum of $200. So if you deposited $200, you’d receive a grand total of $400 in playing funds.
There are two kinds of no deposit bonuses – free credits and free spins.
You can use the former to play a variety of eligible games including slots, keno, certain table games and scratch cards. Only if you win enough and meet the bonus wagering requirements can you make a withdrawal.
You can only use the latter to spin the reels for free on one or more pre-selected slot games. Whatever you win is converted to bonus cash and only if you meet the bonus wagering requirements can you cash out.
No deposit bonuses can be used to play real money online casino games and most will let you withdraw some real money winnings provided you meet the bonus T&Cs in full (which can be hard if they’re too stringent).
If you’re wondering what the catch with these bonuses is there really isn’t one as they are 100% free. That said most come with nominal maximum withdrawal limits. This means that you’ll never get rich from them.
One of the things that make cashback bonuses so appealing to players in Australia is that some of the casinos that offer them don’t attach wagering requirements to this cashback bonus money.
This means that whatever winnings you accrue with your cashback money you can withdraw whenever you like without any constraints or limits.
There are a few ways you can redeem a bonus depending on the casino and the type of bonus offer. That’s why below we’ve highlighted the steps of three of the most common ways:
As sure as the Sun rises in the east in Australia, so every online casino bonus has a long list of T&Cs attached. These are effectively the ‘rules and regulations’ of the bonus which you must adhere to exactly, or risk having your bonus removed.
Here are the most important bonus T&Cs:
As such, a wagering requirement is the minimum number of times that a casino requires you to wager / play through your free credits / free spins winnings before you’re allowed to withdraw them.
For instance, a $15 free credits bonus with a 20x requirements means you must make no less than $300 in bets to cash out any winnings. Failure to meet a bonus wagering requirement means you can’t cash out winnings.
Some casinos set their bonus wagering too high which makes them very difficult to meet. We avoid reviewing and featuring such online casinos, and choose instead to showcase sites with far more lenient i.e. easier to achieve wagering requirements to increase your chances of cashing out.
This is set in stone and non-negotiable which means even if you managed to rack up $1,000 in winnings, if the bonus has a maximum withdrawal limit of $100 that’s all you’ll be paid out and the rest will be removed.
These are known as eligible games and if you use bonus funds to play any games other than these, you risk forfeiting your bonus and any bonus winnings you may have accrued.
Some bonus T&Cs also list games you cannot play using bonus money.
In other words multiple casino accounts by the same player or connected players is a huge no-no. In fact, online casinos that catch players trying to open or operating multiple accounts typically ban them for life.