When you sign up to an online poker site or online casino, you can generally claim what is commonly referred to as a new player welcome bonus or sign-up bonus. The most common online casino and poker bonus is the matching deposit bonus, which we will be taking a closer look at right here.
What is the matching deposit bonus?
The matching deposit bonus is one of the most common types of bonus you can generally claim today at any fully licensed online casino or poker site. It can normally only ever be claimed on your first deposit, and when you are offered your matching deposit bonus, you can either accept it or decline it. If you accept it, your next deposit will be matched by up to a certain amount. If you decline it, you won’t receive any bonus money to play with.
Simply by typing into certain search engines, phrases such as ‘New players offer Poker’ will bring up some of the latest offers available online today. Some deals are more lucrative than others, and the deals that sound too good to be true, often are. Only sign up to fully licensed casino/poker sites that are controlled by reputable operators. Never play on unlicensed websites.
The 100% matching deposit bonus is basically a bonus that enables you to double up on your deposit. Therefore, if the site that you are about to sign up to is offering all new players a 100% match bonus worth up to $/€/£200 (or equivalent currency value), it means that the operator of that site is willing to match your deposit by up to $/€/£200.
There’s no need to deposit more than the $/€/£200 unless you want to because the bonus is only worth up to $/€/£200. Therefore, if you do end up depositing the full $/€/£200, you will be awarded $/€/£200 free bonus money on top of your deposit. If you deposited $/€/£500, you would still only receive $/€/£200. If you deposit $/€/£20, then you would receive £/€/£40 ($/€/£20 deposit plus your $/€/£$20 bonus money), and so on. The good news is that you can claim your welcome bonus whether you sign up to the site from a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer.
How much do I have to deposit to claim a bonus at a casino or poker site?
The minimum deposit amount required to claim your new player welcome bonus might be $/€/£5.00, $/€/£10.00, or $/€/£20.00. This exact amount will vary somewhat from one casino/poker site to the next. The best thing to do before accepting a bonus would be to read through the terms and conditions to find out more about the minimum deposit amount required to claim the bonus.
What are wagering requirements?
Wagering requirements, much to the annoyance of players, which are also sometimes called playthrough requirements or wagering requirements, must be completed before you can withdraw any winnings you make from your bonus. If the casino or poker site bonus that you just claimed didn’t come with wagering requirements, the chances are that most players would simply withdraw the bonus money and spend it elsewhere. Wagering requirements stop players from being able to do this.
The amount that you need to wager is generally anywhere from 35x times the bonus amount up to 60x times the bonus amount. Some of the other things that you need to be aware of when it comes to wagering requirements are that they must be completed within a certain amount of time and that certain games will contribute more towards completing them than others.
In other words, to complete your wagering requirements in as little time as possible, stick to playing the slots that contribute 100% towards completing the wagering requirements per $/€/£1.00 wagered. Some slots, tables & card games (and live dealer games) may only contribute anywhere from 0% to 20% towards completing them per $/€/£1.00 wagered. Playing these games would take a lot longer to complete your wagering requirements.
