Casino Bonus Offers
Aside from the convenience and game variety, one of the major benefits of playing at an online casino comes from the sign up bonuses that are on offer. These bonuses act like virtual carrots to encourage you to sign up with a particular casino after which they hope you’ll stick around.
Whilst there are also plenty of loyalty schemes and general promotions for existing customers, the biggest and most generous offers come in the form of a welcome bonus – given only to new customers when they sign up for the first time.
This site is dedicated to tracking, cataloging and rating the bonuses currently up for grabs from safe and trusted casino sites. So without further ado, let’s get stuck in:
Best Casino Bonuses For 2024
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What Should I Look For in a Casino Bonus?
If you browse the list of casino bonuses (above) you’ll notice a big difference in the type of promotion. Some casinos offer big chunky bonuses whilst others seem relatively small in comparison, but it’s not always a case of going straight for the biggest one you can find.
Bigger Isn’t Always Better
Big bonuses are aimed at big players and require large deposits. For example, if you’re eyeing up a £1,000 bonus chances are you’re going to need to deposit £1,000 of your own money. Which is great if you want to whack down a cool grand and play for big bucks, but not so great if you wanted to deposit a tenner – it’s not like they’ll give you £1k on a £10 deposit.
The important thing here is to find the bonus that aligns with your playing style, both in the amount you want to deposit but also the games you want to play and how long you were planning on playing. Not all bonuses allow table games and you’ll often find that the most generous sounding offers often have the bigger clauses.
In the table below we roughly sum up what kinds of bonus you can expect based on the amount you’re looking to deposit:
| Deposit Amount | What Kind of Bonus Can You Get? |
|---|---|
| None | No deposit bonuses do exist, but they tend to be pretty low value for obvious reasons. So you may get a few free spins for signing up and another handful for verifying your account but you won’t really get much more until you deposit. |
| £10 to £20 | Most casinos start their bonuses at around the £10 mark, which means that a deposit of less than this (eg: £5) isn’t really going to get you much. Once you get to £10 or £20 though there are plenty of very generous offers. The headline take home amount may not be as big as some of the other offers but the amount relative to your deposit is the biggest at this point. We’ve seen a fair few £50 bonuses (or more) from a £10 deposit, giving you 5x your money extra. |
| £50 to £100 | Once you move into the £50 to £100 range you’ll start seeing the percentage drop off a little, but the wagering requirements often come down as well. Here you’ll likely find bonuses in the 100% to 200% range, so deposit £100 for a £200 bonus. |
| £200 to £500 | The mid range for deposits tend to mainly be in the form of a 100% deposit match. The good news here is that the wagering requirements are probably the best at this point, meaning you’ve got a good shot of walking away from the virtual tables with some chips left. |
| £1,000 or more | For high rollers your percentage often drops even more so your £1,000 deposit may only get you a bonus of £500. But people willing to make big deposits do tend to get taken care of much more after the welcome bonus is done and dusted. So whilst the headline offer could seem a little less in comparison, the long term benefits can often be much more generous. |
There is, of course, variation between offers and plenty of exceptions to the rules but on the whole this is what you’ll expect to find. It’s also based on the maximum bonus, but that doesn’t mean you have to claim the whole thing. For example, if you wanted to deposit £20 you could still take a 100% match bonus that comes with better terms than a 400% bonus that has hefty wagering requirements attached.
Do Wagering Requirements Really Matter?
People talk about wagering requirements like they’re the work of the bogey man. And whilst it would be great to take a bonus that had no conditions attached to it whatsoever, that simply isn’t going to happen in this day and age.
That doesn’t mean that you should accept any old wagering requirements or weird terms that the casino decides to throw at you, and in some cases you’re better off walking away than taking a bonus that has no chance of winning, but the modern player probably needs to accept that a bonus is going to come with a string or two.
The important things to look at when it comes to wagering requirements (WR for short) are:
- Can I play the games I want to play?
- How long do I want to play for?
These are the only things that really matter to most players.
When it comes to the games you want to play, most casinos place restrictions on certain types of games – particularly low house edge and low volatility games like blackjack and roulette. This could be a flat out ban, which means you can’t play those games at all, or they could apply a multiplier to the WR. So if you had to play 20x you bonus for slots and you want to play blackjack, all of a sudden that WR is now 100x.
Alternatively (or in addition to this) you may find that the bonus is different. So your £10 deposit could get you £50 to play slots but the same deposit would only get you £10 to play blackjack.
The second factor is how long you want to play. If you were going to play for half an hour and in that time you would turn over the bonus amount 30x then any wagering requirement of 30x or less would be fine for you and a lower WR wouldn’t really affect your play, unless you hit big and wanted to cash out early.
Should Table Games be Avoided?
As we just mentioned, some games have bigger wagering requirements. And we’re not talking a small increase of 10%, the difference between slots and blackjack can easily be 10x to 20x. This is because the house edge of blackjack is much lower than slots meaning the casino becomes at a disadvantage (which they clearly don’t want).
But that’s not great if you’re a blackjack aficionado, queen or the roulette table or someone who simply doesn’t like slots. So what then?
Thankfully there is a way to play table games with sensible wagering requirements and that’s to head over to a live casino. Whilst computer generated roulette and blackjack often come with massively inflated wagering requirements, live blackjack and live roulette tend to be much more reasonable.
| Game | RNG Wagering Requirement | Live Casino WR |
|---|---|---|
| Blackjack | 200x | 40x |
| Roulette | 100x | 40x |
| Slots | 30x | n/a |
Note: The figures shown above are just intended as a rough guide of what a ‘good’ WR is for each game but the actual WR will vary from casino to casino, and even between offers at the same casino. Slots have been included for reference purposes but only exist in RNG form.
Real Money Casino Games: Where to Play
There are plenty of casino games you can play for free on the internet, but for us that defeats the whole purpose. On this site we’re dedicated to real money gambling, both online and in person, and we’ll show you what you can play and where you can play it.
As well as categorising and listing the games and casinos that are available on the web, we also catalogue the bonuses and promotions that are on offer. Not sure what we mean by this? Well you’re in for a treat – think lots and lots of free casino chips, massive bonuses and plenty of other goodies that you can get your hands on, just by picking the right casino.
First things first, where can you find these games? Generally speaking there are two places that you’re going to find them – online and in a real life casino.
Online Casinos
Since the turn of the century casinos have existed online. The early incarnations were slow and clunky and were very limited in terms of what games were on offer. But they filled a gap and satisfied the community of gamblers who were discovering the internet for the first time.
Over the years the games have become more elaborate, better designed and much slicker – in fact, you can now even play games in virtual reality, assuming you have the right kit at home.
The key element of an online casino is the random number generator (RNG) which determines which cards are drawn and where the reels stop spinning. These algorithms are regularly tested and provably fair and deliver results much faster than a hand shuffled deck.
It’s also much cheaper to run than having someone physically deal cards, which means the casinos can offer games with lower house edges and much lower stakes. Ever seen a roulette game in real life where you can bet as little as a penny? You can online.
The competition between casinos also brought with it ever increasing special offers meant to encourage new players. Many casinos will triple your initial deposit (or more) with bonus chips. You have to commit to playing at least a minimum amount with these bonuses, but after that whatever you’ve won is yours to keep.
Live Casinos
Despite the fact that RNG generated games are perfectly fair, some people just don’t like relying on a computer. Others simply think that a solely computer based game lacks the human interaction that you get in a real casino. For these people, live dealer games were invented.
Live casino games are limited to the more traditional games – roulette and blackjack being the two key examples – but don’t include slots which are limited to the RNG casinos. After all, the outcome of a physical slot machine is already generated by a random number generator. So online v in person slots are already pretty much the same thing.
For the table games that you can play the way it works is pretty simple. You are connected to a casino table through a live stream with a real dealer standing in front of you. The way you interact with the game is similar to RNG versions with stacks of chips to place your bets and buttons to hit or stand, but you can also talk to the dealer.
The speed of game play is similar to that of a local casino as you have to wait for the dealer to physically dish out cards and spin wheels. Just like in a regular casino the tables sit multiple players so you will also have to wait for them to complete their turns. Because of this slower speed and increased manpower (ie: the dealer) you’ll find the minimum bets are much larger at live casinos compared to the RNG versions of the same game at the same casino.
Local Casinos
We’re not just about online gambling either, and the team all enjoy a trip down to the casino from time to time. There’s something about the atmosphere in a land based casino that’s hard to match. Plus all the free drinks, of course!
Most of us know where our local casinos are, but outside of our normal haunts it can be tricky figuring out where to go. For that reason we’ve written a series of guides to the best brick and mortar casinos in some of the best casino cities in the world, allowing you to get straight to the action as soon as your plane lands.
- London
- Paris
- Las Vegas
- Atlantic City
- Macau