How can you turn the generous welcome bonus you get into withdrawable cash? Nowadays, welcome bonuses up to $1,500 are common. But there is a catch in accessing this money as hard cash. Casinos restrict withdrawing bonuses using wagering requirements. The casino will require you to play a certain number of times before the money is withdrawable. For example, a $1,000 bonus with 20x wagering requirements means you have to play 20 games before getting the bonus. Here is a good first deposit bonus for you to claim. Is it then possible to make money using casino bonuses?
Understanding Casino Edge
Casinos operate on a principle that the more you play, the higher chances that you will lose. Say you play a game of coin tosses. Every time heads come up, you get $1, and every time tails come up you lose $1.10. There is a 50% chance of either side of the coin coming up. For every toss:
- Heads toss (0.5 *1) = $0.5
- Tails toss (0.5*1.10)= $0.55
It means that for every $1 bet toss, you can expect to lose $0.05. This translates to 5%. In a casino, this number becomes the house edge. Casinos encourage players to play more games because the house edge ensures the player loses over many games. That is why generous bonuses often come with high wagering requirements.
House Edge Differs
The house edge differs from game to game. Games with high house edge include:
- Keno – 25 to 29%
- Casino war (Bet on tie)- 18.65%
- Bix Six – 11 to 22%
- Bonus six (with insurance) – 23.83%
- Baccarat (no tie) – 14.36%
The games with the lowest house edge include:
- Blackjack (liberal Vegas rules)- 0.28%
- Classic blackjack – 0.5%
- Craps (4/6, 5/9, 6/8)- 0%
- Video poker (jacks or better) – 0.46%
- Spanish 21 (dealer stands on soft 17)- 0.40%
- Baccarat (banker) – 1.06%
Casinos Bonus Wagering Requirements
Wagering requirements are also called playthrough requirements in some casinos. These are terms and conditions on how you can turn a bonus into withdrawable cash. The wagering requirements are often shown as a multiplication factor of a bonus, e.g., $25 welcome bonus, 20 times. In this example, you have two options:
- Play with a $25 stake 20 times
- Play with a $500 stake
The casino wants to ensure that you have spent a minimum of $500 before you can withdraw the $25 bonus. The trick then lies in playing with a generous bonus, low wagering requirements (if possible), and playing a game with a low house edge. Casinos are very careful to present you with these three advantages. But you can still hunt for conditions that favor you as much as possible. There are hundreds of casino bonus offers online to choose from.
Making Money from a Bonus
Say you have a 100% up to $25 welcome bonus with 8 times wagering requirements. It means you have to play for $200 before getting the bonus. If you played a game like classic blackjack with a house edge of 0.5%, math would be:
- $200* 0.5 which is $1
You could expect to lose $1. If you take away the $1 from your $25 bonus, you have $24 left. At the end of the 8 games, you can withdraw this $24 as profit. The total withdrawal would be $49.
But the math is not always this straightforward because of game variance. Games come with a variance, measured by the standard deviation. If the game above had a standard deviation of 1.15 your withdrawable amount would vary from $7.75 and $40.25.
There are online calculators that can help you work out this math quickly and determine if a bonus is favorable or not.
Hunting for Bonuses
Casinos are very careful to offer loopholes that make them lose money. Favorable bonuses are very hard to find. Many casinos often restrict bonuses to games where they have a high edge. You can hunt for these favorable offers manually. You would have to trawl through hundreds of offers and do tiresome math to assess favorable bonuses.
The second option is to deploy bonus hunting tools. These are automated software tools that scan thousands of casinos to find what you want. They can do this in minutes. These tools can show you offers that you would be most interested in. They can also scan the wagering requirements and tell you a favorable bonus.
You can make money from bonuses if you take the time to hunt for bonuses that meet your house edge requirements. The good thing is that there are different bonuses you can work with. There are also hundreds of online casinos you can work with for a continuous stream of bonus earnings.