Bonuses are the loudest thing on most casino homepages, and they're also the most misunderstood. The headline number is rarely the whole story — the conditions attached decide whether an offer is genuinely useful or just decoration. Here's what the main types actually involve.
Welcome offers (deposit matches)
The classic new-player offer matches a percentage of your first deposit with bonus funds — a "100% match" doubles your starting balance on paper, for example. The catch is that the bonus part almost always comes with strings, and you usually can't withdraw it until you've met those. Read the match rate and the cap together; a huge percentage on a tiny cap isn't as generous as it looks.
Free spins
Free spins let you play a set number of rounds on specific slots without staking your own cash. Winnings from them are typically paid as bonus funds rather than withdrawable money, and they're often tied to one or two named games. They're a low-stakes way to try a slot, as long as you go in knowing the wins aren't straight cash.
Cashback
Cashback returns a slice of your losses over a period, either as real money or bonus funds. It's one of the more honest promotions because it's based on what actually happened rather than a promise up front — but check whether it's paid as cash you can withdraw or as a bonus you have to play through.
Wagering requirements — the number that matters
This is the one to understand before anything else. A wagering requirement is how many times you have to bet a bonus before you can withdraw what's left. If a £10 bonus carries 30x wagering, that's £300 of bets before any of it becomes cashable. A low headline bonus with fair wagering can easily be worth more than a big one buried under heavy terms.
Two related details worth checking:
- Game weighting — slots usually count 100% towards wagering, while table games often count far less or nothing.
- Time limits — many bonuses expire within days, so an offer you can't realistically clear in time is worth little.
The honest takeaway
Treat every bonus as a factual data point, never a reason to sign up on its own. No offer is free money, none of it is risk-free, and the terms always live on the operator's own pages, where they change regularly. If you want to see which operators we rate overall, that's on our comparison homepage.