The Dispatch
Welcome Bonus Fine Print, Decoded
Six clauses that decide whether a welcome offer is a gift or a trap. Read these before you accept the promo.
A welcome bonus is a marketing tool. It exists to get you through the door. Whether you leave with more than you came with comes down to six clauses. Read these before you accept any promo, in rough order of how badly they can bite:
- Wagering requirement. 30x the bonus is the industry median. 40x should make you pause. 50x or more is, in plain terms, a maths wall.
- Game weighting. Some games count 100% toward wagering. Others count 10%. A few count zero. Check before you play.
- Max bet while wagering. Usually $5 or €5. Go over once and some sites void the bonus and everything it touched. Quietly.
- Max conversion. The cap on what a bonus balance can turn into real balance. 3x the bonus is common.
- Expiry. Seven days is tight. Thirty is fair.
- Deposit method exclusions. Skrill, Neteller, some prepaid options often disqualify the bonus. Read the excluded list before you deposit.
Specific terms for each of the eleven sites are in their reviews. But these six clauses, read in this order, will save you from about 90% of the pain a bad bonus can cause.