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Casino Bonuses 101: What Online Casino Operators Should Know
Marketing is an essential part of running a successful online casino – it is an axiom. Experienced casino operators strive to excel at two kinds of marketing: we can call them ‘acquisition’ and ‘retention’ marketing. The former is all about gaining traffic and player acquisition, while the latter is more concerned with internal casino policies, bonuses, loyalty programs, tournaments and other activities.
Online casino bonuses and their peculiarities are in our sights this time.
What is a casino bonus?
A casino bonus is a promotional tool used by operators to attract, convert, and retain players. It typically provides users with additional value, such as extra funds, free spins, or cashback, in exchange for registration, deposits, or gameplay.
For operators, bonuses are a strategic part of player acquisition and lifecycle management. When well-structured, they can increase engagement, extend session times, and boost lifetime value – but they must be carefully balanced to prevent bonus abuse and ensure sustainable return on investment.
While the concept may seem straightforward, bonuses play a much bigger role than simply offering extra value. Their design, purpose, and timing can significantly influence player behaviour and overall business performance. Understanding that purpose is key to using them effectively.
Why Do Bonuses Exist?
To answer the question, let us have a quick look around. Google ‘online casino’ and you will instantly be overrun by tons of search results for actual casinos and affiliate resources. Every casino relies on search engine optimisation, affiliate marketing and other nuances to crawl its way to the top of the search engine results page and dominate the player’s attention. But when the players finally discover your casino, what do you do to make them stay?
Great design, visualisation and content delivery methods are fine, but let’s face the truth: growing popularity of online gambling attracts many experienced professionals into this business. The overall level of gambling sites has made a huge leap forward as compared to earlier stages of the industry.
Most reputable casinos have relatively the same set of game providers available for players. This is in part due to a certain conservativeness of the gamblers who prefer a specific line-up.
The problem is that this creates a lot of similarity. Visitors will often see nearly identical game collections, and even affiliate sites score these casinos in much the same way. Now it’s time to take some serious actions to turn a visitor into a player.
The best way to win the loyalty of those who come to try their luck at your casino is to start giving them what they want ASAP.
Bonus is a method of granting a player free money or gambling options, for example free spins, redeemable at the specific online casino.
Everyone loves free stuff, so operators do not shy away from this method of promotion.
The Main Types of Casino Bonuses
The first and most common offer is the sign-up bonus, often paired with free spins. Its purpose is to welcome players, encourage them to sign up and, most importantly, accept your casino policy and share their personal details. Now you have two things: a registered potential player and a way to reach out with follow-up marketing. From this stage, all further relations with the registered player are either your own success or failure. In exchange for the valuable data, casinos credit money or free spins to player accounts to allow them to get a taste for the game right away with minimum losses.
Example: Welcome bonus! Get €500 and 180 free spins on registration!
Another widely promoted offer is the deposit bonus. The name clearly describes the designation. This bonus is issued to encourage players to make deposits with their own money. Most aggressively promoted by casino operators, since it is what the whole fuss is about. It usually comes as a percentage match on the deposited amount, sometimes combined with extra free spins.
Example: 100% up to €100 at first deposit and 180 free spins
To re-engage players who haven’t been active for some time, casinos turn to the reload bonus. It is a nice way to remind the player of the casino or invite a long-gone player back for an extra bonus. This type of bonus can have various forms: from extra free spins to percentage from deposit or match bonus when the amount of the bonus matches the deposited sum. To drive players to make faster comeback decisions, reload bonuses are usually limited in time and have a fixed expiration period. Besides, Reloads can also be dedicated to a specific event or made to promote new games.
Example: Grab deposit bonus 50% and 50 free spins for Casanova slot game! Use promo code: CASANOVA
Finally, there are cashback offers and free spins on losses. This is something to be considered if you are planning to build a long-term relationship with your players. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose – this is the nature of the game. Naturally, players tend to take loss to heart and the last thing you want is to let the most valuable player leave the casino in a negative mood. Granting fixed or percentage-based cashbacks for the played money will definitely cushion the blow. Another best practice is issuing individual free spins to players who weren’t lucky enough that day.
The Value SOFTSWISS Platform Adds to Your Marketing
The above are a few of the most widespread bonus types usually engaged by casinos. However, diversity and flexibility of internal marketing is the key to dominating the iGaming arena and the SOFTSWISS platform is ready to provide our customers with some serious firepower: SOFTSWISS DSL-based bonus creation system.
In short, this extremely flexible tool lets operators ‘tailor’ bonuses that target narrow segments of players at a perfect time. The platform uses an internal Domain-Specific Language (DSL) created for describing the bonus logic. This makes nearly anything possible: stand-alone and complex bonuses triggered by various attributes applicable to specific conditions and time ranges, aimed at specific groups or even individual players.
The structure of each bonus, crafted in DSL has the following structure:
Mandatory parameters which define the type of bonus and its general conditions
Optional parameters – widest variety of attributes from timelines to affiliate-bound segmentation for exclusive bonuses
Free spin parameters, that is configurable games, amounts, terms, wager requirements and more
As is evident from the above, the SOFTSWISS custom bonus creation system is a must-have solution for smart player rewarding and retention policy at an online casino. Though it may seem like a bit of work in figuring out the whole bonus logic, quick guidance from a SOFTSWISS dedicated account manager will quickly make things clear.
Ok, so far it has been all about the free stuff that can bring real-world money to players. Does that mean the casino is giving away cash literally for free? Does that not put an operator alongside charity organisations?
Well, no.
It’s time to talk about duties and responsibilities, also known as Bonus Conditions
Casino Bonus Conditions
An Online Casino is a high-risk yet profitable business, and like any good business, it is built on mathematics. To prevent abuse of bonuses and marketing extravaganza, operators put an additional layer of requirements to be met before any cashouts are allowed. These requirements are called Wager or Bonus Playthrough. The trick with wagering requirements is to make issuing bonuses beneficial for the casino. This is why wager requirements usually state the number of times the deposited money amount should be played through before cashing out is possible.
Sounds a bit weird in text, so let us view an example:
Let’s take a fairly standard example – a deposit bonus. Player A decides to deposit one hundred euro. Casino B offers a one-hundred per cent match, which doubles the balance to two hundred euro. The bonus comes with a wagering requirement of thirty times, meaning the full two hundred euro must be played through thirty times before winnings can be withdrawn.
Now, let’s do the math. Two hundred euro multiplied by thirty equals six thousand euro. That’s the total amount Player A needs to play before clearing the wager. The average Return to Player (RTP) on slot games is about ninety-seven percent. That leaves three percent for the casino. Three percent of six thousand is one hundred eighty euro. And here’s the key point: the one hundred eighty euro the casino keeps is more than the one hundred euro bonus it gave Player A in the first place.
*Please note that these calculations are based on averages, and the actual results may vary.
Along with that, bonuses can be cashable or not cashable, tied to the specific games, and have limitations for max. bet amounts etc.
To eliminate possible misunderstandings and make everyone happy, all wagering requirements must be clearly outlined in the corresponding Terms and Conditions and available for players before they accept the bonus.
How Much Does the Casino Give Out in Bonuses?
The short answer is: a lot!
This is especially true for a new casino, hungry for players and eager to make a strong impression. At that stage, bonuses can account for a large share of gross gaming revenue. Later, once the casino gains steady traction, bonuses usually settle at around a fifth to a third of revenue, helping to keep marketing efforts active and players engaged.
Congratulations if you made it here!
Let’s summarise everything above with some serious conclusions.
First of all:
Bonuses are an important constituent part of your daily operations and should be approached seriously.
Secondly:
It is extremely important to understand that all mass bonus programs should be double-checked for flaws both mathematically and logically to avoid abuse by bonus hunters and misunderstandings by loyal players.
And last but not least:
Wager requirements must be viewed from both sides: the casino and the player, to ensure that the conditions are attractive to both.
Stay up-to-date, innovate and be flexible with your internal marketing, and the players will do the rest!