Beginner's Guide to Casino Bonuses

A Beginner’s Guide to Casino Bonuses

Think casino bonuses are just for –EV gambling suckers? Think again. Despite the common perception, certain casino bonuses are virtually risk-free and basically a license to print money. This post is a general strategy guide to getting started in casino bonuses, pulling together assorted tips and tricks I've learned after embarking into the world o' casino bonuses.

Yeah, I know. Only suckers and degenerate gamblers play at online casinos. The house always has an advantage. You’re guaranteed to lose money if you play long enough. Don’t be a chump.

Yes and no. The house does always have an advantage. But in games such as blackjack, that advantage is very, very small, usually around 0.5%. If the casinos were crazy enough to, oh, say just give you $100 or $200, you could very easily overcome the house advantage and make money playing blackjack. In fact, if you’re smart and disciplined, you’re virtually guaranteed to make money, usually around $30-40/hr for the better bonuses. And you only need a bankroll of $100 to get started.

Online casinos are more than happy to hand out fat welcome bonuses to new players each and every day. Why would they do that? Because they know that most people are true gamblers, and aren’t smart and disciplined enough like you are to seek out the best bonuses and to play in the necessary fashion to maximize the value of the bonus. So for every smart player who takes the bonus and runs, they get three suckers, netting them a hefty overall profit.

All bonuses aren’t created equal, though, so you have to be careful, especially when just starting out. The #1 rule in casino bonuses is to always check the terms and conditions, as they often change and the terms are very, very important, as they can greatly influence your strategy. While I’ll detail the best strategy, at the current time, for getting started with casino bonuses, you should always double-check to make sure this information is accurate, as the terms and conditions change often.

You should also start with casinos that offer non-sticky bonuses. Non-sticky bonuses are ones that, once you wager enough overall money, you can cash out with no restrictions. Sticky bonuses are ones that you cannot cash out, regardless of whether you’ve won or lost, and are deducted from your overall total when you cash out. But for this guide we’re just sticking to non-sticky bonuses, so don’t worry about sticky bonus stuff for the moment.

How much do you need to get started? This guide is written with the assumption that you'll only invest $100 to start and use that as the basis of your casino bonus empire. That said, you can start with more, and there are some advantages to that, if you understand the potential risk. To read a more detailed explanation of casino bonus bankroll issues, click here. But the rest of this guide will proceed under the assumption that you're starting with a $100 bankroll.

Okay, enough jabbering. You’ve got $100 and you’re ready to roll. All of the casinos listed here accept deposits and process withdrawals via Neteller, so as long as you have a Neteller account, you're good to go. Let’s do this thing.

Step 1: Getting Started>

Signup at StarLuck and deposit $100. StarLuck is part of the Party network, is completely legitimate, pays cashouts quickly, and has one of the best bonuses out there for players just getting started.

When you deposit $100 at StarLuck as a new player, you’ll immediately get $100 in bonus money to gamble with. So you’ll have $200 to play with when you sit down at the blackjack table. Yes, the blackjack table. Don’t play anything else. Go to this link and print out the basic blackjack strategy card. Follow it religiously for all the blackjack you’ll play.

In order to cash out, you’ll have to wager a certain amount in total bets. At the moment, the wager requirement (WR) at StarLuck is 8 times your deposit + bonus. Since you deposited $100 and got a $100 bonus, you have to make $1,600 in total bets before you can cash out any of your money. Read that again. You have to meet the WR before you can cash out any of your money, whether you’re ahead or behind. You can’t lose a little and bail out with your $100 deposit until you’ve wagered the required WR.

Bet the minimum bet, $1 a hand. Do that over and over and over. Then do it some more. Until you’ve wagered $1,600. Then cash out. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. If you hit a bad stretch, do not start increasing your bets, trying to make it up. This is where the discipline part comes in. Keep betting the minimum, if you truly want the bonuses to be profitable. The only way you’ll show an overall loss is if you lose discipline and start making big bets, trying to get back what you’ve lost.

Boring, yes, possibly. But also profitable. Because of the bonus they give you, the odds are on your side. Keep in mind that yes, indeed, there’s a very, very, very small chance that you will completely bust out, losing the entire $200 making $1 bets. Just as there’s a very, very, very small chance that you’ll cash out with $600.

(For a lengthier discussion (and some of the underpinning math) on the advantages and disadvantages of betting the minimum possible, see the following article: Recommended Minimum Bet Size for Casino Bonuses. That's the basis for the strategy I advocate in the remainder of this guide, as far as always betting the minimum possible. Yes, you can bet slightly more, but this guide is designed to minimize your risk and give you the best shot at an overall profit.)

Remember, the house advantage is usually only around 0.5%, so the most likely scenario, based on the maths, is that you’ll have somewhere around $190 when you clear the WR of $1,600. That’s a nice little likely profit for clicking buttons for a few hours, all with very little risk involved.

Signup at PlanetLuck next. It’s basically a StarLuck skin, same bonus, same terms, same WR, same strategy. Deposit $100, get a $100 bonus, follow basic blackjack strategy and bet $1 a hand. The WR is 8 times the bonus + deposit, or $1,600.

One thing to point out is that you don’t necessarily have to bet $1 a hand, especially if you’re willing to gamble a bit. Betting the minimum is the safest route to make sure that you cash out with some profit from the bonus, as it reduces your risk of ruin and your variance. You can bet slightly larger bets than the absolute minimum (which allows you to complete the bonus faster), as long as you realize the risk involved. If you skipped over it the first time, there's more on the risks and rewards of assorted minimum bets over here.

You also might want to get into the habit of tracking how much you’ve wagered, so that you know when you’ve met the WR. Some casinos have comp point systems that let you track it and every casino will tell you how much you’ve wagered if you contact support, but in many cases it’s almost simpler to just track it yourself, even using old-fashioned tools such as pen and paper. Click here for a more detailed explanation on why to manually track WR and ways to do it.

Another issue to note is that many of the IGM casinos that offer good bonuses (StarLuck and PlanetLuck lag slightly in tallying up your WR. I don’t have a technical reason as to why it is, but in some cases they will claim you have not yet met the WR when in fact you’ve surpassed it. The cure is a simple one, as you simply have to wait a day to request a cashout, at which point their system will have caught up and recognized that you’ve met the WR.

Let's take a little breather now, and assess the situation. You've done the StarLuck and PlanetLuck bonuses. If you've followed the advice and bet the minimum, the statistics gods say that 65% of the time, you'll have booked a profit of between $90 and $270. Those two bonuses will together take about 10 hours to complete betting the minimum, for an hourly profit rate range of $9/hr to $27/hr.

Keep in mind, though, that it's entirely possible for your results to be outside that range. While you results will be within 1 standard deviation of the expected profit 65% of the time, there's still 35% left. Roughly one-third of the time your results will be outside the above range, for better or for worse. I bring that up not to scare you or to discourage you, but to make sure you understand that variance is a part of blackjack.

You may have a bad run at the beginning and not make much. You might even show a slight loss after the first two casinos. It's entirely possible. But the overall math is on your side, as the overall casino bonus money pool is large enough to overwhelm a few bad short-term results. If you bet the minimum and stick to your guns, selecting only profitable bonuses, you will make money in the long run.

All right, back to the casino bonus trail.

Signup at William Hill. Deposit $80 and you’ll get a $80 matching bonus. Wager a total of $2,000 and you can cash out. One advantage of William Hill is that you can cash out anytime you like, if you’re willing to give up on the potential bonus money. Some beginning players actually like to start here, as if you signup and immediately lose $80, you can just cash out your initial $80 investment and go try somewhere else (i.e. StarLuck, PlanetLuck, etc.).

William Hill also has a decent recurring monthly casino bonus ($40 bonus on a deposit of $40 or more) that’s worth doing, moving forward. They also offer a nice monthly poker bonus, too, if you don't mind playing on Crypto software.

Signup at InterCasino. They offer a recurring 100% match monthly bonus, that is usually capped at $90 but sometimes is $100. The WR is 25 times the bonus, or $2,250 for the normal $90 bonus.

One key thing to keep in mind here is that this is a Crypto site, which means in order to cashout you’ll have to receive a PIN number from the casino via snail mail. So be sure to give them a correct address when signing up, and be aware that it’ll take about a week to get the PIN number. Until you get the PIN number, your money will be tied up at. You can play and deposit as much as you like, you just can’t cashout without the PIN.

Another unique feature of this bonus is that you can abandon the bonus and cashout (once you get the PIN) if things don't go well and you lose the whole bonus even if you don't wager the full WR, just like at Will Hill.

Please note, though, that if you normally play at InterPoker for their monthly match bonus, you won't get an additional bonus at InterCasino. They only give out one monthly bonus per account, which can be cleared at either the casino, the poker room, or a combination of both. But it's just one bonus.

Now you’re ready for Step 2. We started with the casinos listed above so that you could get the maximum bonus value for your initial $100 bankroll. There are other very good bonuses, though, that require a deposit of more than $100 to get the maximum bonus. Now that you’ve built up your bankroll a bit, it’s time to hit those, as well as a few others.

Sign up at Linesmaker. This is a nice liittle 15% signup bonus and an extra $40 bonus for downloading and playing in casino, with a WR of 25X bonus. They also offer some other nice promotions from time to time, including free bets in the sportsbook and some other casino bonuses.


Step 2: Moving on Up

Signup at Casino-On-Net(CON) and deposit $200. You’ll get an immediate 100% match bonus of $200, which gives you $400 to start with. In order to cash it out, you have to wager 20 times the bonus amount, or $4,000.

One thing to note about this bonus, though, is that if you deposit via Neteller, the WR for bonuses is now 50x bonus, instead of 10x bonus. If you use any deposit method other than Neteller, though, it's still 10x bonus.

While the signup bonus is still profitable, even at 50 x bonus, you might consider setting up a FirePay account, in order to get the full value with a much lower WR). Sometimes sites will offer special bonus for other deposit methods such as FirePay, so it's not the worst thing in the world, to have a backup deposit method.

Use the same strategy as before, playing blackjack, betting the minimum, until you meet the WR of $4,000. This is a very good bonus because of the low WR and size of the bonus, so you should clear it pretty quickly. The only downside is that CON takes about a week to process cashout requests, so you’ll have to wait a bit to get your winnings.

Signup at Bet365 and deposit $200. You'll get a 100% bonus match, up to $200, which is immediately added to your account. To cash out, you have to wager 10x bonus + deposit, for a total WR of $4,000 if you get the maximum bonus.

Use the same strategy and drill as above, play BJ and grind out the WR. Bet365 uses Playtech software which plays pretty quickly and they process cashouts very quickly, sometimes within 24 hours.

Sign up Littlewoods Casino. This is a Crypto, just like the ones above. For new accounts, deposit £50 and you'll get a £50 bonus, with a WR of £1000. The bonus is added immediately to your account when you deposit, so it's a risk-bonus like some of the other Crytpos already covered.

After your initial sign up bonus, wait until the next month rolls around and you'll get a £50 monthly bonus, with a WR of £1000. Clear the WR and the bonus is immediately added to your account.

You'll need a PIN to be snail-mailed to you to cash out here, like the other Cryptos.

Signup at GoldenPalace. Deposit $100 and you'll get a $300 bonus, once you contact support per the instructions on their promotions page. The WR is $8,000.

For the moment, this bonus is 100% cashable. It usually is a different type of bonus, putlined below. For now, ignore what's below, as this bonus is currently cashable and just like the ones already covered. I'm keeping the below info in parenthesis, as it mentions a different type of bonus, but it's safe to ignore what's in parenthesis for now.

(This bonus is a bit different than the ones you've done so far. While the bonus is yours to play with, you cannot withdrawal it. Because it "sticks" to your account, bonuses like these are referred to as sticky bonuses. Let's say you get the $200 bonus, start with $300, clear the WR, and are at $375. If you request a withdrawal of $375, they will process it, but subtract the sticky bonus they gave you, leaving you with an actual withdrawal of $175.

While that sucks in some ways, it also offers you a nice opportunity for a big score (albeit a risky one). The best strategy for sticky bonuses like these is to deposit the $100 and be fully prepared to lose it all. Write it off. Take their bonus money and try to bet big and run it up into a big score, shooting for a target somewhere along the lines of $600-$1000. If your bankroll is still growing, $600 is a good target, as that leaves you with a profit of $300 when you withdraw (and they subtract the sticky bonus).

Please note that this flies in the face of everything I've preached in this guide. You'll be betting big, starting out with $25/$50 bets per hand, and possibly moving up to $100/hand. It's boom or bust, as the slow and steady approach doesn't work with these, as you can never cash out the bonus. While you'll bust a lot of the time, shooting for a target of +$600, if you do multiple bonuses like this (and there are lots of them out there), you'll book a nice profit overall, as the times you hit your target more than compensate for the times you bust out.

But yes, very risky, these sticky bonuses. Make sure you know that before you dip your toes into the water and make sure you understand that you can never, ever withdraw the bonus money.

For more information on sticky bonuses in general, see this article: Beating Sticky Casino Bonuses)

One last thing to keep in mind is that GoldenPalace almost always ask for proof of identification for cashouts, so you'll have to send them a scanned copy of your drivers license and utility bill if you win. They also can take weeks to process cashouts, so patience is a must.


So let’s stop and take stock. Based on the math, your initial investment of $100 will likely return around $1,500-$2,500 at this point. As far as my own personal results, I did all of the above casinos in one month, with an initial investment of $100, finishing with $2,985. Which is obviously well above the average, expected profit, but even if you run really poorly and come in below average, you're still looking at a likely profit of $800-900, for doing nothing more than playing blackjack online. You've also set up accounts with the casinos that offer good monthly bonuses and can keep going back, over and over and over, and taking more shots at profitable bonuses.

While I did very well overall with the above casinos, I did completely bust out of one of them, starting with $200 and betting $5 per hand. I would suggest that you bet the minimum with the first few casinos in order to build a cushion of profits and get used to the game. After that, it's up to you as far as how much to bet. If you bet the minimum, you're basically guaranteed to make money in the long run. If you bet more than the minimum, you increase your exposure to risk but gain larger potential profits. If you're looking for a safe way to make extra money, bet the minimum. If you're willing to gamble, bet a little more. But bet the minimum to begin with, until you have a cushion.

Not to beat a dead horse, but if you stick to the casinos outlined above, which all offer good, profitable bonuses, and bet the minimum allowed on blackjack, it's virtually impossible not to make money. But, not to beat another dead horse, you must stay disciplined and flat bet the minimum, never increasing your bets to try to recoup losses. That's the only way you can put your initial $100 investment at risk and the only way you can follow the above strategy and not make a profit.

If you want to keep pursuing casino bonuses, having caught the bonus bug, rest assured there are plenty of more good bonuses out there. I maintain a big honking list of casino bonuses here, that list tons more of different types of casino bonuses, both sticky and non-sticky.

Step 3: Hitting the Monthly Casino Bonuses and iGM-Pay bonuses

You’ve knocked out most of the good initial signup bonuses at this stage, so the pickings are getting a bit slim. Unlike poker bonuses (where poker rooms at least always collect a rake, even when paying out bonuses), casinos don’t offer a ton of good reload or monthly bonuses, because they cost them money, especially if you’re a smart, savvy player like yourself.

Moving forward, make sure you do the Crypto monthly bonuses at InterCasino, Littlewoods Casino, and William Hill. These are nice bonuses that you can quickly knock out, especially since you have PINs for all of them now. If you do these every month (and multi-table in their poker rooms for a few hours for the ones that offer additional poker room bonuses), you can expect to average about $200-$300 a month. Some months you’ll make next to nothing from them, other months you’ll hit it big. Click here for a full guide to getting the most value out of the Crypto monthly bonuses.

I also maintain an updated list of most of the decent monthly bonuses that can be found here at this link.

You also should loop back and take advantage of the iGM-Pay bonuses at StarLuck and PlanetLuck. If you’re not familiar with it, iGM-Pay is a proprietary processing system that PartyPoker and affiliated sites use to process deposits and withdrawals from poker and casino sites. It’s free to use and pretty painless to activate and set up (you do it from your account after you signup) and it’s linked to an existing checking account you have. Keep that in mind, as it’s completely separate from Neteller, so any funds you deposit using iGM come from the checking account you link it to, which is also where withdrawn funds are deposited.

StarLuck and PlanetLuck offer a 20% bonus up to a maximum of $100 for the first deposit you make using the iGM Pay system. Deposit $500 and you’ll get the full $100 bonus, with a WR of 3x bonus plus deposit, or $1,800. The expected value on each of these is $90, or $270 total.


By now you should have the drill down, as far as the mechanics of things and what to look forward. Below I'll list all of the good cashable casino bonuses I know of that allow blackjack. I'm pulling this from another list I keep, so you'll see some casinos mentioned above repeated here. It's just easier to copy and paste the updated list here from time to time, which is why they're repeated:

Cashable Blackjack Casino Bonuses that Allow Blackjack

StarLuck: 100% up to $100, $1,600 WR

PlanetLuck: 100% up to $100, $1,600 WR

Linesmaker: 15% signup bonus and + $40 bonus for downloading and playing in casino, WR of 25X bonus. (They claim they can escalate the WR to 50x bonus if you "exclusively, or predominately, play casino games"...this makes little sense to me and I haven't heard of it being enforced, but be forewarned.)

21.com: 100% signup bonus up to $200: BJ is allowed, and WR is 50x bonus unless you deposit by Neteller, in which case the WR is 200x bonus.

InterCasino: 100% up to 100, $2,500 WR

Littlewoods: £25 bonus added automatically after wagering £625

UKBetting: £25 bonus added automatically after wagering £500

WillHill: 100% up to £25, £800 WR

Bet365: 100% up to $200, $4,000 WR

PlayVegasfromHome: 100% up to $200, $4,000 WR (This is a brand new offer and you might check with support when signing up, to confirm that it's still 20x bonus WR and that it's cashable, as these types of bonuses are really juicy and change often, especially when first offered.)

CasinoRoom.com: 100% up to $100, $14,000 WR

Casino-On-Net: 100% up to $200, $4,000 WR (If you deposit by Neteller the WR is astronomical, so try to avoid using Neteller if you can.)

VIP Casino: 50% up to $50, $1,500 WR

SuperVegas Casino: 100% up to $50, 20xb WR (The bonus will be automatically credited to your account when you have successfully deposited and staked the bonus amount.)

BeTheDealer: 100% up to $200, $8,800 WR

BetRoyal: 100% up to $200, $14,000 WR

GoldenPalace: 300% up to $300, $8,000 WR (GoldenPalace, Online Casino, and Grand Online are owned by the same people and they usually only allow you to create 1-2 accounts at their casinos before barring you from collecting a bonus at another one.)

Online Casino: $8,000 WR (GoldenPalace, Online Casino, and Grand Online are owned by the same people and they usually only allow you to create 1-2 accounts at their casinos before barring you from collecting a bonus at another one.)

Grand Online Casino: 100% up to $200, $6,000 WR (GoldenPalace, Online Casino, and Grand Online are owned by the same people and they usually only allow you to create 1-2 accounts at their casinos before barring you from collecting a bonus at another one.)

Superbook: deposit $50, download casino, wager $10, and get a $30 bonus, with a WR of $600

Oasis Casino: 10% to 35% bonuses based on deposit size, WR of 10x bonus + deposit.

Aces.com: $25 bonus for downloading casino and wagering $10, 20x bonus WR

Nine Casino: 100% up to $200 bonus, bonus is released into your account and cashable when you have wagered deposit + bonus 20 times ($8,000 WR for max $200 bonus).

Pharaoh's Casino: 100% up to $30, WR of $1,500.

BetCasino: 100% up to $50, WR of $1,250

AceClub: up to $300 free

Peach Casino: up to $200 free

32Red: 100% up to 50, 1500 WR (Note: to be elgibile you have to get an email from them offering the monthly bonus and then contact live support and get the bonus credited after depositing into your account.)

SIA Casino: 125% up to $125, WR of $4,500. (The terms make this appear to be a sticky bonus, but it actually is a cashable one.)

Sands of the Caribbean: 100% up to $50, WR of $2,000

Players Only: Download casino, wager $10, and get a $25 bonus, with a WR of $500

Totesport Casino: 100% up to 100, WR of $4,000 (Can't deposit via Neteller or other online payment systems, must use credit card which effectively bars US players.)

Sportsbook.com: Download casino, wager $10, and get a $25 bonus with a WR of $500

SportingBetUSA: Download casino, wager $10, and get a $25 bonus with a WR of $500

SportsFanatik: Download casino, wager $10, and get a $50 bonus with a WR of $1000

Betsson: 30% up to 30, $750 WR

Casino Euro: 30% up to 30, $750 WR

Cherry Casino: 30% up to 30, $750 WR

Omni Casino: $100 bonus after wagering $4,000, $8,000 WR if playing BJ

Eurobet: 50% up to 50, 800 WR (Note: you need a code to get this bonus andit changes each month, so check the site for the current code.)

Cowboy Casino: 25% up to $200, 25x bonus+deposit WR

Casino.net: weekly 15% bonuses, 10x bonus+deposit WR (Bonus maximums depend on Players Club level, check site for details.)

Ritz Club: 100% up to £50, £2,000 WR (Ritz Club doesn't accept US players.)

BetDirect: 100% up to £25, £1250 WR, BJ allowed (Doesn't accept US players.)


Just to recap some of the important points, I give you the Casino Bonus Commandments:

1) Thou Shalt Only Play Blackjack
Don't play slots. If you do, thou shalt be punished. Mightily. While there are a few casinos that let you clear bonus wager requirements with craps and baccarat, most don't. Just stick to blackjack and learn the basic strategy cold, so that you don't have to keep referring to a strategy card. This will speed up your play and allow you to get more bonus money in the long run.

2) Thou Shalt Not Increase Thy Bets When Losing
Stick to your plan. If your bankroll is limited, bet the minimum allowed and grind it out. You'll have losing streaks. It's the nature of the beast. Do not freak out and start betting larger amounts. Doom lies down that road. If your bankroll isn't limited, you can make slightly larger bets. While this lets you clear the WR faster, it increases your risk of ruin (i.e. losing all your money). Whatever you decide to bet, do not increase it in an attempt to recoup losses.

3) Thou Shalt Not Be Paranoid
Stick to basic blackjack strategy. If the dealer has a Q showing and you have 16, you have to hit. I don't care if the dealer is "due to bust". On a similar note, online casinos aren't rigged. I don't care if you lose ten hands in a row when the dealer draws to 21. Casinos make money hand over fist by simply existing and the last thing they need or want to do is to take any risk by trying to defraud low stakes gamblers. To put it more bluntly, they couldn't care less about your $100 and it's not worth their time to try to defraud you of it. The cold hard math will do that, if you play long too long, without a bonus overlay. Streaks happen. Get used to it.

4) Thou Shalt Be Disciplined
You have one goal. Wager as little as possible while meeting the requirements in order to extract the largest bonus possible. That's it. You have the math on your side, as far as expected profit. Don't get distracted. Stay on task. That said, once you reach your goal (meet the WR and have bonus money available to cashout), you can "gamble". While my purpose with this guide is to give you nuts-and-bolts advice as to how to extract the most money from bonus offers, I am human, and I do like to gamble. My own personal approach is to set a target goal for what I want to make and, once I hit it, cashout that target amount and then truly gamble with any leftover winnings. I'm not saying you can't have fun, once you reach your goal. Just that you have to reach the goal before any fun commences.

5) Thou Shalt Not Be Shy
For whatever reasons, some casinos won't credit you with the full bonus you should receive when you sign up. The fastest way to remedy this is to call their support number and explain the situation. Be sure that they still offer the promotion in question on their website, as bonus promotions often change. I've emailed various casinos when not credited the full bonus amount and its always been resolved within a few hours, with the full bonus credited to my account. But be forewarned, you'll likely have to make contact with a few casinos, either by phone, live chat, or email, in order to get the full bonus offered on their website.

6) Thou Shalt Not Cheap Out
Wait until you have the bankroll necessary to get the full bonus for various promotions. You can only do these initial bonuses once so be sure that you get the full value out of them. If it means waiting for a cashout to be processed, so be it. If it means waiting a month until you can save and deposit an extra $50 into your Neteller account, so be it.

7) Thou Shalt Keep Thine Eyes Open
A side benefit of opening accounts with all the casinos above is that a lot of them will offer additional promotional deals via email moving forward. Which is both good and bad. Make sure you read over these with a very fine-toothed comb. Some of them require too much WR to be profitable, others let you only play slots to clear the bonus, etc. That said, some are good bonuses. A fair number of casinos like to randomly credit you with $10 or so into your account, as a way of teasing you back. Sometimes they'll let you know they did this, but other times they just credit it to your account. It's good to get in the habit of logging in and checking your assorted accounts once a month or so, just to see if you have any freebie money deposited in your account.