Fabulous Freebies

Perhaps the greatest advantage online casinos have over their
in-laws, that is, traditional land-based casinos, is that online
gambling sites can more easily afford to offer their patrons a wide array of free stuff. After all, building and running an Internet gambling website is considerably less expensive than a traditional land-based operation. Mega-less!!!


Deposit Match Bonus
Most attractive of all - of course - are the free cash bonuses advertised in one form or another by online casinos and designed to encourage you to download their gaming software, deposit money and commence wagering. This is often the criterion by which players ultimately select which online casino to play at.


These so-called "Deposit Match Bonuses" or "Sign-Up Bonuses" (whatever) come in all shapes and sizes. A word of caution though: Don't be fooled by what an online casino "appears" to be offering; How these bonuses are presented can be misleading in that there are always conditions attached to these offers. For example, a casino may be offering to match your initial deposit by 100% up to a maximum of $800. Sounds pretty good huh? Well, what is often not so obvious is that before you can collect your bonus, in all likelihood you are also obligated (and must agree) to wager a set amount of money before you can collect your bonus. This minimum wagering requirement could also be conditional upon betting a minimum amount of cash within a certain time frame. Having said all this, be sure to always read a casino's Terms & Conditions before lunging for that big but bogus bonus (BBBB).


Sign-Up Bonus
A "Sign-Up Bonus" is pretty straightforward in that you're given 10, 20, or 30 dollars just for signing up with a casino, and you're not even required to deposit money, which brings us to our next fabulous freebie.


Play-for-Free
That's right, most worthwhile online casinos allow you, even encourage you, to play your favorite casino games for free. No risks and no losses! But no million dollar jackpots either. That's the catch. Still, you won't find conventional ‘brick & mortar' casinos dealing free action like this.


Refer-a-Friend Bonus
Other popular freebies include cash bonus programs like "Refer-a-Friend" (aka Tell-a-Friend, Invite-a-Friend, Exploit-Your-Mates-to-the-Max) whereby you're rewarded for turning you gambling friends on to a particular gambling site. Virtually all online casinos, well, any casino worth mentioning, offers cash gifts generally ranging anywhere from $10 to $50 per friend. Some sites pay you according to a percentage figure, like 20% of your referred friends' initial deposit.


Deposit Method Bonus
While most online casinos offer you a choice of anywhere from five to 10 (and even more) cash processing companies for depositing money into your casino account, such as NETeller, Click2Pay or FirePay to name a few, some gaming sites further promote one or a number of their listed processors by offering you a cash incentive for depositing via that/those processor(s). These bonuses/discounts are typically worth $10 to $20.


Or the enticement may be in the form of a percentage like a 10% bonus where say, for example, you deposit $100, you can collect an extra $10 for using a processor featured in a promotion. Naturally, limits like "up to $100" are generally attached to these perks.


Loyalty Points
Best described as frequent player points, many online casinos reward their patrons through a point system based on how much and/or how often a player wagers. These points are accumulated and can be redeemed for cash and other prizes. Some of the larger casino companies that operate a number of online gaming websites provide points programs which permit players to collect and transfer their points from one member-casino to another.