Reload Bonus

Reload bonuses are some of the most popular promotions that can be found in the online casino world. While they are common, they come in a lot of different flavors. To get the most from them, you’ll need a certain degree of strategy and planning. However, you also need to understand their terms and conditions.


An Introduction to Reload Bonuses

Pretty much everyone who has played at an online casino will be familiar with welcome bonuses. They give players an incentive to sign up at a new site, and they make sense along these lines. However, further offers are called reload bonuses because they’re designed for a player who is “reloading” his or her account.

While the naming convention has stuck, they don’t actually require that your account balance be zero. However, they do require that it’s not your first deposit at the casino in question.

There are three aspects to reload bonuses that players need to know and learn to get the most from them. These factors are the terms and conditions, the value a single bonus offers and the value a recurring bonus offers. If you master all three of these, then you’ll master reload bonuses in the general sense. While all of that may seem complicated, there’s really not that much to it once you get started.

In the following, we’re going to break down all three of these factors. Additionally, we’ll show you what you need to think about when picking a casino for its reload bonus offers.

The Best Casino Reload Bonuses

The best bonuses for an individual player will depend on a few different things. We’re going to cover most of these below, but we want to make it clear that there is no “one size fits all” offer. What players want to play, how often they want to play and the stakes they want to play matter here.

If you’re looking for the best online casino reload bonuses, we suggest working through the following. These tips and the overall breakdown will show you how to pick the best casino for reload bonuses that fit exactly what you want and need in your experience, and it will save you a lot of time of just trying different things to see what works as well.

Reload Bonus Terms and Conditions

The terms attached to casino reload bonus offers are in place to keep people from abusing them. Without these terms, you’ll see situations where an individual deposits for a reload with no intent of actually playing the games, and that means that he or she will instead simply exploit the casino for some free cash.

The casino in question can’t let this go on because they’ll lose too much money to justify the promotion. However, the following terms, conditions and limitations keep that from happening. They essentially protect the bonus so that they can still offer it to players and give you that value.

Wagering or Play-through Requirements

Wagering requirements are essentially in place to make sure that you actually play the games in the casino. While some players dislike them, it’s a simple way to avoid the above exploitative scenario.

These requirements are almost always expressed as a multiple of the sum of the bonus and deposit. However, you will sometimes see other ways that it’s expressed. In any event, you’ll need to put in a certain about in bets before you can use or cash out the bonus. Sometimes, you’ll have to clear these requirements before you can request a withdrawal at all.

Here is an example of how wagering requirements can be stated and calculated:

  1. Suppose there is a 20x wagering requirement on a 50 percent reload on a deposit of €100.
  2. The requirement is on both the deposit amount and the bonus amount.
  3. Since the deposit is worth €100, and the bonus is €50, your total applicable amount is €150.
  4. Multiplying €150 by the 20x requirement gives a total play-through of €3,000.
  5. This means that players will have to put in €3,000 in bets to be able to cash out.

We highly suggest figuring out the exact cash amount for any set of play-through requirements for any reload bonus online. This gives you a clear idea of how much you’ll need to put in to satisfy the bonus requirements.

Game Restrictions

Some reload bonuses are game-specific, and casino have various reasons to do this. In short, most of them come down to avoiding that same exploitative scenario with players choosing a game with a super-low house edge like certain blackjack or video poker games (when combined with a correct strategy).

This means it’s critical that you make sure an online reload bonus can be used with the games you prefer. You need to check this before you make your deposit and be sure of it before you hop in.

If you play a game that is not allowed while you have a bonus active, it will often invalidate the whole promotion. That’s obviously not something you want, so make sure to pay attention to avoid it.

Sometimes, you may see alternative game restrictions in the form of different levels of wagering requirements. A given bonus may have a 20x wagering requirement for slots but a 100x play-through for roulette, for example. Once again, you absolutely must pay attention to this type of game restriction before you make your deposit. Otherwise, you’ll be jumping into something that isn’t what you think it is.

Other Conditions

We have a few other types of conditions that may be put in the terms of your reload bonus. Some examples include the following:

  • Maximum withdrawal amounts
  • The inability to cash out the bonus itself (but the ability to wager with it)
  • Time limits on how long you have to clear the play-through requirements

There is more variation to these other conditions than of the wagering requirements and game restrictions, which are found with virtually every bonus. However, you should still check your terms and conditions to see if they are included so that you know exactly what you need to do in order to stay within the parameters of the promotion.

Evaluating a Single Casino Reload Bonus Opportunity

Being able to evaluate the value of an individual reload bonus is a skill that players need to have. It’s particularly important if you’re planning on taking advantage of these types of deals regularly. Thankfully, it’s not particularly complicated if you follow the same process that we outline here.

The basic idea is that you want to evaluate how much value you’re getting from the bonus. Then, you want to compare that to how much value you give up from the play-through requirements and other terms.

The first part of this is pretty straightforward. Simply look at the monetary amount of the bonus that you are receiving. For example, if you have a 75 percent match on a €200 deposit, then that bonus is worth €150.

The second part requires you to put your wagering requirements into a monetary amount. From there, you will apply the house advantage of the games you’re playing to that amount. This simple calculation will show you how much value you’re giving up in exchange for receiving the reload bonus. However, this can be tricky at first, so we’ll walk you through an example.

An Example Calculation

  • Suppose we have a 75 percent match on a €200 deposit for a bonus worth €150.
  • Also suppose the play-through is 20x on slots only, which applies to the deposit and bonus.
  • Our total wagering requirement is then €350 multiplied by the 20x requirement. That comes to €7,000.
  • Suppose we decide to choose our games so that we have a 2 percent house advantage. That will give us a total loss of 2 percent of €7,000 during the wagering requirements. This is €140.
  • While clearing the play-through, we will lose €140 on average to acquire a bonus worth €150. As a result, we will be taking a net profit on average, which is better than most reloads.

Keep in mind that these were games that you were going to be playing anyway, so you might as well get the extra €150 for it. The above process is simply a tool to compare the value of different bonuses to each other so that you can pick out the most favorable ones.

Evaluating Recurring Reload Bonus Offers

If you understand how to find the value of an individual reload, then this part is pretty easy. The idea is that you want to be able to compared two different recurring reloads to each other to see which is the better deal for you. To do this, you need two pieces of information: how often you will claim the reload and how much each reload bonus is worth relative to each other.

With that said, this is fairly subjective. It also depends on how often you will be claiming a bonus instead of how often it’s going to be available. For example, you may see a code that allows you to deposit for a €50 reload three times each week. That may compare favorably to a different offer that only gives €100 once weekly. However, if you can’t claim that first offer three times each week, then it’s not actually better than claiming the second once weekly.

Overview

Reload bonuses online are one part of an overall promotional strategy. They are better for players who like to make more frequent deposits that are a bit on the small size. This is in contrast to players who make infrequent deposits that are larger.

If you combine regular reloads with other deals like cashback rewards and loyalty points, you can accumulate and compound multiple sources of value. With that said, reloads by themselves can be a great value if you find some that fit the above calculations in a favorable way.