What is wagering and how can you beat it?

If you are familiar with the online gambling industry, wagering is a term you see all the time. You are probably familiar with it. If you are not too sure what it exactly means, we got you covered. We will tell you all about wagering in this post.

A lot of online casinos offer their players bonuses. The most common bonuses for new players are the welcome bonus, no deposit bonus, free spins bonus, and high roller bonus. Most of these bonuses appear to be very generous. They are usually matching bonuses for the first deposits or for a free sign-up.

In 99% of cases, there is a wagering requirement needed to redeem winnings on your bonus money. This means you have to play with your bonus before you can withdraw your funds.

In this article, we will tell you all the information you need to know about wagering.

What is wagering?

Let’s start right at the beginning. What is wagering? To understand bonuses, you have to understand wagering. This is included in almost every bonus a casino offers.

We will explain different scenarios to you using various examples. But let’s start at the beginning. When claiming a bonus, the casino gives you free spins, free playing money, or extra bonus money on a first deposit.

So let’s say you claim a 100% bonus, depositing €50. This means the online casino will give you an extra €50 bonus money to play with. So you can play with a total of €100. If there were no wagering requirements, you could withdraw the €100, making an instant 100% profit by withdrawing the bonus money. To be honest, this is like stealing from the casino. Making money would never have been that easy.

To protect the casino from losing this money, they have wagering requirements on the bonus money. This simply means you have to play with the money a certain number of times before you can withdraw your funds.

When looking at wagering requirements, you often see 5x up to 50x wagering. This means you have to play with the money 5 times or 50 times. Let’s make it make sense.

Example 1

Casino A offers you a 100% welcome bonus on your first deposit. When you deposit € 100 you will receive € 100 extra bonus money. This casino has 20 times wagering in the Terms & Conditions. The bonus money has to be wagered 20 times before you can withdraw any of this money or the winnings. In this case you have to play/ bet/ spin 20x € 100 = € 2.000 before your money is free to be withdrawn.

Every spin or bet you make at the casino will be added to the wagered amount. So when you make 10 spins of € 1 each you have wagered € 10 of the total € 2.000 needed.

After you have reached the €2.000, you are able to withdraw your money, hopefully with a lot of wins from your deposit + bonus money!

My tip; Only 25x wagering requirement at One Casino (€10 free bonus)

For people who enjoy to play with a no deposit bonus I have a great tip. When you sign up your free account at One Casino today you will receive €10 free bonus funds. You can use this bonus to try out video slot games in the casino. There is no deposit needed to receive this bonus. All you have to do is sign up your free account at One Casino. Once done, the bonus will be ready in your account.

The main reason why I mention One Casino is that this no deposit bonus only required a very low wagering requirement. At most online casinos registration bonuses are subject to a 60 to 75 times wagering requirement. But not at One Casino! At One Casino the rollover requirement is only 25 times. This means you can cash out after wagering only €250 in the casino. And to make this bonus even better there is no maximum withdrawal amount. At most casinos you can only cash out between €50 and €100 while playing with a registration bonus. But One Casino doesn’t limit the potential of this bonus. This makes One Casino a great casino to try out.

Ready to try €10 at One Casino? Click here and register a free account now!

Can I beat wagering requirements

A questions we get often is how players can beat wagering requirements. To be really honest, unfortunately, you can’t. But what you can do as a player is to be more aware about how to make the wagering requirements in your favor! This is possible by simply knowing how wagering works exactly and about how wagering is been set up. In this paragraph we will tell you exactly about what you need to pay attention to, so semi beat the wagering requirements!

Maximum bet amount

One conditions Casino usually have with a bonus and is therefor related to wagering requirements, is a maximum bet. For example: When claiming a bonus, it might be possible that the casino has set a maximum bet for €5 euro per bet. This will make it impossible to place a few big bets, to get your wagering requirements faster! This is why it is always very important to first check out the maximum bet amount regarding the bonus you are claiming!

Weight of wagering requirements

Now that we understand wagering, there is one more extra little thing we need to explain. The wagering can be divided when it comes to the contribution to the wagering requirements, depending on the game you are playing. This is always shown by a percentage that will be submitted to the wagering requirements.

For example: Playing on slots is giving 100% to wagering requirements, playing live poker will be 50% to wagering requirements.

Let’s say you play them both, betting €1 on the slots and €1 on live poker. In this case, 100% of the €1, so €1 euro will go to meet wagering requirements, and from the €1 euro you bet on live poker, only 50%, so €0,50 will go to wagering requirements.

The percentage of this influence on wagering requirements is determined by the return to player percentage. This is the likelyhood of the deposited money, being won back by the players. This is a number based on millions of spins. So players like you and me it does not really influence your game playing if you just like to play for a few hours. But it’s good to know what kind of percentages are used for different games. What is good to know is that you should always check this list of percentages before you play. Here you can at least make sure that all the money you play with, is contributing to meeting the wagering requirements. Almost all slots are contributing for 100%.

In most cases it will be around these numbers;

1. Slots contribute for 100% of your bet except a limited amount of games which offer a real high RTP;
2. Scratch card games and keno contribute for 100%;
3. Table games contribute for around 10%;
4. Video poker games don’t contribute or only for around 5%;
5. Jackpot games don’t contribute at all;

If you like to wager your bonus quickly, play slots that contribute for 100%. If you like to play other types of games it is no problem but please keep it mind it will take a really long to reach the rollover amount in this case.

Wagering requirements on different bonuses

Now you understand what Wagering means we would like to tell you more about the different types of wagering on different types of bonuses. Like we discussed earlier in this post, there are different kind of bonuses an online casino can offer its players! The most popular one is the No-Deposit bonus. This means you can claim bonus money, without making the actual deposit. Other popular bonuses are welcome offers, High Roller bonuses, free spins and reload bonuses. The wagering requirements are all really similar. So this is why we will explain two more for you, so you can fully understand.

No deposit bonus

A number of online casinos offer you a no deposit bonus. This means you will receive free cash once you have signed up for a free account. The offer of the casino in most cases is “€ 10 free cash, no deposit needed”. And yes, when you sign up at this casino you will see € 10 in your casino account. But this bonus in most cases has a high wagering requirement. So you have to place a number of bets before you can redeem any winnings on this bonus offered. The good thing of free cash is you can have a look at the casino, play some games and see if you like the casino.

Example 2

Casino B offers you € 10 no deposit bonus with 30x wagering required. So once you have signed up for a free account you can start playing with your € 10 free. To redeem any winnings or the bonus money you have to bet or spin 30 x € 10 = € 300. Once you have reached this amount your winnings are ready to be withdrawn to your bank account or credit card.

Welcome and high roller bonus

Every online casino offers you a kind of welcome bonus. And for players that want to play with higher stakes there is the High roller bonus. 99% of these bonuses have wagering requirements active. Wagering varies from 5 till 50 times the bonus amount. And even at some casinos your cash money have to be wagered. I always recommend you to read the Terms & Conditions of the offered bonus before you start making deposits.

To explain the common situations I have made some easy examples for the most offered welcome and high roller bonuses

Example 3

Casino C offers you a 200% welcome bonus on your first deposit up to € 200 with 20x wagering on Deposit and Bonus. In this case you can get up to € 200 bonus on your first deposit. To get the maximum out of it you have to deposit € 100 and you will receive € 300 to play with. Your cash money in this case is € 100 and your bonus money is € 200. On both amounts there is a 20 times wagered required. So before you can redeem or withdraw any winnings you have to play 300 x 20 = € 6.000. (20 x € 100 + 20 x € 200).

Example 4

Casino D offers you a 100% welcome bonus up to € 1000 and wagering is 10x deposit and 20x bonus money. When you decide to deposit € 500 at Casino C you will receive € 1000 to play with. (€ 500 cash and € 500 bonus). Before you can make any withdrawals you have to wager the following amounts € 500 x 10 = € 5.000 plus € 500 x 20 = € 10.000 so a total of € 15.000 has to be wagered before you can redeem any winnings on these bonuses or deposited money.

All above examples demonstrate how important it is to read the terms & conditions before you accept free offers. I always advise players who are used to play at online casinos not to use any bonuses. Just play with your own money. So when you get lucky in the beginning you can redeem or withdraw your winnings directly. And you do not have to wait or play till you reach the wagering requirements.

Online casinos with the lowest wagering requirement

When you enjoy to play casino games with bonuses then it is important to have a look at the wagering requirement. The lower the wagering requirement is, the quicker you can cash out the balance. The differences between the rollover requirement can be really big at online casinos. Some for example only ask a 35 times wagering requirement on the bonus, while other may ask for a 50 times requirement for the deposit and bonus. When you for example deposit €50 with a 200% bonus this can make a big difference;

1. At the first casino this will mean you need to wager 50 x 200% x 35 = €3500
2. At the second casino this means you will need to rollover 50 + 100 x 50 = €7500

Now you can see how big the difference can be. At the second casino you will need to wager more than twice the amount which you will need to rollover at the first casino. In the table below you will find a selection of reliable German online casinos which offer fair wagering requirements.

Important information on wagering

Important difference; Wagering on bonus or wagering on bonus and deposit

To keep thing interesting many online casinos use different ways to determine the total wagering amount. One of the most important thing to have a look at is whether you only need to wager the bonus, or the deposit and bonus. This small difference can have a huge impact on the total amount of money you will need to wager. When you for example claim a 50% bonus during while reloading your account the following will happen when you deposit €200;

1. You will get a €100 bonus but you will also need to wager your deposit. In this case you will need to deposit for example €100 + €200 = €300 x 35 = €10.500.
2. If you only need to wager you bonus for example 45 times then this amount will be way lower. Now you will need to wager only €100 x 45 = €4.500.

As you can see the impact of wagering only your bonus or your bonus and deposit is huge. Because of this it is better in most cases to take a bonus which only required you to wager the amount of bonus funds you receive. After getting this type of bonus it is way easier to reach the rollover amount. This means you will have a better shot at cashing out an nice amount of money.

Keep in mind all other bonus terms and conditions

One tip I want to give you is to mind all bonus terms and conditions while wagering your bonus funds. This is important since breaking any of the rules can result in getting your balance voided. One of the most important rules to know about is the maximum bet rule. Many online casinos limit the maximum bet while playing with a bonus. This protects the casino from player who claim a bonus and do only a couple of spins on really high stakes. This can result in a big win which drains the financials of the casino. If you bet more than the maximum allowed bet you will not be able to cash out. So you will lose all your funds. At most online casinos the maximum bet while wagering is €5 or 10% of your received bonus.

A thing I think you should also know about while wagering a bonus is a games rollover contribution. Not all casino games will contribute at the same rate towards your wagering requirement. At most casinos games with a high return to player rate (RTP) while contribute less than games with a lower RTP. This prevents that players only play low risk bets on games just to wager their bonus. In the bonus terms or promotional terms of most casinos you will be able to find which games contribute for what percentage. We have explained this before in the section of: How can I beat Wagering Requirements?

Final tip – make sure your wager your bonus on time

One last tip I want to provide you with is to wager your bonus in time. At most online casinos unused bonus funds will be removed from your account within 30 days. Bonuses and no deposit bonuses will also expire within 30 days in most cases. This means if you don’t wager the bonus in time, you will loose the money in your account. This is of course very annoying and a waste of your money. Because if this it is important that you play enough before reaching this expiry date.