If there is one thing that you can be relatively certain of in life, it is that betting sites will rarely give you something for nothing. Indeed, any time they do offer you something, you should be looking around to see what, exactly, it is that they are after.
For this reason, many people look at betting sites that promise you a ‘no deposit bonus’ and wonder precisely what it is that the site is hoping to get out of them in return. More importantly, they ask themselves whether it is just one big con that they need to be wary of.
Though they are much rarer now than they used to be, no deposit bonus offers can still be found every now and then. If you happen to stumble across one then the good news is that they are not a con.
Instead, they are just a loss-leader that a betting company offers in order to entice you on to their site, believing that, most of the time, they will will make far more money from the customers that they sign up than they’d ever lose through making the offer in the first place.
The bonuses also tend to be hard to actually win anything with, often coming with high wagering requirements. The main point is to give you some free promo funds to try the site out as opposed to giving you free money. That is why they do it, so it’s up to you whether to let them.
What Is A No Deposit Bonus Offer?
The first question that you might be asking is what, exactly, a no deposit bonus actually is. In short, it is exactly what it sounds like, offering punters a chance to get a bonus for an online gambling site without ever having to actually deposit any money.
The reason this is so standout is that most casinos ask you to place a deposit into your account, at which point they will provide you with some bonus funds to play with. Usually this bonus reflects how much you deposited in the first place, with the bigger the deposit meaning a larger bonus.
In order to claim a no deposit bonus, what you need to do is to sign up to the casino or betting site that is offering you the bonus. This will usually require you to give them your banking information as well as to confirm your email address, often courtesy of an email sent to you with a confirmation link in it.
When you sign-up, you will be asked which bonus you want and one of the options will be a no deposit bonus, which is obviously the one that you’ll want to select. Once you’ve chosen it, you will then get to play with your bonus.
Why Sites Offer Them
If a betting site is offering you something for nothing, they’re not really offering you something for nothing. Whilst you might technically not have to give them anything in return, the reality is that the site in question will be getting far more from you in the long-run than you’ll ever get from them.
They offer them as loss-leaders, which is another way of saying that they’re happy to take a small hit to their own profits because they will earn plenty of money from the majority of punters that take up the offer and join the company.
Indeed, they aren’t really even loss-leaders most of the time. They are often put forward with low amounts of money on offer, whilst the wagering requirements are so high that the majority of people don’t even meet them. On top of that, bookies usually put a limit in place regarding how much cash can be won, so everything is entirely on the side of the bookmakers that offer them.
As a result, it is entirely worth their while putting the offer forward and not in the interest of most punters to bother taking them up on it.
Is There A Reason To Take Up The Offer?
If you’re the sort of punter that would like to get a sense of how good, bad or indifferent a company’s site is, no deposit bonuses offer a chance to do just that. They offer value in the sense that they are free to take advantage of, but don’t have much value on account of the fact that you will rarely actually win any money from them.
The question that you need to ask yourself, therefore, is what it is that you would be looking to get out of a no deposit bonus. If you’re using it in order to try and win some money then there isn’t much point in using it.
If, on the other hand, you want to see how well a website works and how fun the games are to play, there is definitely a reason to look to take advantage of the offer before it is taken away. The key thing to remember is that you’re more likely to spend money after joining, then you are to win any money from it in the first place.
That is to say, the likelihood is that you will give them your banking details when you sign up, even though you don’t need to make an actual deposit in order to be given the free bonus.
Will you then be tempted to think, “Well, I’ve already uploaded my banking information so I might as well make a deposit.” That is what the betting company will be hoping for, but only you know whether or not you’ll have the discipline to stop yourself from doing so.
Even if you don’t have to give your banking information, there is a chance that you might enjoy using the site or playing a particular game, therefore deciding to upload your banking information and begin playing might be the next step, even though you know that you’ll lose in the long-run.
Of course, some people might actually win with the no deposit bonus that they’re given, so they would say that it was well worth it. The problem is, the amount of ‘money’ that you will have to wager in order to trigger the point of being able to take home the cash is so high that it will be prohibitive for most people.
Just because it can be done doesn’t meant that it will be. This is an especially important mantra to bear in mind when you remember that betting sites are intentionally set up in order to take as much money from punters as possible.
Know Your Own Limits
The key thing when it comes to any sort of bonus offer from an online casino is to know your own limits. Ultimately, they want your money. They can dress it up in lots of different ways that will undoubtedly appeal to some people, but when all is said and done what they’re trying to do is to get you to sign up and play casino games with them on a regular basis.
If you know this and are aware of it, you are then better placed to be able to accept the offers that you think are worthwhile and reject the ones that you think aren’t.
When it comes to no deposit bonus offers, you need to understand your own ability to either meet the bonus wagering requirements or not. If you can’t, the best thing to do is to steer clear of the offer and instead try to find out another way whether the website is one that you’d want to use, such as by reading reviews.
The same is true of games that you might be tempted to play thanks to a no deposit bonus offer, but that might be best avoided and learn another way whether people think it is worth playing.