Bingo Deposit Bonuses: The Real Deal
Written by Alex Eliades, 2nd May 2012
Online bingo bonuses are everywhere, on every bingo site, advertised on the TV, in the newspapers and you just can’t get away from them. Some sites even offer bingo bonus money before you make a deposit and all this leads us to a question. How can they all afford to give away this free money? Are they giving players a bad deal once they have used their bonuses? And should we choose a site on the best bingo sign up bonus?
Well thankfully players that go on to become regular customer are not really losing out as the free bonus money given away at most sites cannot simply be withdraw and even the winnings made from free bonus money cannot be withdraw right away either. It’s not a con but it needs to be understood how online bingo sites protect themselves and what they actually give away free, especially since this is an incentive that players make their decisions on. Basically free bonus money is classed separated from real money deposited and wins made from a bingo sign up bonus usually can only be withdrawn once a wagering requirement is met. On the other hand wins made from real cash deposits are not subject to wagering requirements.
To understand this better we will use an example of a 4x wagering requirement on free bonus money wins. What this means is that to be able to withdraw the winnings made from free bonus money the player needs to wager 4x the amount of the win that was made from free bonus money wagers. Ultimately this results in the player being able to collect the money won from a free bonus win but only if they go on to become a bone fide customer. This eliminates the chance for players to simply sign up to multiple bingo sites hoping to cash in on the bonus money.
Some sites do not have wagering requirements and these ones offer the best real deal but they are few and far between and in fact there are only a few out there with no wagering requirements out of the several hundred strong bingo sites available today.
Ultimately bingo site sign up bonuses aren’t always what they appear as a free £30 sign up bonus with 4x wagering requirements is not really worth as much as a £20 sign up bonus with no wagering requirements, at least in the short term. The moral of all of this is that sign up offers and incentives are designed to make a bingo site more appealing than the competition but time and time again experienced players will tell you that a good bingo site consists of good software, support, friendly players, a wide range of deposit methods, non cash prizes, loyalty points and other nice touches and the sign up bonus is really overrated. Our advice is to ignore the sign up bonus and go for a site that has rave reviews.
