Welcome bonus: four statements, one of which counts

How a welcome offer is built

A typical offer reads: 100 per cent up to 500 francs. That means the first deposit is doubled, but by 500 at most. Deposit 200 and you get 200 added; deposit 800 and you still get only 500. Even here a calculation pays: the full bonus presupposes a deposit the size of the ceiling.

The two statements that rarely stand on the banner are the turnover factor and the deadline. Both sit in the terms, usually in a section of their own, and both decide whether bonus credit ever becomes withdrawable credit.

The ceiling and your own deposit

Anyone wanting to take a bonus should first decide how much they meant to deposit anyway — and then check what the offer means for that amount. The other way round, setting the deposit by the ceiling, is the commonest way of putting more money into an account than planned.

Why the deadline matters more than it looks

The turnover has to be met inside a deadline, or the bonus expires — and in many sets of terms, so does whatever was won from it. At 3 500 francs of turnover in seven days that is 500 francs of stake per day. Work that figure out before accepting and you make a different decision from somebody who sees it on the sixth day.

Declining the bonus is an option

Almost every cashier lets you decline the bonus at the moment of deposit. Anyone who only wants to play and be able to withdraw at any time is simply freer without one: no bonus means no turnover, no deadline and no maximum stake. That option never appears in promotional copy — it appears as a checkbox in the cashier window.

When accepting pays

Three questions decide it, and all three can be answered before the deposit. First: how much did I mean to deposit anyway? Setting the deposit by the bonus ceiling rather than by your own budget is not using the offer but obeying it. Second: how much turnover does the factor produce on that amount, and how much is that per day of the deadline? If the answer is a stake you would not make on an ordinary evening, the decision is already taken. Third: do I even play the titles that count in full towards the turnover? Anyone who prefers live tables is accepting, with the bonus, a condition their own play can barely meet. If one of the three answers comes out badly, the checkbox in the cashier window is the better choice — without a bonus there is no turnover, no deadline and no maximum stake, and the balance stays withdrawable at any time.

The first three places. The bonus is not one of the five inputs in the calculation — it is an offer, not a fact you can look up.

Which conditions apply at which operator stands in that house's own terms — the ranking names the verification clause with its clause number for every entry, and the bonus section carries the remaining calculations.

What this page says about welcome bonus comes from bonus terms that are publicly readable and from worked examples anyone can recompute. Specific bonus amounts for individual operators are deliberately absent: they change more often than a comparison can follow, and an out-of-date figure is worse than none.

Common questions