How many online casinos have you been to lately? If you’ve been searching for the best welcome deal you can get, you have undoubtedly read one word – playthrough. You might also have seen the term wagering requirements. Both mean the same thing, although playthrough is seen quite frequently at casinos around the globe.
How does playthrough affect you?
Whenever you join an online casino, there is a good chance you will be given a welcome bonus. This might mean free spins, but very often it will involve a cash bonus. This is usually displayed as a percentage. So, you might get a bonus of 50%, 100%, or more on your deposit amount.
Now, if casinos gave away cash left, right, and center without adding terms and conditions, they’d go out of business pretty fast. So, they add playthrough terms. These mean you must play through your bonus amount with real cash bets a certain number of times before you can cash out anything you won by using that bonus.
Playthrough is expressed as a percentage
Let’s say I offer you a 100% bonus on a deposit of $10 or more. You decide to deposit $20, so you get another $20 given to you on top of that as the bonus. I tell you the playthrough requirement for your bonus is 35x.
That means you must play through your $20 bonus 35 times before you can withdraw the bonus amount and anything you happen to win with it. That amounts to $700.
Are other percentages involved?
Yes, they can be. One thing you often notice is that you get different bonus contributions depending on the kinds of games you play. For example, if you play slots, 100% of your bets might go towards meeting the playthrough requirements. However, if you decide to play certain table games, they may contribute a lesser percentage towards the requirements.
That might mean for every dollar you bet on a table game, only 50% of it (maybe even less) would contribute towards meeting your playthrough requirements. This is worth thinking about when you are working towards those requirements to cash out your bonus.
Understanding the playthrough requirement is very important. In some cases, you might be required to meet it within a week or month of joining the site. That’s why you should read the details prior to claiming, to ensure you know what you are getting into.