Bonus terms on three minutes: wagering, max bet and excluded games

Four lines that decide it all

A bonus is sold on a single figure — «500 % upp till 2 500 $» — but the value of that figure is determined by four other lines that rarely appear as high up on the page: the wagering requirement, the max bet while bonus funds are active, which games are excluded from wagering and how long the offer applies before it expires.

I always start with the four lines, not the percentage. A big bonus with tough terms is often worse than a small bonus without wagering requirements — and you can't see the difference until you've read the fine print.

Wagering requirement: what the multiplier is applied to

A wagering requirement of 35× means you must bet the amount 35 times before you can withdraw any bonus-related funds. The first thing that determines how tough the requirement actually is: is the multiplier counted on the bonus amount or on bonus plus deposit? The first is considerably more player-friendly, and the operators who state which of the two applies deserve credit for it — most do not.

What else decides: are wins from free spins counted towards the same wagering requirement, or separately? And are casino bonus and sports bonus combined into the same wagering, or do they run in parallel without being counted against each other? The answer is rarely on the front page — it sits on campaign pages that often require a registered account to open at all.

Five casinos, five different lines

This is what it looks like at the five casinos we've reviewed for our "casino- list. The figures are taken directly from each operator's own promotion pages and terms.

Full reviews with sources and screenshots of the terms are available in our casino list; the deep dive into Grailbets terms is in the review of Grailbet.

Two out of five — Grailbet and Fantasino — do not publish the wagering requirement anywhere that can be read without an account. That in itself is a result, and a worse one than the requirement happens to be high: a high multiple can be calculated. A missing number can't be calculated at all.

Want to see the offer for yourself? This text doesn't sell anything. The yellow button is an ad link to our partner casino — the exact terms there are determined by the operator, not by us.

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Max bet: the silent trap

Almost all bonus terms set a cap on how much you may stake per round while bonus funds are active on the account — often somewhere between five and twenty units of the account currency. If you stake more than the cap in a single round the most common consequence is that the entire bonus, including any winnings, is voided. Not just the oversized stake — the entire balance.

Of the five casinos we reviewed indicate none maxinsatsen öppet på sina förstasidor eller i de villkorsavsnitt vi kunnat läsa utan konto. Det betyder inte att regeln saknas — den finns i praktiken hos i stort sett alla operatörer av den här typen — bara att den, precis som omsättningskravet hos Grailbet och Fantasino, ligger bakom en inloggning.

Excluded games: why a high-roller slot can zero out a bonus

The terms seldom treat all games equally. Common in the industry is that table games such as blackjack and roulette contribute a small fraction of every staked krona to wagering requirements, while regular video slots contribute the full amount — and that individual high-volatility titles are sometimes completely exempt. If you play an exempt game with bonus funds active, the bets are sometimes not counted at all toward the requirement, in the worst case without any warning in the interface.

None of the five casinos in our review publish a full list of excluded games outside logged-in mode. It is, like the maximum bet, an item that exists in each operator's full terms but requires an account to read. Open the list before you play with bonus money — not after.

Validity period: the clock that also counts

The final line is time. A bonus that is not wagered within the validity period — usually some- where between seven and thirty days across the industry — is normally withdrawn automatically, together with any unwagered winnings. Combined with a tough wagering requirement, the time limit sometimes becomes the real restriction, rather than the amount.

Just like with max stake and excluded games, the five casinos in our review do not state the validity period on their public promotion pages. Check the date in the account's bonus section as soon as a bonus is activated — it's the only place where the figure is guaranteed to be correct for your account.

Three minutes in practice

This is how I read a new bonus, in the order I actually do it:

• Minute one — the footer. Company name, registration number and licence number. If all three are missing the rest of the terms are less worth reading.
• Minute two — the promotions page. Wagering requirements, what the multiplier applies to and the validity period. If it requires an account to be displayed, consider that a drawback in itself.
• Minute three — the full bonus terms, usually a separate page linked at the very bottom. Search for «max stake» and «excluded games» with your browser's search function rather than reading the entire text.