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Casino Deposit bonuses: the worst scam of online casinos against players

Discussion in 'Casino Forum' started by albalaha, Feb 1, 2015.

  1. albalaha

    albalaha Active Member Founding Member

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2014
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    Occupation:
    player
    Location:
    India
    Almost every online casino offers attractive(at first glance) deposit bonus offers. You will see tempting offers saying "$500 Free", "Deposit $100 and play with $500", "Welcome Bonus", "New Player Bonus", "weekly bonus", "christmas bonus", "new year bonus,"thanksgiving day bonus" and "birthday bonus", "use code z500 and get $500 free" and many other ways to define that you are getting casino money for free. A few casinos are clever enough to impose a bonus on you, the moment you deposit, without your consent.

    Question is, why casinos are throwing their money? At a glance it may look like a marketing strategy or a real promotion stuff but it is a sweet poison meant to plunder you. Yes, literally, meant to plunder you. If you look at the fine prints which talks of terms and conditions of the bonus, you will be astonished to see conditions like:

    #You need to wager(place bets) about 30x to 100x of the money you deposited plus bonus you recieved. So, if you have deposited $100 and deposit bonus is 200% and wagering requirement is 50x, you will need to wager a total of (100+200)x50= $15000. The likelihood to get past this hurdle is very close to 0 because slots are non strategy games having huge house edge (from 2% to even 50%).
    #Only slots and scratch card, Keno, Bingo games allowed to be played under this bonus
    #Unless you clear the bonus wagering you can not withdraw any money.
    #Table games like roulette, baccarat, blackjack etc are either expressly barred or they will be counted by 20%, i.e.if you wager a total of $500 on roulette, it will be counted as a wagering of $100 only.
    #Above all restrictions, you can not withdraw more than 5X of your deposit, even if you win a million.

    All these conditions associated with such "free money" are meant to part you with your own money, for sure. Hardly 1 player in 100 can clear such restrictions, so it is a win-win thing for casinos. It is totally fraudulent(but not illegal) as casinos gets a very big tilt in their favor which kills the spirit of fair play. Unless a player has exceptional run of luck in his favor, he has to lose whatever he deposited.

    I can not forget that when I made my first real money deposit with a casino, I was laden with 400% bonus and 99x wagering requirement. Although I could play any game but wagering made on table games were not counted. I did not ask for it and was not aware of the restrictions and conditions of this bonus.I asked chat as to why they put this bonus automatically upon me, they said, it is automatic and if someone wishes to play without bonus, one should get all bonuses disabled prior to deposit by talking with online chat support person. I was shocked but since this process(bonus) could not be reversed decided to play roulette primarily to enhance my balance and use that balance to play slots. I could get past almost 80% of this huge task but at last got stressed and tired and lost all. It was although a small monetary loss but a big lesson.
    Never ever go for any deposit bonus offer as it is technically created to eat your money and it shrinks your chance to win or even get back your money. Many Playtech powered casinos impose such bonuses upon your deposits without you ever asking for any. Beware of such scams and be careful while you decide to deposit and play,in any online casino. Read all their terms and conditions beforehand. Remember, you have hundreds of online casinos to chose from, so take your time to pick the right one.
     
    Mark V likes this.
  2. Spider

    Spider Active Member Founding Member

    Joined:
    Dec 24, 2014
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    79
    Good post Albalaha.
    Before I deposit in a new casino I always email them and state that I have opened an account with them but I want NO bonuses what so ever and that I will not be depositing a penny until I have an email expressly stating that this has been added to my account. All casino's have been happy to do this for me..
     
  3. albalaha

    albalaha Active Member Founding Member

    Joined:
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    Occupation:
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    Location:
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    Exactly Spider. Although most casinos do not put bonus forcibly and they usually give you option to use bonus codes but still it is better to be cautious than being trapped in an awkward bonus trap as I experienced, in the beginning. Caveat Emptor.
     
  4. TEACH (AlSpath)

    TEACH (AlSpath) Active Member Founding Member

    Joined:
    Dec 29, 2014
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    Occupation:
    Poker Instructor
    Location:
    Maryland USA
    Is Poker different? At a site I utilize (edited by Al, and I removed the link here, didn't want it to seem like spam because it's not; you get a 150% bonus on the money you deposit, of course you must rake it off, the more you play the more is released to you. When you initially deposit, you instantly get 20% of your deposit, it's in your cash total immediately.

    Example: deposit $200, you got $240 in your account right away.

    I think this is fair and other sites offer similar bonuses, and better bonuses.

    It's important to me that you can:

    a reputable cashier (transactions), history, etc.

    ability to deposit easily

    ability to withdraw easily (low fees to do so)

    ability to talk to a customer service person(s) who can HELP you (empowered to do so)

    support who not permit foreign language usage with two or more players (in table chat)

    support who will take action to abusive players (foul language, bullying, unsportsmanlike posts (like what they folded, during the hand), etc.

    texas holdem poker.jpg
     
  5. albalaha

    albalaha Active Member Founding Member

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    Occupation:
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    Poker is very different from roulette, baccarat and slots and other table games.In these games casino also has risk to lose its money while in poker a casino can only gain from players as a host of the game through commissions from pot. Obviously, a poker site can offer different kind of deposit bonuses to promote their games. Yet, the rollover(wagering required) can kill anybody. I have seen a few good deposit bonus offers but mostly they are fishy and better be avoided or if someone is willing to have that better read the fine prints.
     
  6. Douglas Zare

    Douglas Zare New Member Founding Member

    Joined:
    Jan 25, 2015
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    The reason that deposit bonuses are restrictive is that people used to exploit them. It used to be very easy to deposit $100 to get something like a $100 bonus with a $2000 play-through requirement, and give back only about $10 by playing blackjack using basic strategy, making small wagers so there was little danger of losing anything. Advantage players hurt the casinos, so the casinos stopped giving bonuses that were so easy to clear. (As a player, I used to take the free money. As a consultant, I told casinos to stop giving money to advantage players like me.)

    In fact, quite a few casino bonuses are still beatable if you are allowed to withdraw large amounts, but you have to use riskier strategies that few advantage players are comfortable using (canceling most of the play-through requirement on average by busting out), so the bonuses work better as advertising to attract losing gamblers instead of the few advantage gamblers willing to beat them. Since it is much tougher to make any profit from the bonuses, you don't get to see a track record of many other players withdrawing successfully first, and you are much more vulnerable to losing more when you run into a casino that decides to cheat you.

    Poker bonuses are typically a form of rakeback. That is completely different, and often a win-win situation for advantage poker players and the house. The way that poker bonuses work now is generally that you get something like 50% of the rake you generate back for a while. If you are paying $10/hour in rake, you are clearing $5/hour of the bonus. Normally, win rates are calculated after paying the full rake, so rakeback gives a nice boost to your win rate. Some players in tough games only try to break even at the tables, and come out ahead only due to bonuses or rakeback. If you are considering a poker bonus, make sure that your preferred game will clear the bonus. Sometimes tournaments don't clear bonuses at all, or not very quickly, for example. Estimate how much play it will take you to clear the bonus. Usually don't play poker to clear a bonus if the games are too tough.

    The reason poker bonuses can be good for the player is that the rake is huge, and giving back a fraction of this can help a lot, and winning players often win a lot at the table while clearing bonuses. Giving poker bonuses to advantage players can be good for the house because they can help to keep a critical mass of players at the table, and because poker sites may be willing to compete to attract high volume players even at less than full rake. In fact, there are sometimes "prop" programs where players called props are given full rakeback to start tables or make sure they are running. Props usually play with their own money but may be required to act friendly and to play in games that many others would avoid.
     
  7. albalaha

    albalaha Active Member Founding Member

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    Yesterday, I got a very bad trappy bonus with very deceptive and confusing terms and conditions. Luckily, I talked to the chat beforehand and asked the rules clearly. Reluctantly, I was told that the bonus rollover, which looks like 5x is indeed 25x and in no manner, 5x rollover can be applied.
     

  8. albalaha

    albalaha Active Member Founding Member

    Joined:
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    It looks like this:
    ladbrokes bonus for table games only.jpg
     

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