Raise your hand if you love a good welcome bonus. Yeah, us too!
Luckily, almost all sites in the industry have this kind of offer so you just need to find the one(s) that better suit your needs and claim them.
How to choose the best welcome bonus? That is where we come in. We’ve gathered all the information you need in this article, showing the different types of bonuses you may encounter, what are the pros and cons of claiming such a bonus, and what you need to do to claim it.
We analyse these bonuses according to rigorous and objective criteria, to help you find the bonus that really makes a difference on your bankroll.
Let’s start at the beginning, by explaining what a welcome bonus is.
This bonus is a marketing tool used by operators in the iGaming industry to attract you to register at their website. Basically, you trade your personal info for some amount of money to play at the website.
Usually, you must make a deposit before being able to claim a bonus, but some operators have bonuses that don’t require any deposit – we will talk about them in further detail below.
Among such a variety of offers you may have some difficulty choosing a bonus to claim, but here’s the good news: you can register in as many operators you want and claim a bonus in all of them!
So, we’ve covered what is a welcome bonus, but they come in different types, and you must understand them, so you know exactly what you’re playing with when you claim it.
Welcome bonuses in the UK tend to be like this: you register at the website and make a deposit, and then the operator gives you money to use. It sounds straightforward because it is.
This kind of best sign up bonus define a minimum amount of money you must deposit, and if you do it, you will get the offer in return. Usually, the minimum amount is £10 or £20 and offers range from £30 to £200.
The higher the bonus amount, the higher the rollover attached to it. Note that, sometimes, operators exclude some payment options of the bonus, meaning that you can’t use them to make a deposit if you want to claim the bonus. Always read the Terms & Conditions that apply.
This is a very popular bonus type around the world. Why is this bonus so popular? Well, it catches the eye with high percentages and it’s easy to communicate.
With a match deposit bonus, an operator will give you a percentage of the money you deposit, ranging from 50% to 500%. However, note that it always has a limit amount for example 300% up to £1000.
Sometimes, sites break their bonus into 2 or even 4 deposits, dividing the percentage. How? Let’s see an example: imagine an offer of 300% up to £500. You may get 150% on your first deposit, 100% on your second, and the remaining 50% apply to a third deposit. This is obviously designed to keep you engaged with the website, once you need to fulfil the rollover requirement at every deposit to qualify for the next round of offers, meaning it’s pointless to make three deposits in a row.
This is the type of bonus we’ve talked about before. If the offer is a no deposit bonus, it means you don’t even need to make a deposit to receive money to play – a truly free welcome bonus.
Usually, the amount they offer is low, but it’s actually a great way to test the website with no risk attached. Obviously, even if you win using the bonus, you can’t cash it. Nor can you cash out the winnings before making a deposit, but hey, it’s free money!
Another popular type of welcome bonus is the offer of free spins or free bets. Commonly, the offer is one or the other, meaning you choose if you want to use it at the casino or the sportsbook.
The number of bets or spins gifted vary a lot, especially because some casinos combine a match deposit offer with free spins.
You should know that free spins usually are exclusive for a specific game (or a small number of games, typically from the same provider). As for free bets, most operators determine in which markets you can use them, and all of them have a minimum odd acceptable (typically, 1,50).
Most welcome bonuses are credited to your account right after you make your first deposit. However, at some websites, you need to claim it during registration, checking a box to accept the bonus. But don’t worry, you can’t miss the box as operators want you to claim the bonus. “They do?” Yes. Remember what we said above? It’s a marketing tool to keep you engaged with the site.
Although, when there’s this mandatory checkbox during registration, if you don’t do it then, you won’t receive the bonus even if you ask to. Furthermore, most operators only credit the bonus when you verify your account.
This is a personal choice, that has a lot to do with your profile as a gambler. There are some important criteria to analyse, but only you can determine the weight they carry on your selection process.
Nevertheless, there’s a golden rule playing online, and that is always to choose a licensed operator. We can’t stress this enough: protect yourself, choose trustworthy operators. Besides, as we said before, you aren’t obliged to choose just one site, you can play in as many as you want, and claim all their bonuses!
Now, we will explain what criteria you need to weigh, but before we do that let us give you another super important piece of advice: always read the Terms & Conditions that apply to the bonuses you want to claim. The devil is in the details, and you must know everything there is to know to ensure you will make the most of that offer.
So, let’s see what criteria you should analyse:
Requirements associated with the bonus, meaning, what you need to do before you can cash out your bonus.
You will encounter bonuses with 4x rollover and 30x rollovers – sometimes even 70x, in bonus with higher amounts. Imagine it’s 10x, that means you must bet the amount of the bonus 10 times before cashing it out. For a £100 bonus, it implies you must bet £1000 before withdrawing it.
In every bonus, different games contribute differently to the rollover. Some games don’t even count. This is why you must always read the Terms & Conditions: the list of games is always there.
It’s exactly as the previous point: commonly, a bet must have an odd of 1,50 or higher to count towards the rollover. But some operators raise this bar, and almost all of them limit the type of bets included in the rollover, or even the markets you can bet on to fulfil the requirement.
Not all bonuses are cashable. This may be fine to you, but it’s important to know this upfront so you know exactly how much money you can withdraw.
We’ve selected a few welcome bonuses offered by sportsbooks and casinos in the UK that you can – and should – enjoy.
|
Operator |
Sportsbook welcome bonus |
Casino welcome bonus |
|
Pokerstars |
No sign up bonus to Sportsbook but there is a 100% poker bonus of up to £600 |
Deposit £10 or more using code FORTY to get £40 in welcome rewards |
|
Ladbrokes |
£20 in Free Bets (4 x £5) when you sign-up and stake £5 on sports |
£50 Casino Bonus when you deposit and spend £10 on Casino |
|
Bet365 |
Bet £10 get £50 |
100% bonus from £10 up to £25 |
YES! When you use the best sign up bonus you have the chance to maximize your winnings with money that wasn’t even yours, to begin with.
Now, you must choose wisely which bonus you claim. Most sites have different bonuses for different products, so you must choose to claim a welcome bonus casino or a welcome bonus sportsbook.
Selecting the best welcome bonus for you is quite simple, however important: you chose the one that better fits your preferences. Do you prefer to play at the casino or bet at a sportsbook? How big is your wallet? How high is your risk tolerance? These questions help you define what to look for in a bonus, so you claim one that makes sense to you. If you aren’t a high roller maybe you should claim a bonus that has a lower rollover.
Of course, you can claim the best sign up bonus on different sites, so you can compare the offers and make the most of them, selecting a sportsbook bonus in one operator and the best welcome bonus casino in another. Not only there is nothing wrong with claiming bonuses on more than one website, but it is also smart. If operators are offering, why not take advantage?
Has anything, it has its pros and cons. Let’s look at them:
A welcome bonus is the offer casinos and sportsbooks give to new customers as an incentive to create an account. This kind of offer has proved itself as an effective marketing tool.
First, you need to select which operator you will register. After that, you follow the instruction that the operator provides because they vary. Usually, you just need to fill the registration form and make a deposit, but there are exceptions.
Some casinos and sportsbook operators offer this kind of bonus, meaning you can start playing right after registering, benefiting from a bonus they give you. Keep in mind that these are non-cashable bonuses.
A bonus rollover indicates how many times you must bet the amount of the bonus before you can cash it. For example: if a £20 bonus has a 4x rollover, it means you must be at least £80 to be able to withdraw it.
The plain answer is no, you can’t. These bonuses are exclusively designed to attract new customers, if you already have an account, you are a customer by now. Nevertheless, pretty much all operators have bonuses and other offers tailored to existing customers, you just need to see which one fit your player profile.
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