Casino bonuses for roulette players tend to be complicated. Most initial deposit bonuses are designed with the poker machine as the baseline game. That’s because the pokies have less-than-stellar odds and the casino operator wants to encourage you to play those games. Wagering requirements are designed in order to have the house edge eliminate most, if not all, of the welcome bonus before you can withdraw it. Gamblers might think that’s sneaky, but when you think about it, that only makes sense. If online casinos gave out huge, easy-to-reach bonuses to everyone who walked through the proverbial front door, they would go out of business.
Roulette has a lower house edge than most of the pokies. The European version of the game is going to have a house edge of 2.7%, while pokies have a house edge of at least 5% and often closer to 10%. It’s not out of the realm of possibility to find a poker machine with a 15% house edge, though those tend to be reserved for out of the way gaming machine you’ll find in airport terminals and Native American casinos. For that reason, roulette is not treated the same when it comes to wagering requirements than the online poker machines. Here’s an example.
7 Sultans Casino Bonus
The roulette stipulations at 7 Sultans Casino are typical. 7Sultans offers a three-tiered, $1,000 max bonus. When you make your first deposit, you’re entitled to receive up to $500 free at a 100% rate. Deposit $500 and you receive an additional $500. On the second deposit, the money is matched up to $125 at a 25% rate. In this case, if you deposit $500, you’ll receive an additional $125. On your third deposit, you’ll receive a $375 maximum bonus at a 50% match rate. If you deposit $750, you’ll receive an additional $$375. Put it all together and a player can receive up to $1,000 in matching bonus money on their first three deposits.
7Sultans Wagering Requirements
The wagering requirement at 7Sultans is 30x. This means you’ll have to wager the amount of a bonus thirty times before you can withdraw it. If you receive the full $1,000 bonus, then you’ll have to wager that amount 30 times to be able to withdraw the bonus funds. In other words, the turnover will have to be $30,000. This is for the poker machines and “parlour games”, which are defined as keno and online scratchies.
Roulette players don’t get so lucky. While the wagering requirement for pokies is set at the 100% rate, meaning the above stipulations are requires, all forms of roulette are set at a 10% rate. In other words, while a wager on pokies counts 100% towards the requirement, a wager on roulette only counts 10% towards the playthrough requirement. You’d have to wager $300,000 before you could withdraw the welcome bonus. That might sound like a huge amount, but remember that the house edge is likely to take 2.7% of that money–not 100%. Still, that’s a large amount is it most likely going to eat all your casino welcome bonus before you ever can withdraw it. One stipulation saves these terms and conditions from being too harsh, though.
10-Credit Increments
Unlike many of its competitors, Seven Sultans Casino allows you to remove a certain amount of the bonus before you finish 100% of the wager requirement. Punters can take out their money in 10-credit increments. When playing the pokies and using the 30x playthrough requirement, you’ll have to wager 300 credits to be able to remove a 10 credit increment. If you play roulette, you’ll have to wager 3,000 credits in order to remove the same 10 credit increment.
Under this system, you won’t be likely to withdraw the full amount of your bonus, but you should be able to withdraw a portion of the bonus. That’s a far cry better than 95% of the online casinos in the Australian market.
Additional Stipulations
Additional stipulations apply which you should keep in mind. Certain terms and conditions are there to protect the operator and assure you play according to the spirit of the FAQ terms and conditions, too. If you bet equal to 30% or more than 30% of the wagering requirement at one time, 7 Sultans reserves the right to withhold or confiscate your winnings for “irregular play”. If you use the double-up feature to increase the size of your wagers, this too can be described as irregular play.
One stipulation that could easily invalidate your welcome bonus is the one against even-money roulette wagers. Don’t bet on black or red, hi or lo, and even or odd. These could invalidate the terms of the agreement. It’s also stated these are not the only wagers which might be considered irregular. You might wonder why these additional terms are placed on the wager. Casinos know the outcome of any one wager is close to 50%. Any given bet can deviate wildly from the house edge. It’s the preponderance of wagers placed against a house edge which favour the house. They want you to make a lot of bets, so you face the house edge many different times. The longer the session goes, the better it is for them. So if you bet 30% or more of the wager requirement at a time, you would clear the requirement in 3 or 4 wagers. You’d only have to get lucky twice to walk away a big winner, as opposed to getting lucky dozens or hundreds of times.
Additional 10% Bonus
Those who fund their account with Ecocard, Entropay, Neteller, Click2Pay, Moneybookers (Skrill), Ukash, ClickandBuy, and Lobanet will be receive an additional 10% bonus added to their account. If you received a $500 bonus, you would receive an additional $50 added to your casino account. If you got a bonus of $200, the extra bonus would be $20. Note this applies only to your first deposit at 7Sultans, so the max bonus would be $50.
Are All Casino Bonuses Scams?
Casino bonuses are not scams. The no-deposit, instant play bonuses give you free money with no obligation. You play with house money when you use the free play bonus. You get a chance to win cash without risking anything. When you make a deposit and receive a match bonus, you are risking your cash, but also receiving house money to play with. In this case, you are receiving freeplay cash that you’re not ever likely to be able to withdraw. The casino’s owners are protecting themselves from a huge loss of money, if they made stipulations which all-but-assured players would receive big winnings. They are a business, so they have to make business deals which make sense for them.
The fact is, if you get lucky and you meet the required conditions, you’ll be able to withdraw your casino bonus. Read the fine print, know you aren’t likely to be able to cash out anything, and enjoy the time spent playing with house money. Once you realise you’re likely not going to be cashing out the bonus, you won’t choose casinos solely based on the size of their bonus promotions. It’s a bad reason to select a gaming website, because it’s probably not going to help you, anyway.
Instead, choose casinos which are reputable and provide a good service. Seven Sultans, Platinum Play, Royal Vegas, and Vegas Palms are fine casinos because they offer nine types of Microgaming roulette. They accept Australian punters and let them gamble using Australian money. They are licensed by a legitimate regulator in Malta and are members of eCOGRA, which promotes fairness and responsible gaming. Most of all, they have been in the business for a time and have a reputation you can research. The Digimedia Limited casinos offer competitive roulette bonuses, but most of all, they are reliable.