Mervyn Davids

Mervyn Davids

Posted on 11 January 2023

Game Weightings And Bonuses Explained

Of all the terms and conditions associated with casino bonuses, one often overlooked is the game weighting percentages.

In this article, we will discuss what the game weightings are and how detrimental they can be to your chances of winning real money with a casino bonus.

Game Weighting Percentages Defined

A bonus’ game weighting percentages outline how much of your stake contributes to the wagering requirements. 

It is a rule used by casinos to negate the high odds of particular games.

You will find that while games with average odds, such as slot games, contribute 100% of your stake to the wagering requirements, while table games such as blackjack may contribute as little as 0-20%. 

Subsequently, it is a lot more difficult to win real money with a casino bonus playing high odds games than it is playing slot games. 

Not too sure how wagering requirements work? Read our article, Wagering Requirements Explained, to learn all you need to know about bonus wagering.

Table Game Weighting vs. Slot Game Weighting

As we have stated, any game with high odds will be severely affected by game weighting percentages. 

To illustrate just how impactful this can be on your chances of winnings, we will provide you with two examples.

Example #1

Let’s say you claim a no deposit bonus worth ?20. With your ?20 you decide to play slot games.

Slot games generally contribute 100% of your wager to the wagering requirements.

Therefore, if you were to wager ?100 using your bonus, the entire ?100 will contribute to the wagering requirements.

Example #2

Let’s say you claim the same ?20 no deposit bonus. However, this time you decide to play online blackjack.

While table games contribute between 0-20%, it’s common for a game like blackjack to contribute as little as 4%.

Therefore, if you were to wager ?100 on blackjack using your bonus, only ?4 will contribute to the wagering requirements.

As you can see when you compare our two examples, the difference between how much you wager and how much that goes towards the wagering requirements can be enormous. 

In many cases, when you play table games you will have to wager 20x more using your bonus to fulfill as much of the wagering requirements as you would playing slot games. 

That makes it near impossible to win real money with your bonus.

Conclusion

The conclusion here is rather straightforward: only play casino games with weighting percentages set at 100%. 

Trying to win real money with a bonus on a game that does not contribute 100% of your stake is near impossible in the short time you get to use your bonus. 

FAQ

It depends entirely on the terms of the bonus. While free spins are designed exclusively for slot games, you can sometimes play table games with bonus credits.

If you do decide to play table games with your bonus, please be aware of the game weighting percentages rule.

Traditionally, the casino games with the best odds are table games, such as blackjack and roulette.

‘Wagering requirements’ is a rule associated with online casino bonuses. Essentially, it determines how many times you have to ‘wager the value of your bonus’ before you can withdraw your winnings.

For example, let’s say you claim a ?20 no deposit bonus with wagering requirements of 10x.

What this means is that you have to wager the value of your bonus (?20) ten times over until you can withdraw your winnings.

Consequently, with this hypothetical bonus you would have to wager a sum total of (?20 x 10) ?200 using your bonus before you could withdraw your real money winnings.

Published on: 2023/01/11