Apr

27

Online Casino Bonuses Keep on Climbing


Back in the late 1990’s when the internet casino industry was still in its infancy, bonuses of $20 to $50 were the norm. Anything approaching $100 was considered a stand out offer. Fast forward to today, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a casino offering less than $100 and some casinos are handing out upwards of $5,000 to new players.

The online casino industry has always been a very competitive one. From 1997 when Intercasino (laying claim to the first casino online) started taking bets to 2000, around 1,500 casinos flooded onto the internet in something akin to a gold rush, and competition for new players was fierce. But the carrots that are now being dangled are a quantum leap from those offered back in the ‘old days’ and a good portion of the increases have occurred in just the last 2 years.

For those uninitiated with the industry, bonuses as the name suggests, are real money contributions made by a casino to a player’s account. They come in many forms and sizes, but the most common is the new player sign up bonus. That is, a player opening a new account with a casino and depositing real money, will have his or her account credited with additional cash following the deposit of their own cash. So if a casino is offering a 100% match bonus capped at $500, for every dollar deposited by the player to $500, the casino will match it dollar for dollar. Some offers are structured to include multiple match bonuses with varying percentage matches for each.

The bonus money is real and belongs to the player, although there are strings attached. In order to prevent players signing up and then immediately withdrawing bonus funds, there are always ‘times wagered’ conditions attached. Usually you will need to turn that cash over 15 or 20 times playing one of the casino’s games before you are eligible to withdraw it.

Currently, a handful of casinos are offering an astronomical $5000 in multiple deposit sign on bonuses. This is a lot of money for any business to hand out to customers as an inducement to try their product, and one has to question whether casinos are reaching a point where their bottom lines are being severely impacted by these promotional strategies.

It also indicates that the industry is having to compete harder than ever before for new players. This is despite the fact that after quickly reaching a saturation point, the number of casinos online has not changed significantly over the last 5 years. So the market is either becoming more discerning, shrinking, or being cannibalized by other gambling options.

One likely contributing factor is the US government’s Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Law. Passed in late 2006, the legislation aim was to prevent US residents from accessing offshore gambling operators by rendering it illegal for payment processors (Mastercard, VISA etc) from facilitating payments from Americans to these operators. While many US players continue to gamble online despite UIGEA, its impact on the world’s online gambling market size must be considerable when you consider that prior to its enactment, Americans comprised half this market.

Whatever the reason, the fact remains – bonus amounts are now at ridiculous levels.

Milton Shaw has written hundreds of online gambling related articles for popular casino and sportsbook portals like 4 Internet Casinos and 4 Online Gambling


April 27, 2009

Comments

One Response to “Online Casino Bonuses Keep on Climbing”

  1. bookmakers on April 29th, 2009 2:02 am

    its not that easy though to take those 5 grand out, its quite good they are giving out that sort of cash though :)

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