NJ Online Casino Bonus T&Cs Explained

It’s true that an online casino‘s Terms & Conditions are a bit of a dry read, but they have some important info in them. Learn about some typical T&Cs so you won’t be caught off guard.

We’re all guilty of skimming (if even that!) through the T&Cs because they’re just so boring, but doing so in the online gaming industry could land you in hot water. Join us as we walk through the typical T&Cs of three of the most common types of New Jersey online bonus offers so you can avoid being caught out.

Terms and Conditions are the ridiculously small legalese texts that are designed to provide both legal coverage for the company and transparency for players. It’s particularly crucial that you read these when it comes to claiming online casino bonuses, free spins, and cashback offers as you could otherwise be in for a bit of a rude awakening.

Let’s take a closer look at the most common T&Cs so you can be fully clued-in about what’s expected of you.

In Short:

• Bonuses carry wagering requirements that dictate how much you must wager before you can make a withdrawal.
• Cashback is usually credited as a bonus, NOT as cash (except in rare cases such as Virgin Casino’s cashback welcome offer).
• Free spins offers are not entirely free, with winnings usually carrying wagering requirements.
• Bonuses and associated winnings will be forfeit if you try to withdraw before fulfilling the relevant conditions.

Bonus T&Cs

One of the most common player offers found at New Jersey online casinos is the bonus. Most typically seen as a welcome bonus, reload bonus, or match bonus, these player incentives offer a percentage of extra funds on top of whatever you deposit, effectively giving you more to play with.

While most bonus offers require you to make a deposit first, you will on occasion find a site that offers no-deposit bonuses, where simply registering a new account is sufficient to claim.

Before you claim a bonus, it is advisable to check the advertised Terms and Conditions so you know what’s expected of you and what may happen if you don’t comply.

Wagering Requirements

This is an aspect of bonus T&Cs that trips people up all the time. Bonuses are not just free cash for you to play with and forget about, which is why they tend to be found in their own little section of your balance, entirely separate from your real cash bankroll. As such, there is a cost to using a bonus and it’s referred to as the wagering requirements, though you may also see it called the rollover or playthrough requirements.

A bonus’s wagering requirements dictate how much money you have to play through before those funds and any winnings generated from them can be freely withdrawn as cash.

Let’s look at an example from Golden Nugget’s welcome bonus:

As you can see here, in order to be able to get your hands on your winnings, or even just the bonus amount itself, you’ll need to play through 10x the value of the bonus and the deposit that triggered it.

Golden Nugget’s welcome bonus gives you 100% up to $1,000 on your first deposit of at least $30. Let’s say you deposit $30, which triggers a bonus of $30, giving you $60 to play with in total. That $60 value must be played through 10x (ie. $600) before withdrawal is permitted.

Bonuses may carry wagering requirements of more or less than 10x, with no-deposit bonuses often carrying stricter rollover requirements than deposit bonus offers.

Eligible Games

You’ll often find a section in the bonus T&Cs that mentions which games or game types you can play using your bonus. While many NJ online casinos let you play any of their games, some sites only allow certain games to be played using a bonus. This often comes down to restrictions on the side of the games developers.

If you do end up playing your bonus on a game that’s not on the list of eligible games, the worst that can happen is your gameplay won’t contribute to fulfilling the wagering requirements, but it’s worth being aware of this.

Expiration

Bonuses come with expiration dates, both in terms of how long you have to claim it:

…and how long you have to fulfill the wagering requirements:

As the above term states, if you don’t complete the wagering requirement within the allotted time frame, your bonus and any winnings generated from it will be forfeit.

Games Contribution

In order to complete the wagering requirements, you need to play through your bonus (plus deposit amount in some cases) within the specified time frame, which means it’s time to hit those games!

However, it’s important to realize that not all games contribute equally toward clearing your bonus:

Golden Nugget’s T&Cs above explain this concept rather well with the use of examples. In short, if you’re playing slots, 100% of every wager will count toward completing the bonus rollover requirements, whereas only a quarter of wagers on table games, roulette, blackjack, and video poker will count.

Withdrawals

The above conditions must be met if you’re hoping to get your hands on the bonus or any winnings generated from it as real cash. But what happens if you try to withdraw before fulfilling these conditions? Quite simply, you won’t get any of it!

Many players have had a rude awakening from this particular condition. Don’t let the next one be you!

Dodgy Betting

If at any point the online casino gets a hint that you might be playing a certain way to minimize the risks just to get through the bonus wagering requirements, you will be duly chastised:

At best this means your bonus and any associated winnings will be removed from your account. At worst, your account could be closed indefinitely, so don’t risk it!

Free Spins T&Cs

The terribly-named Free Spins offer belies the truth in all its T&Cs glory that free spins are not actually free. Most often found tacked onto a bonus offer or as a deposit reward in its own right, free spins are a very popular promotional tool to encourage continued gameplay, especially since most players love slots above all other games.

However, it’s important to realize that even free spins carry T&Cs.

Value per Spin

It would be somewhat ludicrous for an online casino to give you free spins with a value of, say, $100 each, which is why you’ll find most of them impose a limit on the value of your free spins. Having said that, it’s not always the case, with wagering requirements often filling in any potential loopholes in this respect.

Capped Winnings

You may also find that NJ online casinos place a cap on the amount of winnings you can claim as a result of playing with free spins. This is another example of a term that’s really just in place to ensure offers are used sensibly and not abused.

Wagering Requirements

In most cases, any winnings generated from free spins are not wager-free. They’re classed as a bonus and as such they carry their own little set of wagering terms. Here’s another example from Golden Nugget’s T&Cs:

So as an example, if you played your free spins and won $50, you’ll have to play through $50 before you can withdraw those $50 in winnings as cash.

Eligible Games

There are two aspects of eligible games to consider when it comes to free spins offers: the game(s) on which the free spins are offered and the games that you can play in order to clear the bonus (free spins winnings).

The game(s) that the free spins are valid for is usually pretty obvious, as is the case for Golden Nugget’s welcome offer, which includes 200 free spins on 888 Fortunes:

However, it’s not always so obvious. Sometimes you’ll get free spins offers in which you can play any slots. Other times it’s specific titles on which you can use your free spins.

Just bear in mind that playing a game that doesn’t fall under the free spins offer will result in the cost being deducted from your real money balance.

When it comes to clearing your free spins winnings, you might also be restricted in terms of which games you can play in order to do so, as is the case for fulfilling bonus wagering terms. Again, check the T&Cs for details before claiming so you are fully aware of what’s expected.

Expiration

Just as for bonuses, free spins carry expiration dates in terms of how long you have to claim them:

…and how long you have to complete the wagering requirements of any generated winnings:

Again, it’s the same for free spins winnings as it is for bonuses: if you don’t complete the wagering requirements within the specified time frame, they will be forfeit.

Games Contribution

Completing the wagering requirements to release your free spins winnings also includes this concept of different weighting for the various game types, as we saw earlier with the bonus wagering terms:

So for faster progression through the wagering requirements, play slots!

Withdrawals

As is the case for uncleared bonuses, free spins winnings will also be forfeit if you try to make any withdrawal before the wagering conditions have been met:

Cashback T&Cs

Cash back is another very popular but often misunderstood offer at NJ online casinos. This one tends to be a kind of insurance plan against a certain percentage of losses playing specific games, but not always. Also, cash back, ironically, tends to be credited as a bonus, but again, not always!

The best way to decipher your specific cashback offer is to check out the T&Cs.

Losses vs. Gameplay

Most cashback offers tend to come in the form of a simple insurance policy against a set percentage or amount of losses playing specific games over a set period of time.

This is the case with Virgin Casino’s welcome offer:

That long uninviting section of text basically translates to mean that if you deposit and play at least $10 and end up out of pocket overall, you’ll get either your first deposit or your net loss up to $100 back in cash.

There is another type of cash back, however, that is based on your entire gameplay rather than your net losses. This one is more attractive and therefore much harder to find, so if you find it, take advantage!

Bonus vs. Wager-Free Cash

Virgin Casino’s cashback welcome offer is actually particularly attractive itself in terms of the fact that what you get back is wager-free cash that you can freely withdraw:

It may surprise you to learn that this is most often not the case! Most online casinos offering cash back usually credit the funds as a bonus, making the term “cash back” somewhat misleading.

Again, if you come across an offer where the cash back is actually credited as wager-free cash, grab it!

Wagering Requirements

While it’s not the case for wager-free (true-to-name) cash back, wagering requirements do come into play with other types of cash back that are credited as a bonus. Just like for any other bonus, you’ll be expected to play through the cashback bonus amount a certain number of times before withdrawal is permitted. Be sure to check the T&Cs for specific details.

Eligible Games

Just as for other bonuses, certain games may be excluded from play while you’re trying to complete the wagering requirements of a cashback bonus. You’ll find details of these, where applicable, in the cashback T&Cs.

Expiration

When it comes to cashback, your gameplay over a set amount of time will be used to determine what you get and you’ll have a set amount of time to fulfill the cashback bonus wagering requirements, if applicable.

Using Virgin Casino’s cashback welcome offer as an example, you have seven days from the date of your first deposit and first wager during which your gameplay is counted for cashback generation purposes:

In contrast to Virgin’s offer, most cashback promotions credit the awarded funds as a bonus, so you’ll have a set amount of time in which to complete the rollover requirements. These will be detailed in the T&Cs.

Games Contribution

Regarding cash back that’s credited as a bonus, different games carry different weighting in terms of your wagers, as we saw before. In most cases, slots gameplay wagers will contribute 100% toward completion of the wagering requirements, while bets on other games may only contribute 25%. This is another detail that can be found within the T&Cs.

Withdrawals

In the case of Virgin Casino’s cashback welcome offer, if you try to make a withdrawal before the seven days of the promotion is up, you’ll forfeit any cash back you’ve accrued up to that point and for the remainder of the promotional period.

This is also the case for cashback bonus offers if you try to withdraw before fulfilling the wagering requirements.

Bet Smart

Terms and Conditions in general can be a bit of a minefield. They’re notorious for being overly verbose, difficult for the layman to understand, and irritatingly tiny! However, when it comes to online casino gaming, it’s in your best interest to be fully aware of what’s required and expected of you, especially if you find bonuses appealing and want to have the best possible experience using them.

Hopefully this guide leaves you feeling a little more clued-in about bonus T&Cs, so you can focus on enjoying your NJ online casino experience. After all, a smart gamer is a happy one!