Signup Bonus Trends

[Simmo!]

Not really being a signup bonus player, I was wondering how this area was changing? As mentioned in another thread, I've seen a few more casinos doing this Post-WR awarding of the signup bonus, or introducing monthly match bonuses from Month 1 at a lower %.

I know bonus "abuse" is the key to all the changes, but are these changes having a positive, negative or zero impact on the "normal" bonus players? Are the casinos winning in their battle to oust abusers and are the normal bonus players feeling the pinch?

I'd be interested in knowing what the general concensus is and which bonus methods seem to strike a good balance.

Cheers

Simmo!

[happygobrokey]

inter's bonus makes a good example.

a year ago it was 100% to $100 with 25b, all games, and you could even withdraw your deposit back if you lost the bonus.

the no-risk withdrawal bit the dust, and the bonus then got split into bj and non-bj bonuses (originally at 25b for bj and 18b for non-bj i think).

this was also split into slots only (18b), vp/table-oriented (25b), and bj-oriented (50b) bonuses.

and the past month or two the bj bonus is now 50% to $100, so to get the full bonus requires double the risk now.

and personally, i rarely made a payday there, even under the oldest terms (i never no-risked it for fear of banning). and i would bet mostly 10 bucks a hand at pontoon, often losing it all (down 20 units) quite quickly. i don't know who these people were that keep killing this bonus, and how low they are betting to grind out a paltry 90 bucks of EV, but the side effect is i probably won't be playing (and losing a c-note monthly) at inter again.

and i'm noticing far too many sub's these days exclude bj. the only ones who let you play 'jack are the ones who don't pay. personally i've exhausted all the reputable casinos' sub's, and they were tough enough when i started.

*imo there is no money in grinding EV out of sub's any more, what with 25(d+b) as the minimum commonly seen, no bj and often no vp allowed, sticky money, restrictive banking options and associated fees stemming therefrom, the whole uigea falderall (sp?) and the resultant uprising of shady casino slow- or no-pay tactics.*

i saw kiwi's ad at the bottom of the forum here, and decided "up to 300 euro" sounded decent enough. i find out this is in two packets of 150, the second being only a 50% bonus. fair enough. i see that wagering on the initial bonus is 10(d+b) or 3000. okay. no bj, no good vp. still okay i guess. i then see that i must play in USD or else face five times the wagering requirements on slots only. good thing i read the t&c intensively.

i figure with any luck i can stay ahead for 3000 in bets. i make the deposit. i get far less bonus than offered. i talk to live chat and they request that i email support. i do so and their response is that to get 100% you need to come through an affiliate link. scratching my head, i tell them i found it here. they fix it up so i am starting with 300 as intended.

i manage to survive the playthrough (using bets on 3card poker and red dog, with some let it ride mixed in) with a balance of 260. add in the $3 of comps and that's a profit of $113. oops, no it's not. the bonus is sticky. now how am i going to build up my bankroll on games carrying 2% edge? the highest i achieved was 310, but simply not enough to call it a day since the fees and currency conversion will still make it a losing effort. so, $150 later, sign ups blow!

[Slotster!]

Some Playtech clip-joint (Maxima Casino) keep sending me emails to sign up - with 800% bonus... My favourite however is the one that's listed on their website, aimed at people who can only deposit by credit card - "Discrimination Bonus"

They really will try ANYTHING, won't they?

[Christoff]

InterCasino's monthly reload bonus is great as you get something for the lifetime of your play with them (it's a kind of loyalty scheme IMO).

Regarding bonuses, the simplest ones are the ones without hidden agendas and the ones I look for.

[EasyRhino]

Is there a line between a regular bonus player and a bonus abuser?

Anyway, being in the US, seeing any sort of cashable bonus is as rare as a hen's tooth. This means any sort of playing strategy to make a bonus +EV is going to involve high-risk tactics.

[Simmo!]

Originally Posted by EasyRhino

Is there a line between a regular bonus player and a bonus abuser?

Discussed here: http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/...us-abuser.html

[happygobrokey]

i would say a "bonus whore" is an abuser. not that i disagree with their philosophy, but that is what is abusive to a casino. imagine instead of doing as you "should" and buying your own home to live in, you bum around from relative to friend to in-laws to one-night-stands, crashing at their place just to use their bed and food.

casinos (each one and them all as a group) don't want to be taken advatage of. they want to be a swanky hotel you go out of your way to come to, not your cousin's pad where you are just staying to save a buck. they offer incentives because there are so many hotels a potential mark might choose, and they want discerning customers to choose them over the others. but surely if you walked in off the street and partook in the continental breakfast, you'd be shown the door in short order with little care taken to ensure you'd come back as a paying customer.

and i suspect bonuses have gone the way they have (sticky and/or massive wr) to curtail bonus whoring by whores. the same strategy must be used to play these bonuses profitably whether you're a whore or not, but the big thing with whoring is hitting many sub's across casinos. by offering the old style bonuses with guaranteed paydays if you grind it at the minimum, each casino gives each whore x dollars. the way it is now, the whores will be playing much more loosely, and will only hit a payday at 1 in 5 casinos or whatever. this means that the other four casinos get to retain the deposits and not pay the expected value out to these players.

this doesn't help each casino, because they get the number of players they get, and a fraction of them will win of course. but the real value is that it gets the bonus hunters out the door faster. either they lose it all quick snap, or they get lucky and happen to hit their score at your casino. they're forcing us to gamble instead of handing us EV on a platter. the casinos are really gambling with each other who is going to be unlucky to have the most whores win at their place. and then each casino steps it up to make their bonus harder to win at so they aren't always stuck paying while the players busto elsewhere.

but really, offering me a bonus i know i can't win at is not going to make me think you're a great casino.

and while we're at it, if the "spirit" of the bonus is to "prolong my play", and i've played all i want to, how come i can't cash out? of course you could keep the bonus money in my account for when i WANT to "play more", but "prolonging" my play to the point where i'm forced to lose all my own money because it's impossible to meet prescribed playthrough is not cool. if i win using the money i deposited (which is always played first), the bonus i have not used to accrue winnings should not prevent me from ending my play when i choose. and having not used it, it would not have prolonged my play any and should be able to be saved for a future session.

[lojo]

Freakin excellent post HGB. I couldn't have said it better. I'd go a step further though (and I won't derail your post by arguing reponses here Simmo) that to play within the T&C, but to use a strategy like 'boom or bust then grind w/near even money', is like loading your pockets with all the napkins and crackers and salt and pepper and sugar packets that are on the table. It might not be against the rules but it sure isn't within the spirit of the offer.

rerail

Simmo, I signed up at Casino Grand Bay the other day because they had a slightly different approach to the 'free spins' sub. First you deposit, then you get $x to play with, anything over that when done with the wr, up to x$ goes into your bonus account. I liked it because it seemed more fair to the casino and the 'keep what you win' was high. It just 'felt' better to me to deposit first.

[happygobrokey]

i beg to differ. that is the only way to play them now. making playthrough on normal-size bets is virtually unattainable. and the start of your session (and with bonus money included) is the best time to make larger bets. grinding from the start wears you down over the blasphemous playthrough. double-or-nought on every hand is just stupid. working your balance up to the point where you can expect to finish wagering, and then attempting not to lose your money while finishing, is the only thing you can do.

if you are served a 64-ounce steak, and the terms state you must pay for it unless you clean it down to the bone, you would not eat dinner in the normal "spirit". you would go wild on that steak to make sure you will finish it. you don't eat the bread and salad and sides. and once you gobble down more than half the steak, you can ease off a little, knowing it's in the bag. if you keep up such a frenzied pace, you risk puking it up or choking, but it was necessary at the start to ensure you could finish.

you're always trying to lock up a sure thing in this game. bonus, no bonus, casino, sports, poker. surely double-up,double-up,grind is less abusive than grrrrrriinnndddd the whole way. in the former you put all your money at risk quickly and loosely, whereas the latter aims at avoiding all risk and essentially being paid to click a mouse.

i don't think this clogs up the thread, either, though i appreciate your concern lojo. this is a discussion of casino signups, and discovering what's tolerable and reasonable and abusive and lucrative. if it bugs simmo, he can always just give us a time-out or edit our posts anyway

[aka23]

Originally Posted by Simmo!

Not really being a signup bonus player, I was wondering how this area was changing? As mentioned in another thread, I've seen a few more casinos doing this Post-WR awarding of the signup bonus, or introducing monthly match bonuses from Month 1 at a lower %.

I know bonus "abuse" is the key to all the changes, but are these changes having a positive, negative or zero impact on the "normal" bonus players? Are the casinos winning in their battle to oust abusers and are the normal bonus players feeling the pinch?

I'd be interested in knowing what the general concensus is and which bonus methods seem to strike a good balance.

Cheers

Simmo!

Over the time, I've been tracking sign-up bonuses, I've seen several patterns.

One common pattern is... Offer a nice bonus, realize players are winning using the bonus, then add more restrictive terms or find ways to avoid paying players. Some of the groups that have followed this pattern over the past 6 months are: Fortune Lounge, Casino Rewards, Belle Rock, Trident, Jackpot Factory, Grand Prive, Golden Star, Vegas Partner, Winward, Connect2, Casino-For-Me (worsened bonus again, a few days ago), and Bet Fred (worsened bonus, yet again yesterday). Note that nearly all Microgaming casinos offering Clearplay/eZ bonus fall into this group. Another pattern with MGs is adding new Free Play bonuses. I believe there are now ~30 Free Play offers. This number keeps increasing.

Several casinos start the above cycle in any given month. So while some bonuses worsen, some quality bonuses appear. In some months, there are more positive than negative changes. Bonus improvements may be tied to a change in ownership or software. A recent example of such a change is Global Player. When they switched to Boss Media, they offered an excellent sign-up bonus, and one of the best weekly reloads I have ever seen. Later they reduced the quality of the bonus, as expected. And this month, they worsened it yet again, dropping blackjack as an allowed game.

There are some casinos that don't follow the above cycle. They offer a good bonus and rarely change it. Large and well known casinos often fall into this group, such as 888.com and Golden Palace. Bet 365, VC, SkybetVegas, and Grand Virtual also offer nice bonuses that rarely change (yes I am aware of the VC temporary change, and Grand Virtual limit to micro-blackjack).

Once in a while, there will be a thread comparing to how things were 5+ years ago. That was long before I was around, but I understand that bonuses were often quite different than today.