New EZBonus @ Bella Vegas

[Mousey]

Just received this in an email from Bella:

Bella Vegas Online is exceedingly proud to present our players with a revolutionary, NEW and EXCLUSIVE, gaming system that is sure to evolve your playing experience. eZ BONUS offers an end to play through restrictions and gives the player MORE play, MORE pay, EASY cashins and EASY terms.

The days of dragging our knuckles will come to an end in FOUR days, well, it will at Bella Vegas Online - that is. It's time to walk tall and face a vastly evolved gaming world with eZ BONUS.

Making winning beautiful has never been this eZ!

More info and WR:

Terms and Conditions: eZ BONUS :

Rules:

A Players total account balance consists of a cash account balance and a bonus account balance.
A Players bonus account cannot be cashed in, but can be used to place wagers.
A Players cash account may be cashed in at any time.
Specific play-through requirements are indicated in the terms and conditions of each promotion.

Terms and Conditions include:

Bonus amounts credited to a Players bonus account are subject to 30 times play through before they may be cashed in.
Different games played may contribute a different percentage of the wager - up to 100%, towards the required play-through.
As the required play-through requirements are met, funds are automatically transferred from the Players bonus account to their cash account.
Play-through is achieved when any real money wager is made. The Player can use either their bonus or their cash account.
For any wagers made, the wager is deducted from the Players cash account. If there is no cash available, then the wager is deducted from the bonus account. This effectively means that funds in the Players bonus account are only played if there is no cash balance.
If a Player makes a withdrawal, their bonus account is reset to zero. This means that if a Player chooses to take back the money they deposited, they will lose any bonus money they may still have remaining in their Bonus Account.
Winnings on wagers made from a Players cash account are credited directly to their cash account. Winnings on wagers made from a Players bonus account are credited to their bonus account.
Where crediting a Players bonus account with winnings would result in the bonus account exceeding the size of the original bonus amount, any excess winnings are credited to the Players cash account.
Note: This is less any automatic transfers from bonus account to cash account that had occurred.

I've never played at a casino with a separate bonus account and am leary of them. Comments anyone?

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[Pinababy69]

I don't like the sounds of any of it, starting with a 30X wagering requirement. I have been playing at Grand Prive casinos for three years, and since that time have watched their bonuses fall off from being very generous (including alot of surprise bonuses) to non-existent....and watched the wagering requirements climb from 10X bonus to 10X deposit plus bonus and now up to 30X. When is it ever gonna end? Someone yesterday compared the Grand Prive group to what happened with Captain Cook's, and I'm afraid I'm starting to see alot of similiarities, none of it any good.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Devil in the detail.

This is certainly not revolutionary. Casino Action had the same setup last year and the year before, and were forced to change it to something clearer, although still with a bonus account. 30x playthrough is steep, especially as the "some games will contribute 100%" means "Slots will be 100%". Expect the small pring to include severe weightings on other games if they allow them. Worse still, losses are taken from your REAL cash first, but winnings still go to the bonus until the bonus is at the original level.
What about the transfer? Will bonus transfer as you play, or will it all go over once you reach the 30x playthrough.

While Grand Prive are starting this, Casino Action seem to have gone cool on the bonus account idea. I have just had 2 of their Wheels of Cash drop into my REAL account. Means I can keep the bonus and not just the winnings, BUT it also means it stops me cashing in till I wager it out (crafty eh!). If you play Phoenician & co, and see the little mail icon for your Wheel, CASH OUT FIRST if you have too much in the account for immediate needs, otherwise you could end up sealed in with 20x WR on slots & 60x on BJ, and blowing it to zero means blowing all the REAL money too!!

 

[paul1]

This stuff is getting WAY too complicated for me. I played at Capt Cooks before until that bonus account policy started. It was so confusing I just threw my hands up and said forget it. The same with the group that included UK Casino and Music Hall, etc.

Even though I've had very few problems with casinos over the few years, the fact that everyone is increasing their wagering requirements and the fact that many casinos have payment issues (Black Widow, Indio, etc.), makes me want to quit playing casino games all together and just concentrate on poker.

It might do everyone good who enjoys gambling but wants to come out ahead a little bit to learn poker if you don't know it already. Afterall, it is the rage now, and with just a little bit of studying you can beat the small games at first and have a lot of fun doing it. It's really fun, and the main thing is that the poker rooms don't sweat you and give you a hard time for winning like some of the casinos do. And for the bonus hunters, heck, there's a gazillion promotions all the time, and the poker rooms want you to take them up on them. That's what promotions are for. A win-win situation.

I know casino games are a lot of fun, but so is poker. Good luck to Bella Vegas with their new EZ-bonus whatever. But I don't even want to try and figure it out. It makes my head hurt.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Bonus.

Yet they call it eZ!!!
The page posted left me scratching my head a bit, and I see myself as a seasoned player, and one who does not leap in at the sight of "Free this" without having a good look at the small print, and even using Excel to ensure it's not a case of "smoke and mirrors" on the part of the casino. They are getting better at "player abuse" to defend against bonus whores. One way seems to be to have a headline grabbing promotion, but one that is pretty much guaranteed to leave participants down on the deal. Often the requiremtns are so tight that only "abusive" playing styles stand a chance of actually coming out ahead!
They should start giving out a free bonus to players who can demonstrate they fully understood the T & C
However great a promotion is, it is worthless if you can't get paid at the end of it! Rather than come up with eZ Bonus, they should solve all the issues they currently have, and should then design a bonus that discriminates in favour of loyal players.
New players should get small bonuses, or ones with harsh WR but an option to decline. They should be rewarded for staying and playing after this. Groups that have a good scheme for regular players will probably prosper, provided they ensure these players are not driven away by bad experiences.

 

[Mousey]

I told a story and didn't mean to. I had almost forgotten about this... I opened an account at Captn Cooks quite some time ago and asked them to close it a couple weeks later when they reversed a cash in.

The T&C for the new and amazing bonus set up at Bella does not indicate how much (if any) table games or VP contribute toward meeting the 30x playthrough. It does seem to say that you don't get the bonus till you're broke, but then somewhere in there doesn't it say you can play either bonus account or cash account? I've read it a zillion times and I still don't understand it, there are not enough specifics.

If I don't clearly understand the T&C, I won't play there.

p.s. ... amazingly I can now deposit at Bella and Jupiter.

 

[Weedlayer]

If I don't clearly understand the T&C, I won't play there.

Amen.

 

[Ivy29]

Bonuses

Aren't Grand Privvy bonuses "slots only"?

Meanwhile, I just got a small bonus this morning from a Jackpot Factory (who knows why, I had a big cashout yesterday, they just do that sometimes--win or lose), WR are 5x and I can play VP or any of the other games I like. Yes, that's 5x. Almost non-existent anymore to have a WR that doesn't make you feel like its hopeless from the start.

One time I cashed in my first comp points, and scoured their site looking for the WR. Couldn't find them and rather than be pissed off later because of some hidden technicality I emailed them and asked. The CSR said, there are no terms & conditions on the comp money, because there are no WR. Wow. Simple! Redeem, cash out or play. Their min. withdrawal is $20 so it's doable, often.

So when I read these revolutionary new bonus ideas that make your head hurt, I remember why I don't even bother anymore with those casinos. There's nothing wrong with them, there are just better choices. (see above)

And another thing...they come up with all this milarky, but they can't come up with a simple meter like RTG's use with bonuses to show where you are with the wagering? I know that's not always foolproof, but still, it's better than nothing.

 

[Slotmachine]

Honestly, I didn't know why people disliked bonus accounts. I always thought they made the whole thing easy. No tryin' to figure out how much wagering you've got left. Just check the bonus account and see how much you can transfer to your real account then just go ahead and withdraw.

...in principle, that is. Until I found out I've gotta wager it some more in the real account. That was just damned crazy. No more of that for me....

I mean, what's the point of having a bonus account system if all of the real account balance isn't withdrawable after all?!?!

Cheers,
SM

 

[vinylweatherman]

Exactly!!

When I first came across bonus accounts I though "What a great idea", no worries about declined withdrawals from the real account, clear separation meant it didn't matter if you were sneaked a bonus under cover of darkness or while playing vigorously. What did casinos do? Invented bonus accounts, but still made the same complications apply to the real account as before. Now, bonus accounts are used as a means to market a bad bonus as a good one. Look at these drawbacks they DON'T mention:-

1) Wagering the bonus WR in the bonus account means NO comp points for play to meet WR.
2) Play does not help towards tournament scores as it would if the bonus were simply dropped into the real account.
3) Easy to make WR look less than they really are. Especially the wagering of transfers, which effectively means a 20x WR headline figure is greater overall if anything is transfered.
4) CS have trouble understanding their own T & C, so what chance for players.