The custom of online casino of giving away free money in the form of various bonuses has led to the term “bonus abuser.”
For those who question “what is a bonus abuser?” – in simple terms, this is a person who registers at an online casino only for the purpose of claiming the bonus offered and tries to avoid the online casino’s bonus terms and conditions.
Some bonus abusers are unscrupulous to the extent that they create a large number of false identities to claim and withdraw the same bonus from the same casino.
Although online casinos give away bonuses to attract a large number of players, only a small percentage of the players so attracted become loyal to the casino. Most players register at casinos simply to grab the bonuses on offer and make the most out of them.
In fact, modern casinos are so paranoid about bonus abuse that they actually encourage their players to meet the wagering requirements and withdraw their bonuses in a bid to avoid bonus abuse.
Through the years, online casinos have devised a number of ways to beat bonus abuse. Unfortunately, many new players still believe that a no-deposit or deposit bonus can be pocketed and taken home. A large number of online casinos no longer offer no-deposit bonuses because players tend to abuse them.
In fact, wagering requirements for the withdrawal of bonus funds were enforced in order to beat or minimize bonus abuse. Players can withdraw their bonus funds along with winnings only if they played through their deposits plus bonuses a certain number of times.
Further restrictions were attached to wagering requirements because bonus abusers began satisfying the wagering requirements by playing only player friendly games with lower house edges such as blackjack and video poker and ignoring the slot machine games, which have higher house edges.
Today, wagers placed on player friendly games such as blackjack, video poker, or others do not help players meet their wagering requirements; and even if they do, they contribute only a certain percentage toward the wagering requirements.
Online casinos also use the concept of sticky bonuses to beat bonus abuse. “Sticky” bonuses are no-deposit or deposit bonuses, which can never be withdrawn. Players are free to use these bonuses to play the games and win money, but they can never withdraw these bonuses. However, sticky bonuses have very low wagering requirements and any jackpots won using sticky bonuses belong to the player.
The worst of bonus abusers try to abuse the welcome bonus by registering at the same casino from different computers and under different user names. Online casinos frown upon such a form of bonus abuse and have taken a series of measures to deal with it. As a result, most of the leading casinos in the industry allow only one account per family.
Casinos have also upgraded their software to help them identify and ban such bonus abusers. What’s more, some countries are ineligible to receive bonuses because casino software has identified an alarmingly high rate of bonus abuse from those countries.