Bonus Wagering Requirements in Bingo

Bonus Wagering Requirements in Bingo

Wagering requirements are a common feature of all gaming sites. A wagering requirement in bingo refers to the number of times you need to play through your bonus money before you can cash it out.

Online casinos often have wagering requirements such as 25x or higher, while online bingo sites usually have much lower play through requirements of 2x or 3x your bonus.

Read on to discover everything you need to know about wagering requirements in bingo.

Welcome bonuses in bingo

When you sign up at a new bingo site and make your first deposit you will usually be able to claim a bonus. This could be a standard 100% bonus up to €100 or it could be more generous, such as a €300 bonus.

Welcome bonuses in bingo can also often include free spins on slot games or other perks. Every time you get free cash from a bonus such as this, you will have a bonus wagering requirement as a standard part of the agreement.

The wagering requirement in bingo might not always be openly stated on a promotion page and you may need to look through the terms and conditions to find it. Rest assured however that there will always be a wagering requirement or ‘play through’ attached to any bonus.

Bonus money wagering requirements for bingo players will nearly always be much lower than for casino players. You’ll find most bingo bonus wagering requirements are only 2x, 3x or 4x the bonus money. So once you’ve played with the bonus money this many times, you will be able to cash out.

Why are there wagering requirements in bingo?

Casinos and bingo sites always have wagering requirements attached to a bonus because they want you to play at the site and not disappear with your free money! By stating a wagering requirement, this means you have to play with the free money for a certain amount of time before you can walk away with it.

This means you always have the chance of losing the bonus money. You also have the chance of losing the deposit you made to claim the bonus! A wagering requirement in bingo also prevents players from taking advantage of the bonus then cashing out, only to deposit again to get another bonus, and so on.

Another reason that bingo sites have wagering requirements is to prevent money laundering. So the wagering or play-through requirements will stop anyone from depositing criminally-gained money to ’clean’ it at the legitimate bingo site then taking it out straight out again.

Software and wagering requirements in bingo

The software a bingo site uses will often determine the bonus wagering requirement. For example, Microgaming bingo sites have a wagering requirement of between 3x and 5x. Virtue Fusion software can have a wagering requirement of up to 6x for the bingo games. Dragonfish and Cozy Games bingo software both have wagering requirements of 4x.

It is also worth noting that any winnings from free spins bonus offers will also have a wagering requirement, which will normally be much higher than the bingo play-through requirement. For example, Jumpman Gaming has a 40x wagering requirement on winnings from its free spins offers.

The lowest wagering requirement in online bingo comes from mFortune, which has just a 1x play-through requirement on its bingo games.

Types of bingo wagering requirements

There are two main types of wagering requirement in online bingo. The first type is a wagering requirement that still allows you to cash some of the money out of your account first. However, if you do make a withdrawal before meeting the wagering requirement, any remaining bonus will be forfeited.

More common is the second type of bingo wagering requirement, which is a play-through that must be met before cashing out any money at all from your account. If you do cash any money out, all your winnings from your bonus wagering will be forfeited, in addition to the bonus cash.

Plus, if you withdraw any cash, many bingo sites will remove any remaining bonus money, even if you have already met the bonus wagering requirements. It’s important to look out for this.

Examples of wagering requirements in bingo

Sometimes it can be hard to understand exactly what is required to meet a bonus wagering requirement in bingo. Imagine that you deposited £10 at a bingo site and received a 300% bonus. This would give you £40 to play with in total.

If a 4x wagering requirement is attached to this bonus, you would have to play £30 x 4 before you could cash the bonus out. So you would need to buy £120 worth of bingo tickets before the money became available to cash out.

Most of the time, a wagering requirement in bingo also includes your original deposit. So a 4 x wagering requirement would mean 4x your deposit plus the bonus cash, and not only 4 x the bonus cash. So you would need to spend 4 x (£10 + £30) = £160 in total before you could cash it out.

Usually, the more generous the welcome bonus, the higher the wagering requirement will be. So although an opening offer might look attractive, it could take you a long time to clear the money and be able to cash it out.

This might not bother you if the reason for playing bingo is purely for fun. But if you want to pocket some generous bonus money, you need to pay attention to the wagering requirements in bingo before choosing where to play