Learn the Optimal Strategies for Free Play Bonuses at Online Casinos
by the Editors at Blackjack Forum
© 2006 Blackjack Forum Online
At the time this article was written, Mummy’s Gold online casino was offering players a $500 free roll. The deal was: Play for an hour on the house on $500 free (no deposit required) and your winnings up to $100 become your bonus for a $20 deposit.
Crazy Vegas and Golden Riviera were giving away $75 free to play on with no deposit required from the player at any time. The deal was: Transfer your winnings up to $75 to a real account and play on them, and your winnings were yours to keep.
7 Sultans online casino was offering players $50 free, with no deposit required at any time, with any winnings up to $100 becoming a no-deposit bonus.
Casino Classic was offering $500 free to play on for an hour, with your winnings up to $200 becoming a bonus for a small deposit, and Captain Cook’s was offering exactly the same free play deal.
Blackjack Ballroom was also offering players $500 free to play on for an hour, with your winnings up to $200 becoming your bonus for a $20 deposit.
At Royal Vegas, new players could try out the casino with free slot spins with their winnings becoming a bonus, while at Fortune Room you could get $100 free to play on, no deposit required, to earn a bonus up to $500 for a $50 deposit.
Lucky Emperor, Virtual City and Zodiac Casino were all giving away $10 in free bonus play money, no deposit required.
Plus, all of these online casinos (and many others) regularly put free gambling money (from a few dollars up to hundreds and even thousands of dollars) into the accounts of their loyal customers—again, no deposit required.
To many players, these small free bonus offers may not look all that valuable. You can’t even pay your monthly light bill with $10 these days. But what you have to remember is, these free play bonuses give a lot of gambling power. How much gambling power?
Online Players Win Thousands Playing on Free Play Money
Players at Blackjack Forum Online have scored big on small online casino free money offers many, many times. For example, when Golden Palace gave a player $16 free about a year ago, he bet the entire amount on one spin of the 8-line Gold Rally slot, and immediately hit a bonus round that paid him $900!
Another player at Blackjack Forum Online played $2 coin on single-line Jacks or Better video poker with his $10 free at Lucky Emperor. She got a pair of Jacks on the first deal, and using the double-or-nothing feature, doubled her payout four times, to $160. Now she figured she had some money to play on.
A few hands later, she hit a royal, for a payout of $8000! But it didn’t stop there. The $10 free had a small wagering requirement before this player could cash out, and while playing off this wagering requirement she hit 4-of-a-kind—not once, but twice—for another $500! She ended up cashing out just under $8500 on $10 free, without ever depositing a penny herself.
Another player at Blackjack Forum Online had good luck on the Royal Vegas free spins offer. After hitting some good payouts on Lara Croft, Tombraider, he had won a little over $100 that he could transfer as a bonus to a real account.
There, he chose to play Secret Admirer, betting all nine lines for $45 a spin, and on his second spin got a $30 payout. He gambled it on the double-or-nothing feature three times to turn it into a payout of $240.
He hit nothing on the next few spins, and only small returns on the ones after that. But when he was down to his last $45 spin, he hit three Diamond Rings in a row, and before he’d even realized what was happening was launched into Free Spins that made him over $4500!
“It was the first time I’d ever played slots,” this player said.
Another player at Blackjack Forum Online ran up the first big gambling win of his life at Casino Classic, on the casino’s “play free for an hour on $500” deal.
“For me, it was just a lark,” he said. “I figured, what could I lose? I had some time to kill and ran up the $500 to $1000 just trying out various slots, then transferred the max [editor’s note: $200] to a real account. Then I played Thunderstruck, and hit some kind of jackpot. At first, I didn’t even know I hit it, because I never hit a jackpot before. I was just sitting there and staring. Suddenly there was all this money in my account.
“After I won, I didn’t really expect to get paid all this money. This was an online casino, and I’d never even put in a dime. But you know what, they did pay me—every penny, and with no trouble at all. There I was, just fooling around, and suddenly I was $1900 richer.”
Free Play Bonuses are Great Deals and Easy to Play
The requirements attached to most online casino free money offers are minor. Some casinos (but not all) require that you download the casino software. (Don’t worry, this is easy to do, and the software is easy to uninstall if you don’t want it later. To uninstall, just highlight the casino in the list of programs on your computer, found by clicking your “Start” button, and click “Uninstall”.)
Most online casinos require you to give some wagering on your free money winnings. And many require you to make a small deposit (typically $20) before transferring or withdrawing your winnings (there will usually be no requirement to wager this small deposit).
Some online casinos, like Casino Classic and Mummy’s Gold, treat your free money winnings as a bonus. In this case, you must complete a wagering requirement on the bonus to withdraw it, but you may withdraw your deposit and any winnings on the bonus at any time.
The purpose of these requirements is to direct the free money, which has a lot of potential value, to players who might truly be interested in becoming a long-term customer.
Winning Strategies for Playing on Free Money Bonuses
So, what’s the best way to give yourself a good shot at big money on a small free money bonus? The answer is two-part. The first part is to play with aggression. Remember, it’s hard to win big if you’re betting only a penny a spin on slots, or a dollar a hand at blackjack.
The second is to play a game that offers big payouts for small bets, like slots or video poker. Don’t play a game like blackjack, where if you bet $10 you win $10 (or at most, $15, if you get a natural). You would have to make too many bets, and have too long a run of luck, on an even-money payout game to ever get close to big money. On slots, video poker, or roulette (where a lucky hit straight up on a number pays 35:1) you only need to get lucky once to make a good score.
Just be sure not to bet too aggressively for the particular free money bonus. When your win amount is unlimited, you should play as aggressively as possible. But what’s the use of hitting a royal that pays thousands when your maximum win is $100? Adjust your aggression for your goal.
So don’t ignore those baby bonuses—whether they’re free gambling money offers designed to entice you to try an online casino for the first time, or one of those free play bonus gifts online casinos give to loyal players. These small free money bonuses are great deals for players. Almost every player we know who has given them a chance has won big on at least one, and some professional gamblers have actually launched their gambling careers with free money wins. Give yourself a chance to get lucky. ♠
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