Casino Bonus Bagging

[Rog]

Now that it would seem some of you have cracked onto the bonuses offered by poker rooms, you may be a little more receptive to info that I've tried to pass on before!

Basically, in the same way that poker rooms offer cash incentives to sign up, casinos do the same. I daresay that the offers are better and you can make cash with them more quickly, at the very least in the short term.

The principle is pretty similar - casinos will typically match your initial deposit, and require you meet certain terms and conditions to be able to make a withdrawal. A standard offer would be deposit £50, receive a £50 match, play that through 20 times, so £1250.

You can then play 1250 hands of blackjack at £1 per hand, where the expected loss would be well under £10 - you then withdraw the balance.

Take a look at the terms and conditions at the following sites, just for starters:

intercasino.co.uk (and .com)

williamhill

ladbrokes

littlewoods

casino365

casino.co.uk

betdirect

sportingodds

supervegas

casino888

lasseters

paddypower

There are loads of them. If people are interested I can dump more of the mountain of information that I've accumulated.

[Poet]

Casinowhoring is a definite way to make a load of money in a very easy way, and something I want to do once I've got a load of poker whoring under my belt. Free money is great.

Feel free to share your info!

[jonamok]

The principle is pretty similar - casinos will typically match your initial deposit, and require you meet certain terms and conditions to be able to make a withdrawal. A standard offer would be deposit £50, receive a £50 match, play that through 20 times, so £1250.

Sorry, Rog, I don't get this bit?

What do you mean by play through 20 times? And where does the £1250 come from (I know I'm being thick!)

[Rog]

Sorry, I am lazy! I'll get some more detailed info together & post it soon!

It doesn't help that I was thinking of a casino in particular (intercasino.co.uk) when I put the example up, the playthrough at this particular one is 25 times, not 20 hence the strange figures.

Play though 25 times means that the casino would require that you play your depost 25 times before they will allow any withdrawal, so 25*£50=£1250. You can then play this amount by playing 1250 £1 hands, or 625 £2 hands etc, the theory being that the house edge will recover only a small percentage of the bonus they have given you.

[ZenArcade]

Sorry, Rog, I don't get this bit?

What do you mean by play through 20 times? And where does the £1250 come from (I know I'm being thick!) 

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Before you can withdraw the bonus money you have to wager a certain amount of money. Usually this is expressed as a multiple of the bonus amount, the deposit amount or both.

Examples:

1. For intercasino UK £50monthly you have to wager the bonus 25 times = £1250. Here the bonus is added to your account as soon as you deposit.

2. For paddypower £50 signup deposit £50 wager £500 then the bonus is deposited into your account. Then the bonus has to be wagered once to withdraw for a total of £550 wagered. Paddypower monthly is deposit £25, wager £50, get 25 bonus which needs wagering once for withdrawal.

Blackjack is often recommended for good reason. It has a very slim House Advantage. On average ~99.5% of wagers placed on BJ are paid back out.

So for the above 2 examples:

1. £1250 wagered; Average Loss = 1250*0.005 = £6.25. With the bonus average gain (Expected Value EV) is £43.75

2. £550 wagered; Average Loss = 550*0.005 = £2.75. With bonus EV is £47.25.

These are only expected returns. The variance of these games means you could lose all of your deposit or win much more than the expected value of the promotion.

The Risk of Ruin (ie completely losing your deposit) on playing 500 BJ hands at £1 a stake with a £50 deposit is just over 6%. The paddypower signup is therefore over 90% chance you will make money from the offer playing optimal blackjack at £1/hand. Playing 500 hands will take a long while at first but after say 10,000 hands played you will be much more proficient. Upping the stakes of each hand should be put off due to the increased RoR or until your bankroll can take the hit of busting out more regularly.

A WORD OF WARNING: Bonus-bagging is still gambling - dont do it if you cant afford to lose the money you deposit.

However the bonuses swing the advantage towards the canny player who will "on average" come out with a high percentage of the bonus. The casinos offer the bonuses in the hope you become addicted and play with your own money - essentially a mugs game. (They would explain it as a method of attracting and retaining customers as they are unable to offer the complimentaries of B&M casinos. I suspect the EV of bonuses will dropoff remarkably over the next year or 2, attracting/retaining customers has been great for a IPO a la Partygaming but their stock seems to be declining so who knows how long this will last)

Read any signup Terms and Conditions very thoroughly before entering any promotion and stay away from poor return/high variance games like Slot Machines.

Much more info on the rpoints.com casino subforum (you need to sign up to view) with the added bonus of earning referall points for joining some casinos via their links. Also check out their betting (sports/financialspreads) forum for more (tax-free!) money making opps.

Also see http://www.wizardofodds.com for optimal BJ strategies, RoR figures etc.

[Rog]

Well there you go, a much better explanation than I would have offered!

[bazclef]

For anyone that's interested these are all of the casinos i've played bonses at over the last 4 months... they should all still have good sign-up or monthly bonuses on the go:

888 Casino-on-net
All Jackpots 
At The Races
Bet365
Betfred
Bet Direct
Blue Square
Casino Del Rio
Cinema Casino
Coral
Desert Dollar
Eurobet
FHM
Hard Rock
Harrods
Havana Casino
Interbingo
Ladbrokes
Littlewoods
Mansion Casino
Mummys Gold
Neteller
Paddy Power
Piggs Peak
Planetluck
Playboy
Prestige Casino
Red Lounge
Ritz Club
Royal Vegas
Skybetvegas
Sportingodds
Spin Room
Stan James
Starluck
Totalbet
The Price Is Right
Thunderluck
Trident Lounge
VC
Virgin
Wanadoo
Will Hill
WPT Online

Let me know if I can be of help with any advice on bonus bagging, but ZenArcade's little guide there is spot on.

[johnj]

.

[Cheeko]

For anyone that's interested these are all of the casinos i've played bonses at over the last 4 months... they should all still have good sign-up or monthly bonuses on the go:

Let me know if I can be of help with any advice on bonus bagging, but ZenArcade's little guide there is spot on.

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Out of interest, how much are you making in that 4months?

[bazclef]

Out of interest, how much are you making in that 4months?

3 of the months I've been working full time, so only spent around 4 hours a week on bagging. However I bagged £1900 in the month off I had before I started work.

Overall in the four months the running total is sitting at about £3700, cant remember exactly as I dont have access to my spreadsheet at the moment, which has every transaction recorded.

[Rog]

Here is a list of the casinos I've played at, many are repeated and lots of the offers will have changed now. Hopefully it'll be of some use!

http://www.onlinestorage.biz/users/Members...cnaug/Book2.xls

[Poet]

3 of the months I've been working full time, so only spent around 4 hours a week on bagging. However I bagged £1900 in the month off I had before I started work.

Overall in the four months the running total is sitting at about £3700, cant remember exactly as I dont have access to my spreadsheet at the moment, which has every transaction recorded.

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That's a sweet amount of cash. Need to start working on that ASAP!

[bazclef]

Here is a list of the casinos I've played at, many are repeated and lots of the offers will have changed now. Hopefully it'll be of some use!

http://www.onlinestorage.biz/users/Members...cnaug/Book2.xls

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Class man, i'll scan through that at the weekend.

[Rog]

The amount of cash you can make in the short term as you take advantage of signup offers is pretty impressive.

I caught onto the scheme about 18 months ago, and I've watched the offers dwindle & become less attractive in my time, on the aforementioned rpoints forum there are people that truely rinsed online casinos when they were first setting themselves up.

[Cheeko]

3 of the months I've been working full time, so only spent around 4 hours a week on bagging. However I bagged £1900 in the month off I had before I started work.

Overall in the four months the running total is sitting at about £3700, cant remember exactly as I dont have access to my spreadsheet at the moment, which has every transaction recorded.

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Holy McBagpipes!

So what are you playing to play out the bonuses then? and how? Blackjack and sticking to the optimum playing system-table-thingy?

[bazclef]

So what are you playing to play out the bonuses then? and how? Blackjack and sticking to the optimum playing system-table-thingy?

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Yep, generally blackjack... or if it's disallowed then Jacks or Better VideoPoker!

[Cheeko]

I'm liking this, I made a total and utter n00b mistake and I know you guys are going to be rolling your eyes at this but on my first blackjack bonus I was 100 pounds up(inc bonus) and decinded that playing 5hands at once would be much speedier, I idn't realise until way too late this doesn't work and ended up with 5pounds profit(but I knew when to cut my losses so nothing too bad)

Cleared the Williamhill casino this afternoon for a cool 105profit, will fire up another shortly

[Distinct muttering]

Ok, this sounds awesome.

I have a lot of free time on my hands for the next month or so.

I take it on Black jack we are talking about playing the hands out like the house would? Just sticking on anything over 16 (or is it 14?)?

Playing £1250 worth of hands for a £50 bonus sounds risky though. But then Im liking the sound of Baz £3k profit!

I think I should read all the posts again...

[Cheeko]

Also see http://www.wizardofodds.com for optimal BJ strategies, RoR figures etc.

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check that site out, it has a blackjack playing guide on there which tells you what to do depending on what cards you get, it's really simple

[Distinct muttering]

I'm liking this, I made a total and utter n00b mistake and I know you guys are going to be rolling your eyes at this but on my first blackjack bonus I was 100 pounds up(inc bonus) and decinded that playing 5hands at once would be much speedier, I idn't realise until way too late this doesn't work and ended up with 5pounds profit(but I knew when to cut my losses so nothing too bad)

Cleared the Williamhill casino this afternoon for a cool 105profit, will fire up another shortly

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So this was gambling £1250, to get the £50 bonus? I assume the other £55 was from winnings along the way?

How long did it take you to play all the hands required?

[Cheeko]

So this was gambling £1250, to get the £50 bonus?  I assume the other £55 was from winnings along the way?

How long did it take you to play all the hands required?

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Actually, strangely I deposited £50 and got £75 in bonus, not entirely sure about the amount I wagered, think it was about £1,500 which was in 2, then 3 pound bets on blackjack. £25 was playing profit.

You can go to the cashier and check out your bonus situation and how much you have left to play through.

Took me less than three hours I think. The account has to beopen for 72hours before you can withdraw anymoney.

[Distinct muttering]

Actually, strangely I deposited £50 and got £75 in bonus, not entirely sure about the amount I wagered, think it was about £1,500 which was in 2, then 3 pound bets on blackjack. £25 was playing profit.

You can go to the cashier and check out your bonus situation and how much you have left to play through.

Took me less than three hours I think. The account has to beopen for 72hours before you can withdraw anymoney.

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Did you need to put in more than your original £50, or did you manage the full thing on your original deposit?

Reckon I will do this tomorrow.

[Cheeko]

nah, I didn't touch the original deposit, went down to 70pounds was the lowest.

Just signed up to Ruby Fortune Casino, really confusing, they have this autoplay system which I set up but you have to play a ridiculous amount of hands so I set it to stop when the bonus ran out, which it did pretty quickly and I withdrew my original deopsit, don't like that one very much

[Rog]

I'll point out that playing £5 hands rather than £1 hands only makes a difference to the variance you'll experience, the expected return is the same no matter what the hand you play.

[ZenArcade]

I'm liking this, I made a total and utter n00b mistake and I know you guys are going to be rolling your eyes at this but on my first blackjack bonus I was 100 pounds up(inc bonus) and decinded that playing 5hands at once would be much speedier, I idn't realise until way too late this doesn't work and ended up with 5pounds profit(but I knew when to cut my losses so nothing too bad)

Cleared the Williamhill casino this afternoon for a cool 105profit, will fire up another shortly

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5 hands at once increases your variance, IE how far away from the Expected Value you could expect to finish on.

Just signed up to Ruby Fortune Casino, really confusing, they have this autoplay system which I set up but you have to play a ridiculous amount of hands so I set it to stop when the bonus ran out, which it did pretty quickly and I withdrew my original deopsit, don't like that one very much

A lot of casinos will not allow you to withdraw your deposit until wager requirements are met. The exceptions are cryptologic based ones such as Intercasino and WillHill. If you do withdraw prematurely you may get banned for bonus abuse and/or you will still have that wager requirement still to do if you attempt a monthly bonus.

[ZenArcade]

Ok, this sounds awesome.

I have a lot of free time on my hands for the next month or so. 

I take it on Black jack we are talking about playing the hands out like the house would?  Just sticking on anything over 16 (or is it 14?)?

Playing £1250 worth of hands for a £50 bonus sounds risky though.  But then Im liking the sound of Baz £3k profit!

I think I should read all the posts again...

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As someone else said you need to follow strategy for the type of BJ they offer. There are quite a few variations on BJ, and that changes strategy slightly.

For example if you fail to double and split where strategy tells you to then over many hands you are giving money to the casino.

Hitting on 16 vs dealer 10 may appear silly as most cases you will bust, but hitting means over many many hands you will come away with more wins than standing.

The first table here suffices for most online BJ.

http://wizardofodds.com/cryptologic

Many casinos will let you try out their games with play money. Perhaps do that until you fully understand strategy.

[Cheeko]

For anyone that's interested these are all of the casinos i've played bonses at over the last 4 months... they should all still have good sign-up or monthly bonuses on the go:

888 Casino-on-net
All Jackpots 
At The Races
Bet365
Betfred
Bet Direct
Blue Square
Casino Del Rio
Cinema Casino
Coral
Desert Dollar
Eurobet
FHM
Hard Rock
Harrods
Havana Casino
Interbingo
Ladbrokes
Littlewoods
Mansion Casino
Mummys Gold
Neteller
Paddy Power
Piggs Peak
Planetluck
Playboy
Prestige Casino
Red Lounge
Ritz Club
Royal Vegas
Skybetvegas
Sportingodds
Spin Room
Stan James
Starluck
Totalbet
The Price Is Right
Thunderluck
Trident Lounge
VC
Virgin
Wanadoo
Will Hill
WPT Online

Let me know if I can be of help with any advice on bonus bagging, but ZenArcade's little guide there is spot on.

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going through that list and reading the site t's and c's blakjack doesn't count towards playing out the bonuses, how did you do it, playing the slots games?

[Distinct muttering]

Ok, Im going to do William Hill this afternoon

[johnj]

.

[Distinct muttering]

Cheeko, can you tell me where exactlly it tells me how much cash I still have to play?

One thing this has taught me is never play blackjack online for real! You can totally tell its rigged. The scarey hands the dealer gets is unreal.

Afdter putting my 50 in, I got my 75 bonus. so 125.

I slowly grew to £145 using the wizard of odds gameplan. All good. Then an amazing losing streak took me down to £100!

I have now moved onto £2 hands and have got my pot back to £125, however I think I still have a long way to go (been playing for 2 hours)

Im feeling a tad nervous.