Casino bonuses have the ability to define a casino brand. Players actively seek out these fantastic promos to optimise their winning potential. As such, they have always been extremely popular at various sites around the world. Moreover, the UK has long been the home of some of the very best deals that the industry offers.
Types of bonus deals
Bonus offers usually come in two different varieties. This gives players a chance to enjoy a lot more free credit when they create an account at a new gambling site.
Some of these offers may be a casino no deposit bonus. And this means that customers don’t have to part with any cash to trigger the promo. They can simply sign up for a new account and enjoy the benefits.
But others will require you to make a transfer into your new casino account. And by doing this you can achieve one of the two following deals.
Bonus cash
Bonus credit is possible to find at many different casino sites. It gives you the opportunity to play loads of different casino games. Furthermore, you don’t have to spend your own cash to enjoy the action.
This is a very flexible deal as the variety of games on offer is usually quite vast. If you pay money into your account first, then you will usually find that the amount of bonus cash is much higher.
Freespins
An alternative type of credit that you might get is some spins to play on top slot games. And anyone who loves slot machines will gratefully receive this type of extra playing power.
Free spins no deposit are available at several different sites. So even without paying any of your own money, you can still get to play amazing titles.
Visiting a guide like Casino.xyz is one of the fastest ways to find free spins offers.
UK gambling laws
In the UK, there have been several changes to the gambling laws in recent years. They cover many different areas of the industry. And the largest shakeup in recent times has changed the way we play at casino sites. Moreover, they have changed the bonus offers.
The majority of rules are in place to protect people. These include minors and vulnerable people. In addition, the UK wants to make sure that only clean money is entering the gambling system.
Money laundering has been an issue in the past with many industries and not just casinos. So now, protocols are in place to ensure that casinos can guarantee a player’s funds are coming from the right place.
Other financial rules
Some casino laws are specifically aimed at reaping the rewards for the government and passing these benefits on to the taxpayer. Most casino sites previously had their operations held offshore. In addition, there was a good number with their headquarters in Gibraltar.
Offshore sites now need to apply for a licence to operate within the UK. And this helps to generate cash for the Gambling Commission. The Commission oversees all UK regulations in the industry.
And for sites in Gibraltar, they were hit with a big change to tax rules. Taxes were very small in this area in the past. This meant it was financially very favourable to keep a company headquartered in that zone.
But the UK government increased the tax rate dramatically. And now many of them don’t feel so much benefit from being situated in this territory.
These rules have also played a big part in shaping their bonus offers. And this doesn’t just apply to sites in Gibraltar, for example.
For a long time, casinos were able to offer large bonuses to their customers. And there were no worries about tax.
But the problem was that this cash was then entering the casino’s accounts and allowing them to profit from further deposits from a player. So it was deemed that bonus cash should stand as an income for the casino brand. Therefore, casino bonuses are also taxed as if they were simply money being used by a customer.
This led to a decrease in casino bonus availability. After that, it was very difficult to find huge offers. As a result, casino bonuses are now a lot less valuable than they used to be. This helps limit the impact on the casino’s tax position.
But it didn’t spell the end for top promo such as bonus spins.
Disappearing no deposit offers
In order to make a bonus viable for the casino, they need to offset the bonus tax that is heading into the government’s coffers. And the best way to achieve this is to ask for a deposit from a player upfront. And this is why the vast majority of deals these days require a cash input.
As a customer depositing your money, you will still enjoy fantastic promos. However, when you finish the bonus, your cash is still in your account. Players will then go on to spend their own deposit. And this gives a casino a chance to recoup some of those losses.
It creates a win-win situation. Players still manage to get their hands on some top promos. And the casino manages to limit the financial damage along the way.
Further implications
And an additional side effect of taxing bonuses is that the casinos began to limit the amount of winnings that players could receive. Furthermore, they introduced wagering requirements that were far more stringent.
Heightened wagering requirements means that players have to gamble with any bonus cash a good number of times before they can keep any of the winnings. And as we said, those winnings may be capped.
The popular name of this rule is the ‘maximum cashout’. So even if you do get your hands on a top bonus, there may be a limit to the amount of winnings that you can take out at the end of it.
So this is why it is always advisable to check the terms and conditions very carefully before you sign up for any offers.