Leaderboard Bonuses
Usually, leaderboard promotions are structured such that the players who wager the best softswiss casino most money on a certain “featured game” over the next week or month are paid bonuses or free spins.
For example, one online casino in New Jersey recently held a month-long race in which players earned leaderboard points for making deposits and placing wagers. The promotion awarded $60,000 in total prizes to the top 500 leaderboard players, including a $10,000 free play bonus for the first-place winner.
Refer-a-Friend Bonuses
Word-of-mouth marketing is known to be highly effective, and many casinos are willing to pay customers to refer their friends. A typical refer-a-friend bonus is claimed by logging in, visiting the “refer-a-friend” tab and then inputting the e-mails of any friends who may be interested in signing up and playing.
In most cases, the referrer and the new player both receive a referral bonus in addition to any standard new customer offers. For example, a casino might offer the existing customer and the new customer $50 each in bonus money.
There is almost always some kind of qualification that must be met for both players to earn their referral bonuses. This might be the new customer having to make a first deposit of at least $25 or wagering at least $25 before the bonuses are awarded.
Loss Refund Guarantee
Loss refund bonuses are rare but often quite valuable when they can be found. A loss refund offer promises to cover a new customer’s losses up to a certain amount if luck doesn’t go their way.
Tropicana Casino and Virgin Casino in New Jersey are two prime examples of casinos with this type of welcome offer. Rather than giving new customers a sign-up bonus that must be cleared, both casinos guarantee to refund players with real money (up to $100) if they end up down money after one week of play. The best part is both casinos’ refunds are issued as actual withdrawable cash, not as bonus money.
Casino Bonus Codes
Licensed USA casinos have taken a page from their international brethren by introducing bonus codes on a widespread scale. For any newbies reading this, bonus codes are certain phrases that unlock promotions during the registration or deposit process.
Bonus codes are requested either during registration or on the deposit page in a field labeled “bonus code,” “promo code” or “referral code.” Entering a valid code at this stage qualifies the customer to receive a bonus.
Occasionally, online casinos release exclusive promo codes that qualify customers to receive an enhanced welcome bonus, usually bigger than the standard bonus publicly advertised. However, in most cases, it actually doesn’t matter whether a bonus code is even entered at all; most casinos give the same welcome bonus to all customers.
Gambling sites mainly use bonus codes for marketing purposes. Not only does the idea of a secret code that unlocks a special bonus provide a sense of exclusivity, it also helps the casino track its various paigns (i.e. a casino operator might announce one bonus code on radio ads, a different code on TV ads and yet another on online ads even though all three codes give customers exactly the same bonus).
Still, if a customer has a bonus code, it is best to enter it to ensure the player receives the best bonus possible. Any promo codes seen at are up-to-date and ensure gamblers earn a healthy welcome bonus.
How Online Casino Bonuses Work
The basic idea behind bonus codes is to give gamblers an incentive to sign up, make a deposit or play a certain game. Casinos are willing to spend a little money upfront on bonus offers in return for signing up new players, some of whom will stick around and become regular customers.
