What a Wagering Requirement Means
A wagering requirement, also called playthrough or rollover, is the condition attached to most casino bonuses. It sets how much you must stake in total before bonus money, or the winnings made with it, becomes cash you can withdraw. It is written as a multiplier, such as 35x, applied to a stated amount: either the bonus alone or the deposit and the bonus together.
Wagering counts the value of the bets you place, not what you lose. Bet £1 a spin and 100 spins add £100 to your progress, whether those spins win or lose. That is why a requirement of several thousand pounds does not mean you need several thousand pounds: the same balance goes round many times. It is also why many players never finish. Each spin has the house edge built in, so a bigger requirement gives that edge more rounds to eat into your balance before you finish.
Three numbers decide how demanding an offer is:
- The multiplier, for example 20x, 35x or 50x.
- The basis it is applied to: the bonus only, or the deposit plus the bonus.
- The time limit, which ranges from 24 hours to 30 days among the casinos we review.
Everything else in the terms, such as game weighting, the maximum bet and cash-out caps, either makes those numbers harder to meet or limits what you keep once you have met them.
Bonus Only or Deposit Plus Bonus
What the multiplier is applied to counts for as much as the multiplier itself. Take a £100 deposit with a 100% match, giving you £100 of bonus money:
- At 35x the bonus, the target is 35 × £100 = £3,500.
- At 35x deposit plus bonus, the target is 35 × £200 = £7,000.
The headline multiplier is the same, the betting is doubled. That is why a smaller multiplier on deposit plus bonus can still be the harder target: when the match is 100%, 20x on the deposit plus the bonus needs exactly as much betting as 40x on the bonus. As a rule of thumb, double a deposit-plus-bonus figure to compare it with a bonus-only figure when the match is 100%. With a bigger match the gap narrows, and with a smaller match it widens.
Worked Examples from Real Offers
The table applies the first-deposit terms of six casinos we review to the same £100 deposit. The totals are our arithmetic from the terms as published on 7 November 2026; the casino’s own terms remain the final word.
| Casino and first-deposit offer | Bonus on £100 | Wagering as published | Total bets needed | Time to complete |
|---|
| Spinchester, 100% up to £1,000 | £100 | 35x the bonus amount | £3,500 | 7 days after activation |
| Casea, 100% up to £2,500 | £100 | 20x deposit plus bonus | £4,000 | 10 days after activation |
| Betportal, 150% up to £500 | £150 | 35x the bonus only, deposit excluded | £5,250 | 14 days after activation |
| Spinfin, 100% up to £2,000 | £100 | 30x deposit plus bonus | £6,000 | 10 days after activation |
| X3bet, 100% up to £1,000 | £100 | 35x deposit plus bonus | £7,000 | 10 days after activation |
| Mr Baron, 250% welcome bonus | £250 | 50x the bonus only, on slots | £12,500 | Not confirmed |
Read across the rows and the order changes. Casea’s 20x looks like the lowest figure, yet on deposit plus bonus it asks for more betting than Spinchester’s 35x on the bonus alone. Betportal’s 150% match gives a bigger bonus than a 100% match, so the same 35x produces a larger total. Mr Baron’s 250% match gives the largest bonus in the table and, at 50x, by far the largest requirement.
What You Can Keep: Cash-Out Caps
Finishing the wagering is not always the end of the story, because many offers cap how much bonus play can turn into withdrawable cash. For the same £100 deposit:
- Betportal caps withdrawable winnings at 5x the initial bonus: £750 on a £150 bonus.
- X3bet caps cash-out from bonus play at 6x the bonus amount: at most £600 on a £100 bonus, the same example its terms give.
- Spinfin caps cash-out at 3x the bonus amount: £300 on a £100 bonus.
- Casea caps conversion to real money at 10x the bonus amount: £1,000 on a £100 bonus.
- Mr Baron caps cash-out from bonus winnings at 20x the deposit: £2,000 on a £100 deposit.
Other casinos tie the cap to the deposit or to the size of the match. Slotorado limits winnings from its standard first-deposit bonus to three times the deposit, with a ceiling of £250, and Andromedasino’s general bonus terms, unless an offer says otherwise, scale the cap with the match: 10x the deposit for a 100–119% bonus, falling to 3x the deposit for a bonus of 200% or more. Free-spin winnings usually have a separate cap of their own; at Spinfin, for example, no more than £50 of them can move to your real balance.
Game Weighting: Why Your Choice of Game Matters
Not every bet counts in full. Casinos publish a contribution table, and a game that contributes 10% adds only a tenth of each stake to your progress. Betninja’s terms are typical:
| Game type at Betninja | Contribution | A £10 bet adds |
|---|
| Slots | 100% | £10 |
| All live games, including live roulette and blackjack | 10% | £1 |
| Table games | 5% | £0.50 |
| Jackpot games | 0% | Nothing |
At those rates, £3,500 of wagering takes £3,500 of slot bets, £35,000 on live roulette or £70,000 on table games. Some casinos go further and keep whole categories out of bonus play. Bonus funds at Spinfin and X3bet cannot be used on jackpot slots, Slingo, bingo or instant and crash games, while Betportal restricts bonus play to slots and bars both table games and Bonus Buy features. At Slotroyals, roulette counts 10% (live roulette excluded), while live casino games, blackjack and video poker count 0%. Betninja also names individual slots that cannot be played with a bonus unless an offer says otherwise, among them Reactoonz, Dead or Alive and Blood Suckers.
For jackpot players the lesson is simple: a bonus is rarely the way to play for a progressive prize, because jackpot games are usually excluded or count 0%. If a jackpot is what you are after, read our explainer on progressive jackpot types before you spend anything.
Maximum Bet Rules
While a bonus is active, most casinos cap your stake, and going over the cap, even once, can cost you the bonus and everything won with it. The limits vary more than many players expect:
| Casino | Maximum bet with an active bonus |
|---|
| Slotorado, Spinchester, Spinfin, X3bet, Betportal | £5 per spin or bet |
| Slotroyals | The lower of £5 and 5% of the bonus |
| Andromedasino | Between £0.50 and £5; smaller or larger bets do not count |
| Mr Baron | Any single stake worth 30% or more of your latest deposit is treated as abusive play |
| Casea | £100 |
| Flutterhall | No maximum bet while playing with a bonus |
Two of these need a closer look. At Slotroyals a £40 bonus means a ceiling of £2 a spin, not £5, because 5% of £40 is lower. At Mr Baron the limit moves with your deposit: the operator’s own example is a £25 deposit, which allows a maximum bet of £7.49. Watch bought features too. Spinchester counts in-game bonus buys within its £5 limit, and Betninja’s terms count bonus buys and gamble features at their full cost.
Expiry and Time Limits
Two clocks often run at once: one to claim or activate the bonus and one to finish the wagering. Miss either and the bonus, along with its winnings, is removed.
- Zizobet: 5 days from activation to complete 30x deposit plus bonus.
- Slotorado: the standard first-deposit bonus is valid for 3 days from award and gives 72 hours to wager once activated; the standard third-deposit bonus allows 24 hours.
- Betportal: 14 days from activation.
- Andromedasino: 30 days from activation for its welcome bonuses.
A short deadline and a large requirement together mean a high stake per day. £7,000 of wagering in 10 days is £700 of bets every day. If that is more than you would normally bet, the bonus does not fit your budget, and turning it down is a perfectly sensible choice.
Sticky and Non-Sticky Bonuses
Casinos handle the order of play and withdrawals in two main ways.
- Non-sticky bonuses keep your deposit and the bonus in separate balances, and your real money is played first. If you win while still on your own money, you can usually withdraw and give up the bonus. Spinobon’s terms describe it this way: you may withdraw your deposit before the wagering is complete, but you then lose the bonus and its winnings. Flutterhall, Betportal and Spinchester also describe their bonuses as non-sticky.
- Sticky bonuses can be played with but never withdrawn themselves. Candyland’s terms call its bonus money sticky: it comes off your balance once a withdrawal is processed. At Buffalo Spins, bonus funds can never be withdrawn, and withdrawing real money before the requirement is complete sets the bonus balance back to £0.00.
Casinos do not all use these labels the same way, so check what the terms say happens to your balance on withdrawal rather than relying on the word on the offer. Some casinos also merge the two balances: Zizobet’s terms say bonus and real funds are merged, so cancelling the bonus or letting it expire removes the bonus balance, the winnings made with it and the related wagering. At Slotroyals, anything you win with a bonus running is added to the bonus balance, and you cannot ask for a withdrawal until that bonus is over.
Free Spins and No-Wager Offers
Free spins usually carry wagering on their winnings rather than on a fixed bonus amount, and often at a different multiplier from the match bonus. Vibrobet sets 35x on the bonus amount but 40x on whatever the free spins win; Casea’s 20x deposit plus bonus comes with 40x on spin winnings.
Offers without wagering do exist, usually as one part of a package rather than all of it:
- Buffalo Spins: the whole welcome offer is 50 Big Bass Splash spins, unlocked by depositing £10 and staking £10, and whatever they win lands as cash with 0x wagering. Any cap on those winnings is left to the company’s discretion and no figure is published.
- Spinchester: the three-deposit pack carries 225 free spins with no wagering; winnings from them are yours up to £50 per batch from the first and second deposits and up to £100 from the third, while the cash part of the pack is wagered 35x the bonus amount.
- Mr Baron: choose Welcome Cash instead of the bonus and each of the first three deposits, from £25, earns 50% extra as cash with no wagering; withdrawals of winnings made from that cash are capped at 20x the cash amount.
- Bet4star: pick Welcome Cashback instead of the package and up to 25% of your net losses over the first two days comes back as real money without wagering; day one requires £100 or more deposited.
Our no wagering casinos guide compares the wager-free offers we found across the 30 casinos we review.
How this guide is funded: The Mountain Air earns a commission from some casinos when a reader signs up via our links. Those payments play no part in the scores we give or the order of the low-wagering list below, and whatever the casino’s own terms say is what you actually get. 18+.
