Responsible gambling
Edited checked by editorsby the EasyPlay.Vegas desk825 words
A bonus is an incentive to play more — that is what it is for, and a wagering requirement is the mechanism. A site that explains bonus terms for a living has to say that out loud, and has to say what to do about it.
21+ None of the operators listed here is licensed by a US state regulator; where you may legally play depends on your state. We take no bets, hold no money and run no games — every button leads to the operator’s own site, and the terms are theirs. T&Cs apply to every offer. How this site is paid.
On this page (7)
The part a bonus site owes you
Everything else on this site is about getting the most out of an offer. This page is about the cost of that, and it is not a formality. A wagering requirement is a contract to keep playing: it rewards turnover, it runs on a clock, and both of those push in the same direction. If you only take one thing from the site, take this: decide what you are spending before you claim anything, and let the offer be worth whatever it is worth inside that amount.
Casino play is entertainment you pay for. It is not income, it is not a way out of a hole, and no bonus changes the arithmetic of the games it is played on. You must be 21 or over.
Before you claim: a procedure, not a rule
We do not publish a limit for you, because a number we invented would be worth nothing. The procedure is yours to run:
- Decide the amount you are prepared to lose this month, and treat it as spent the moment you deposit it. If the answer is «nothing», the correct bonus is no bonus.
- Set the operator's deposit limit to that amount before you claim, not after. Afterwards is when it feels unreasonable.
- Work out what the offer asks of you — the turnover the wagering multiple implies, and the deadline it has to happen inside. The casino payouts section has calculators that do the arithmetic from your own figures — including what a withdrawal ceiling does to a balance and what reaches your wallet after the fees — and nothing you type into them is stored or sent anywhere.
- If the required turnover is more than you were willing to stake anyway, the offer is not a gift, it is a reason to overspend. Decline it.
- Never deposit to meet a deadline. An expiry window that is about to run out is the single most expensive moment in any bonus.
Tools the operator already has
Licensed and unlicensed operators alike generally carry some version of these, usually under «responsible gaming» in account settings. Set them when you open the account, while it is still an abstract decision:
- Deposit limits — per day, week or month. The most effective single control there is, because it acts before the money is in play.
- Loss and wager limits, where offered.
- Session reminders and session limits, which interrupt the thing that makes time disappear.
- Cooling-off — a short lock on the account, usually days or weeks.
- Self-exclusion — a long one, and on most sites it cannot be reversed before it expires. That is the point of it.
If an operator makes those hard to find, or asks you to write to support to set a deposit limit, that tells you something about the operator.
Signs it has stopped being entertainment
No checklist diagnoses anyone, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. But these are the patterns the help organizations describe, and they are worth reading honestly rather than quickly:
- Playing to win back what you lost, rather than for the play itself.
- Depositing money that was meant for something else.
- Hiding how much or how often you play from people close to you.
- Borrowing, selling or going without to keep playing.
- Feeling that you cannot stop while a bonus is still live.
- Restlessness or irritation when you try to cut back.
If any of that is familiar, the people on the other end of the line below have heard it many times and will not lecture you.
Protecting someone else
If the person you are worried about is not you: Gam-Anon exists for families, and the helpline takes calls from them too. Banks in the United States increasingly offer a gambling block on card transactions — ask yours. Self-exclusion can be set on the account itself, and on most sites it is the one decision that cannot be undone in a bad hour.
If this has stopped being entertainment
The National Problem Gambling Helpline is 1-800-MY-RESET (1-800-697-3738). It takes calls and texts, has a chat service at 1800myreset.org, runs every day of the year and covers all fifty states. It is free, confidential and not a sales line for anybody.
It is not a crisis line. If someone is in danger right now, call 911, or 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
Two more places, both independent of us and of any operator: Gamblers Anonymous for the person playing, and Gam-Anon for the family around them.
More from the desk
- About usWho writes this site, what it does not do, and how it is paid.
- Editorial policyWhat we publish, how a mistake gets corrected, and who decides.
- How we rateThe questions the procedure asks — and the ones it cannot answer.
- Legality by stateWhich states license online casino play, and what offshore costs you.
