Best crypto casino bonuses online

Crypto bonuses are a great way for those who have never tried an online crypto casino to familiarise themselves with how it works without risking too much of their own capital. For more experienced crypto gamblers, it is a way to leverage their bankroll while evaluating the offering.

As a general rule, crypto casino bonuses are variations and combinations of three things:

1. a trigger,
2. a reward, and
3. a set of rules on how the reward can be used.

Let us demonstrate with one of the most common bonus types, the matched crypto deposit bonus.

A crypto bonus example

A matched deposit bonus forms the basis of more or less every welcome bonus at crypto casinos. A "welcome bonus" is simply the term for a bonus package given to new players. The crypto casino wants you to start playing and to incentivise that they will offer a deposit bonus.

The casino operator will match your first (second, and even third) deposit to some degree. The reward amount will be expressed as a percentage, where 100% means you will be matched 1 to 1. 200%, 1 to 2, and so forth.

• Example: A matched deposit bonus expressed as 200% up to 2 BTC can net you 3 BTC to play for. One deposited by you and two matched by the casino. Your deposit triggers the reward (up to 2 BTC).

Let us deposit 1 bitcoin, get 2 bitcoins, and withdraw it!

Not so fast!

Sorry, a crypto welcome bonus is not a free money glitch. Most welcome casino bonuses will come with something called a wagering requirement.

This will state how many times you need to wager your reward (and sometimes even the deposit), which games you are allowed to play, and within what time frame. When the wagering requirement has been fulfilled, the crypto reward is yours to do with as you please.

The most important part about crypto casino bonuses is the wagering requirement. The wagering requirement is how the crypto casino makes sure players do not abuse their bonus offers. At its fundamental level, it states that in order to withdraw the credited bonus amount, we need to first wager it X times. Fair enough.

All bonuses also come with terms and conditions. These rules are closely related to what counts towards the wagering requirement. They influence how easy or hard it is to clear a bonus (fulfill the wagering requirement). Here are three points to look out for that affect the wagering requirement:

1. If the wagering requirement applies to both the deposited funds and bonus, or only the received bonus. If both, it effectively doubles the number.
2. If wagering starts straight away or if we first must spend our deposit. If we first must spend our own crypto, we have less capital to work with when turning over the required amount. If we have a tight expiration time and we also lose precious time.
3. If it is a “Playthrough bonus.” This type of bonus awards us in increments as we play, like a wagering requirement in reverse. We will have less capital to work with, but what we manage to clear we get to keep.

Over the years players have produced clever ways to beat wagering requirements, and once the casino finds out they make an addendum to the rules.

One “trick” from the early days of casino bonuses was to bet on both red and black at the roulette. This meant that players only lost on a zero and could turn over big amounts with almost no risk. Today it is standard that if roulette bets cover more than 70% of the possible outcomes, they will not count towards a wagering requirement. Similar strategies in other games will risk your funds being confiscated, even if not explicitly stated.

There will also be a list of specifically named games for which the bonus does not count at all. These games might even be unavailable when we have an active bonus. This list primarily includes slots that either have an exceptionally high RTP or if there is a way to progress towards a bonus round.

The game Scrooge from Microgaming is a classic example of a progression based bonus hack. In it we count down the days to Christmas (a lucrative free spins round). Here the goal was not to clear the bonus, but rather to use the bonus to increase the value of future free spins (average bet when collecting days). It even required the player to make an additional deposit mid-game.

1. The player deposited, got a bonus, and opened the game.
2. The player kept spinning at a fairly high bet level, raising it further when getting closer to Christmas Day, to make sure they ran out of funds before getting there.
3. Them running out of funds meant that they were no longer bound by any bonus rules or wagering requirements.
4. An in-game deposit then allowed them to continue playing, triggering the bonus round with their own money. This way they were able to keep all winnings, wager free.

Sometimes that bonus round would not cover the full cost, but when players got lucky it made up for the times they did not. Rinse and repeat at several casinos a day, combined with separate accounts for family members, and they basically had free money on tap.

Instead of free crypto, us latecomers instead got a huge list of games that we cannot play with an active bonus and only one bonus per household/IP.

There are two main classes of bonus triggers. One is very specific, and the other is extremely vague and inclusive.

Deposit bonuses

The deposit bonus makes a player eligible for a bonus when depositing a minimum amount. It does not say anything about what is rewarded. A free spins bonus that requires a deposit is by definition a deposit bonus, but the term "deposit bonus" is sloppily used interchangeably with "matched deposit bonus".

No-deposit bonuses

The second class is the no-deposit crypto bonus. This is a much more inclusive class that basically includes anything but a deposit. Example triggers include, but are in no way limited to:

• Creating a crypto casino account
• Nothing (an airdropped gift)
• Wagering a certain amount
• Logging in for three consecutive days
• Losing crypto (cashback)
• Sharing something on Social Media

The kinds of bonuses at crypto casinos can be classified into three categories. By definition, they all give discounted access to casino games in some way, but with different approaches and levels of flexibility.

Free crypto in our account

Extra crypto to play with is the most flexible bonus type, and arguably the best crypto casino bonus. It can be used in a wide variety of games and with a wager level to your liking (although often capped at an equivalent of 5 USDT per game round). Most importantly, it can be converted into real crypto and transferred out of the casino, to your personal wallet.

Free game rounds

Here we find the Free Spins Bonus. A Free Spin is a free game round in an online slot. Free Spins are limited in the sense that they are tied to a specific game at a predefined wager level.

Wins from the spins, rather than the value of the spins themselves, are usually treated as bonus crypto funds and subject to a wagering requirement. The best kind of free spins comes without wagering requirements.

Free Player Points

Most crypto casinos have some kind of points-based loyalty program in place. These can often in turn be exchanged for the above two bonus types.

Although not that common, these points can be in the form of a native token and even NFTs indicating VIP level or giving some other perk. This is something we wish more crypto casinos would implement. It is exactly what blockchains do best!

At crypto casinos you can use hundreds of different tokens on dozens of networks, and crypto casinos are sometimes offering different bonuses for different tokens. This can logically happen in two ways, both are common:

1. Deposit a cryptocurrency and get a crypto bonus in the same cryptocurrency.
2. Deposit a cryptocurrency and get a crypto bonus in another cryptocurrency (most likely a stablecoin or reward token).

We have never seen a crypto casino bonus where you are allowed to mix-and-match and freely decide which cryptocurrency you want to be rewarded in. In other words: there are no opportunities to arbitrage or game a welcome bonus based on price. At least not to any valuable extent. There can still be ways to get a better bonus by using a different token or chain.

Research which cryptocurrency gives the best bonus before making your first deposit

Many crypto casinos are lazy and do not actively manage their welcome bonus offers. A common practice is to come up with a BTC bonus value and roughly translate that into currency equivalents. And when we say roughly, we mean it: We have seen crypto casino bonuses where 1 BTC is the "currency equivalent" of 10 ETH and 10,000 USDT. This is not necessarily an act of ignorance. The crypto casino may simply desire BTC over USDT.

For this reason, our crypto gambling guide features dedicated sections for casino bonuses based on the cryptocurrency rewarded (which, in most cases, coincides with what you need to deposit). Crypto bonuses can then be easily compared on minimum deposit amounts, maximum values, and wagering requirements.

In our crypto casino reviews, we also list the different deposit bonus offers if there are alternative offerings based on cryptocurrency choice.