Bonus Terms

Bonus offers are the first thing most players compare between casino sites, and the most misread. A headline match percentage or a free-spins count tells you almost nothing about what happens once you actually try to withdraw the money — that depends on the wagering structure attached to the bonus, and specifically on whether the bonus is sticky or non-sticky. A sticky bonus locks itself to your balance and is removed (along with any winnings tied to it) the moment you cash out, meaning the bonus funds themselves are never really yours to keep; a non-sticky bonus sits separately and can be withdrawn in full once its wagering requirement clears. Operators rarely explain this distinction in plain language on the promotions page — it’s usually buried in the general terms and conditions, several clicks away from the button that gets you to click “claim.”

This category exists to translate that fine print into something a player can actually act on before opting in, not after. The anchor piece here works through sticky-versus-non-sticky bonus money specifically: how each type behaves through a full deposit-play-withdraw cycle, what “eligible games” restrictions typically apply to wagering progress, and why a smaller non-sticky bonus can be worth more in practice than a larger sticky one. The goal is not to rank operators or claim one bonus is objectively “best” — bonus value depends entirely on how someone actually plays — but to make the mechanics legible enough that a reader can read any operator’s own terms and know what they’re looking at.

Expect this section to grow toward related bonus-structure topics as they come up: wagering requirement math, game-weighting tables, and the maximum-bet restrictions that can void an otherwise-cleared bonus. Anywhere a specific operator’s terms are referenced, they’re checked against that operator’s own published terms at the time of writing — see the Editorial Policy page for how that verification works and how often it’s rechecked.