Evolution of bonus programs in online casinos

It’s hard to imagine literally any online casino to exist without bonuses. Some sites provide more gifts, some – less, but it is impossible to overestimate their importance both for players and for the platforms itselves, because they help to attract new audiences and interest active users even more. It is worth mentioning the promotions, in which players of different sites can receive gifts from both the casino itself and its partners.

Today we are used to a huge variety of bonuses in online casino – when registering people get the first gifts, making deposits – additional interest, and losing – cashback or reimbursement of bets. However, this has not always been the case – in the past, bonuses were many times less, and they worked in a completely different way. Now we can look at the history of bonus programs.

Most common deposit rewards

They started appearing along with the first online casinos in the 1990s. Match bonuses were the first structured programs for players and allowed them to double or triple their balance.

Freespins

Depending on the huge popularity of this type of games, gambling platforms began to offer free spins to everyone without exceptions – first of all, beginners, followed by active players got the same opportunity. Spinning slots without spending their own money seemed quite favorable, so this type of awards began to be used to advertise new games appearing on the sites.

Appearance of grant-free bonuses

As early as the 2000s, sites with no-deposit rewards appeared more and more often. The platforms did not require anything from users, giving them a small set of starting resources to play with. This allowed people to familiarize themselves with the workings of many games and see if they liked spending time on a particular site.

More often than not, the only restriction was the wagering with the bonuses provided, but some online casinos went further and offered no requirements (the ability to withdraw any amount won). Of course, after a couple of years, there are no such platforms left. But no deposit bonuses with minimum wagering requirements can still be found today.

Multiplying bonuses

After many years, even popular casinos had a need to stand out from the rest, and so bonuses also had to be experimented with and taken to the next level. This is how reload and loyalty bonuses aimed not at beginners, but at active users who use the site regularly appeared. All this raised the interest of the audience and influenced the originality of game providers.

Modern personalised bonuses 

The evolution has led players to offer bonuses in mobile apps, welcome kits of all sorts of resources, and even individual rewards – online casinos now work with AI algorithms to track audience activity and provide individual users with bonuses for games which they like the most. Also, various VIP programs started to appear – they provide more privileges than a simple loyalty program, but have different requirements.

To understand how bonuses work, it’s better to find a licensed online casino. Below are a few examples – the first site is known for the highest number of rewards, the last one for the lowest:

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