What Is a Wagering Requirement? Wagering Requirements Explained

A wagering requirement (also called playthrough or rollover) is the total amount you must bet before you can withdraw a bonus or the winnings it produced. It is written as a multiplier, such as 35x, and the terms say what the multiplier applies to.

Take a €100 deposit with a 100% match bonus of €100 and 35x wagering on the bonus. You have to place bets worth €100 × 35 = €3,500 in total. You don't need €3,500 in your account. Every bet counts toward the total, win or lose, so a €1 spin adds €1 whether it pays nothing or €50. Your balance goes up and down while the wagered amount only goes up, until it reaches €3,500 or your balance runs out.

Casinos use wagering so that bonus money gets played instead of withdrawn the next minute. That part is reasonable. The problem is the size of the multiplier: above a certain level the house edge eats the bonus before you finish, and most players bust long before the target.

The same "35x" can mean very different amounts depending on what it is multiplied by. With a €100 deposit and a €100 bonus:

• 35x the bonus: €100 × 35 = €3,500 to wager.
• 35x deposit + bonus: (€100 + €100) × 35 = €7,000 to wager, twice as much for the same headline number.
• 35x free spin winnings: if 100 free spins win €12, you wager €12 × 35 = €420 before the €12 can be withdrawn.

Among the casinos we review the split is almost even: in our data 18 casinos apply the multiplier to deposit plus bonus and 20 to the bonus alone. You'll find the exact basis in the "Wagering" row of every review. Search the bonus terms for the words "deposit + bonus", "D+B" or "bonus amount" before you compare offers, because a 35x D+B offer is harder to clear than a 60x bonus-only offer of the same size.

Every bet loses a small amount on average. That amount is the house edge, which is 100% minus the game's RTP. A slot with 96% RTP keeps €4 of every €100 wagered in the long run. So the average cost of clearing a requirement is roughly amount to wager × house edge, and the bonus is worth claiming on average only when that cost is smaller than the bonus.

For a €100 bonus on a €100 deposit:

• 35x bonus: €3,500 × 4% = €140 average cost, so €40 below zero at 96% RTP. On a 97% RTP slot the cost is €105 and the result is about €5 below zero.
• 40x bonus: €4,000 × 4% = €160, so €60 below zero (€20 below at 97%).
• 50x bonus: €5,000 × 4% = €200, so €100 below zero.
• 60x bonus: €6,000 × 4% = €240, so €140 below zero.
• 35x deposit + bonus: €7,000 × 4% = €280, so €180 below zero.
• 10x deposit + bonus: €2,000 × 4% = €80, so €20 above zero.

The break-even point for bonus-only wagering is 1 divided by the house edge: 25x at 96% RTP and about 33x at 97% RTP. With deposit plus bonus on a 100% match it halves to 12.5x. Anything above that is a bonus that costs more than it gives, on average.

Two notes on reading these numbers. A negative figure doesn't mean you'll lose €180 of your own money. Your balance stops at zero, so in practice it means most players run out of balance before the target and a few finish with a win. And the model ignores caps and rules covered below, which only make the real picture worse. Our wagering calculator runs this for any offer, and the bonus value calculator adds the match percentage.

We record the welcome bonus wagering for every casino we review, with sources and a check date. For 38 of them we found a figure (PeerGame publishes no classic welcome bonus). Counting the main deposit bonus:

• 35x or lower: 16 casinos. Examples are Vavada (35x on the deposit bonus, 20x on free spin winnings), Coldbet (35x the bonus, 7 days, €5 max bet) and Legiano (35x deposit + bonus, 10 days).
• 40x: 17 casinos, including Celsius (40x on the first and second deposit, 45x on the third, 20 days, €5 max bet), BC.GAME and Stake.
• 50x: 4 casinos, Winity, Slot Mafia, RetroBet and N1Bet. N1Bet gives only 3 days in most sources.
• 60x: 1 casino. Mostbet, according to most sources (some deals are quoted at 35x).

None of them is below the 25x break-even line on a bonus-only basis, and not one comes close to the 10x that Danish-licensed sites are held to. That's why the bonus figures in our reviews always sit next to the wagering, and why we rate a smaller bonus with fair terms above a big one with 50x. The bonus codes page lists every current offer with its multiplier in one table.

Bonus terms include a contribution table. A game at 100% adds the full bet to your progress, one at 10% adds a tenth of it, and one at 0% doesn't count at all.

Slots usually count 100%. That's why almost every bonus is effectively a slots bonus.

Table games and live casino often count 0% to 20%. At 10%, clearing €3,500 of wagering takes €35,000 of blackjack bets. Some casinos also exclude low-risk betting patterns, such as covering red and black in roulette, and treat them as bonus abuse.

Excluded slots. Many terms list specific slots that don't count or are forbidden while a bonus is active. They're usually high-RTP games or ones with a bonus buy feature, the very games that would make wagering cheaper. Playing one can cost you the bonus, so check the list before you start.

Jackpot games are often excluded too, or count at a reduced rate.

If you want to know which slots have the best RTP, our highest RTP slots list shows the figures from the providers, and the RTP and volatility guide explains why some games come in several RTP versions. Make sure the version at your casino is the one you think it is.

The multiplier gets the attention, but these terms decide just as often whether you leave with anything:

Maximum bet. While a bonus is active most casinos cap your stake, commonly at €5 per spin or round. Celsius, Coldbet, Slot Mafia and several others in our list use €5; Spininio allows €12. One bet over the limit can be enough for the casino to cancel the bonus and everything won with it.

Time limit. You get a fixed number of days to finish: 20 at Celsius, 21 at Spininio, 7 at Winity and Coldbet, and 3 at N1Bet in most sources. At €1 a spin, €3,500 of wagering is 3,500 spins. If the deadline doesn't leave room for that at stakes you're comfortable with, the bonus will expire half done.

Maximum cashout or conversion cap. Many casinos limit how much bonus play can turn into cash, often 3x to 10x the bonus. In our reviews GG.Bet caps the welcome bonus conversion at 3x, Winity at 5x and Vavada at 10x the bonus. With a €100 bonus and a 5x cap, a lucky run to €2,000 still pays out €500.

Order of funds. At most casinos you play with your own deposit first and the bonus only kicks in when real money runs out, but some do it the other way round, and some lock the deposit until wagering is complete. Read this before you deposit, because it decides whether you can stop and withdraw your own money early.

Withdrawing early. Asking for a withdrawal before wagering is done usually cancels the bonus and its winnings. Some casinos let you keep your real-money balance; others don't. Our guide to bonus terms goes through the clauses that cost players most often.

Free spins usually come with wagering on the winnings rather than on the spins. Say you get 100 spins worth €0.10 each on a 96% RTP slot. On average they win about €9.60. At 40x you then need to wager €384 to release that €9.60, with an average cost of about €15, so the expected value ends at nothing. Most players see a small win get eaten during wagering and a few keep a decent amount.

No deposit bonuses often carry the highest multipliers and the tightest caps, typically a maximum cashout of €50 to €100. Treat them as a free trial of the casino rather than a way to make money. Our free spins value calculator shows the expected value of any spin offer, and the no deposit bonus guide explains the usual catches.

Free spins without wagering do exist, but they're rare at the casinos we cover. We only list an offer as no wagering when we've confirmed real 0x terms; see no wagering bonuses and low wagering free spins for what passed that check.

Some regulators have stopped leaving the multiplier to the casino.

Denmark. The Executive Order on online casinos (Bekendtgørelse om onlinekasino no. 682 of 11 June 2025, in force since 1 July 2025) says in § 29 that a promotion may be worth no more than DKK 1,000, that wagering may be at most 10 times the deposit and bonus, and that the player must get at least 60 days to meet the conditions. These rules bind casinos with a Danish licence, not the offshore casinos in our list.

United Kingdom. The Gambling Commission capped wagering on promotions at 10x from 19 January 2026 and banned bonuses that mix products, such as a casino bonus you can only unlock by betting on sport. The UK isn't one of our markets, but it shows where regulation is heading.

The casinos we review hold Curaçao or Anjouan licences, and those don't cap wagering. Our safe casino guide explains what those licences mean for players in Germany, Denmark, France and Bulgaria.

Not reliably. A requirement above the break-even line has a negative average result, and no betting system changes the house edge. What you can do is avoid paying more than you need to and decide in advance when to walk away.

Compare by cost, not by headline. Put the bonus amount, the multiplier and its basis into the wagering calculator. A €50 bonus at 20x is worth more than a €500 bonus at 50x.

Play an allowed slot with a high RTP. The difference between 94% and 97% RTP doubles your average cost. Check that the slot isn't on the excluded list.

Pick medium volatility. High-volatility slots give you a small chance of a big win and a big chance of busting early. Medium volatility keeps the balance alive longer, which helps when you need thousands of spins.

Stay under the max bet and inside the deadline. Write both down before you start.

Skip the bonus when it doesn't fit. Declining a welcome bonus is often the best option. You can withdraw your own money any time, without max bet rules or caps.

Set a loss limit. Decide how much of your deposit you're prepared to lose and stop there, whatever the progress bar says. If gambling stops being fun, our responsible gambling page lists the helplines and self-exclusion tools for each of our markets.

Checked on 10 November 2026: Bekendtgørelse om onlinekasino no. 682 of 11 June 2025 (retsinformation.dk), § 29 subsections 2, 4 and 9, and § 40 (in force 1 July 2025); UK Gambling Commission, consultation response on socially responsible incentives (10x wagering cap and ban on mixed-product promotions, in force 19 January 2026). Casino figures come from our review data (field "Wagering" and "Max cashout" in each review), each with its own sources and check date; where sources disagree, the reviews use the stricter figure. Calculations use the formula from our wagering calculator: expected value = bonus − (amount to wager × house edge).