A bonus page says “100% match up to $100, 35x wagering”. Most people read the first half and skip the second. The second half is where the money goes.
This guide explains wagering requirements from the player’s perspective. You’ll see how the multiplier turns into a dollar figure, why “35x” can mean two very different amounts, how game weighting stretches that figure, and how to estimate what a bonus will cost. Every example uses round $ numbers and no real casino offer.
Slots are random (RNG), so none of this changes your odds on a spin. It only changes how much you must bet before the bonus money, or anything you won with it, becomes yours.
Wagering Requirements Explained in One Formula
Wagering requirements, also called playthrough requirements, turnover or rollover, are the total you must bet before bonus funds and the winnings they produce can be withdrawn. The multiplier says how many times over you stake a base amount.
Required bets = base amount x multiplier
With a $20 bonus at 35x, you need to place $700 in qualifying bets. Not lose $700. Bet $700. At $0.50 a spin, that’s 1,400 spins. Winnings made along the way stay in the bonus balance and keep cycling through the requirement until the $700 is reached.
“Qualifying bets” are bets that count toward the total (see weighting below), and the “bonus balance” is the money locked behind the requirement. More terms like these are defined in our slot machine terms.
Bonus Only vs Deposit Plus Bonus
The same “35x” can mean $1,750 or $3,500. The difference is what the operator multiplies.
Example A, bonus only
- You deposit $50 and get a $50 bonus.
- Terms say 35x the bonus.
- 35 x $50 = $1,750 in required bets.
Example B, deposit plus bonus
- Same $50 deposit and $50 bonus.
- Terms say 35x the deposit and bonus.
- 35 x ($50 + $50) = $3,500 in required bets.
Example B doubles the work, and both are correctly described as “35x”. Look for the phrase “deposit + bonus” or “D+B”. If the terms don’t say, assume the larger base until you’ve confirmed otherwise.
Game Weighting and Contribution Rates
Not every bet counts in full. Operators assign a contribution percentage to each game type, and only that share of your stake is credited toward the requirement.
Slots are usually weighted at 100%. Table games, live dealer games and video poker are often weighted far lower, and some games are excluded. A worked example cited in the UK Gambling Commission’s consultation response uses a roulette game weighted at 30%, so each £1 staked counts as 30 pence toward the requirement.
In dollars, on the $700 requirement from earlier.
- Slot at 100% weighting, $1 bet counts as $1. You need $700 in bets.
- Table game at 30% weighting, $1 bet counts as $0.30. You need about $2,333 in bets.
Weighting lists change. A slot can drop from 100% to 50%, or become excluded while a bonus is active, often because of a high default RTP. Check the list on the day you accept the bonus. For background, see Ugrado’s guide to RTP and volatility.
How to Estimate What a Bonus Will Cost You
The official Gates of Olympus 2500 demo shows the game’s RTP in its rules screen.
Wagering requirements don’t say how much you’ll lose. RTP gives you a way to estimate it.
RTP (return to player) is the long-run average a slot pays back, so a 96% RTP slot keeps 4% of total bets over a very large number of spins. Multiply the required bets by that house share and you have the expected cost of clearing the requirement.
Expected cost = required bets x (1 minus RTP)
On a 96% RTP slot, the earlier examples work out like this.
- $20 bonus at 35x. $700 x 4% = $28 expected cost against a $20 bonus.
- $50 bonus at 35x bonus only. $1,750 x 4% = $70 against a $50 bonus.
- $50 bonus at 35x deposit plus bonus. $3,500 x 4% = $140 against a $50 bonus.
Swap in a 94% RTP version of the same game, which operators can run (see Ugrado’s guide to RTP versions), and the $3,500 requirement now costs $210 on average. Ugrado’s bonus calculator runs the same sums if you’d rather not do them by hand.
Two cautions. It’s an average, and a single session will land well above or below it, with volatility deciding how far. And it ignores the cashout cap, covered below.
Max Bet Rules While Wagering
Gates of Olympus 2500 in the official Pragmatic Play demo. The Buy Feature panel on the left is the kind of option many bonus terms exclude.
Nearly every bonus comes with a maximum stake per spin or per hand while the requirement is active, with $5 per spin a common limit. The danger for you is the penalty. Terms often state that a bet above the cap voids the bonus and any winnings made from it. Some operators block the oversized bet in the game client; others allow it and apply the penalty afterwards, so don’t rely on the software to protect you. Bonus buys, where you pay a multiple of your stake to enter the free spins round, can push a single purchase far beyond the cap, and many terms exclude them while a bonus is active (see Ugrado’s bonus buy guide).
Time Limits and Max Cashout Caps
A wagering requirement usually comes with a clock. The terms give a window, measured in days, to complete the playthrough, and when it runs out the remaining bonus balance and its winnings are removed. A deadline is a bad reason to raise your stake.
A max cashout limits what you can withdraw from bonus winnings even after clearing the requirement. Clear a $20 bonus, finish with $400 in the bonus balance, and a $100 cap means $300 disappears at withdrawal. Caps are most common on no deposit bonuses and free spins, but appear on deposit bonuses too.
If the expected cost of clearing is $28 and the most you can ever withdraw is $100, the ceiling is low and the floor is losing your own deposit.
Free Spins Wagering
With free spins, the wagering usually applies to what the spins win, not to the spins themselves.
Say you receive 20 free spins at a fixed $0.10 stake and they return $8 in total. The terms say 40x on free spin winnings, so you need to bet 40 x $8 = $320 before the $8, or whatever it has become, can be withdrawn.
Some operators credit free spin winnings as cash with no wagering, and some apply a max cashout but no multiplier. Ugrado’s free spins guide covers the different types.
What Regulators Say About Wagering Terms
The Gambling Commission’s March 2025 announcement of the new promotion rules.
Most operators set wagering requirements at whatever level they choose. One regulator has set a hard ceiling.
The UK Gambling Commission’s Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (social responsibility code 5.1.1) tells its licensees they must not “apply wagering requirements, which requires a customer to play through bonus funds, over a maximum of 10 times”. The same code bans incentives that mix more than one type of gambling product (betting, casino, bingo and lottery) in one offer. Both rules came into force on 19 January 2026.
The Commission’s announcement gives the example of a £10 bonus with a 50x requirement, which obliges a player to stake £500 before any winnings can be withdrawn. Its stated concern is that high requirements “could confuse consumers and lead them to gamble for longer, and faster, than they are used to”. Outside Great Britain, 30x to 50x remains common, so treat 10x as a benchmark for a low requirement rather than the norm.
Common Traps to Check Before You Accept
Run these five checks on any offer, including the ones in our casino bonus listings.
- Deposit plus bonus wording. Doubles the requirement on a 100% match.
- Sticky bonuses. Your deposit is locked together with the bonus until wagering is complete. Non-sticky bonuses let you play with cash first.
- Excluded games. A game you can launch is not always a game that counts.
- Withdrawal before completion. Requesting a cash withdrawal with an active bonus often cancels the bonus and its winnings.
- Payment method exclusions. Certain deposit methods are excluded from bonus eligibility, so the bonus may never arrive.
Which Bonus Terms Are Actually Playable?
Ugrado’s bonus calculator with its default inputs, showing the required wagering and the expected loss.
Offer 1
- $50 bonus on a $50 deposit, 30x deposit plus bonus, $5 max bet, 7 days, no cashout cap.
- Required bets 30 x $100 = $3,000. Expected cost at 96% RTP is $120 for a $50 bonus.
Offer 2
- $20 bonus on a $20 deposit, 20x bonus only, $2 max bet, 30 days, winnings capped at $200.
- Required bets 20 x $20 = $400. Expected cost at 96% RTP is $16 for a $20 bonus.
Offer 2 is smaller and less exciting, and it’s the one where the bonus is bigger than the expected cost. The headline amount is the least informative number on the page; the multiplier, its base and the cap do the real work.
Whichever you pick, treat the deposit as entertainment spending you’re fine losing in full, and the bonus as extra playing time rather than as money. Our responsible gaming page covers setting a budget and other ways to keep it that way.
Conclusion
Wagering requirements are a formula. Find the base amount (bonus, or deposit plus bonus), multiply by the multiplier, divide by the game weighting for anything other than a full-contribution slot, and multiply the result by the house share (1 minus RTP) for a rough expected cost. Then check the max bet, the time window and the cashout cap, because any one of them can turn a reasonable offer into a poor one. None of this improves your odds on the reels (our tips for online slots explain why); it only tells you what you’re agreeing to before the first spin.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
You must place $700 in qualifying bets before the bonus and its winnings can be withdrawn (35 x $20). If the terms say 35x the deposit plus bonus, the figure doubles to $1,400 on a $20 deposit.
No. The requirement is a total of bets placed, not an amount lost. The expected cost is the required bets multiplied by the house share, so $700 of bets on a 96% RTP slot costs about $28 on average. Individual results vary widely.
Usually under the specific promotion’s terms rather than the site’s general terms, with the multiplier, the base amount, the game weighting table, the max bet and the time limit as separate clauses. Read each one before opting in, as the lists can change.
Mostly, but the multiplier applies to what the spins win. Twenty spins that return $8 at 40x need $320 in bets. Some offers use a max cashout on free spin winnings instead.
Often only partially. Slots are usually weighted at 100%, while table and live dealer games are commonly weighted much lower or excluded. At a 30% weighting, a $700 requirement needs about $2,333 in table bets.
It depends on where the operator is licensed. The UK Gambling Commission caps wagering requirements for its licensees at 10x bonus funds from 19 January 2026. Most other jurisdictions set no cap, and 30x to 50x is common.
Top Bonus Pick
