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Imagine the following scenario—you have heard about a restaurant that serves free dishes and decide to visit it. The waiters bring you your meal, and you finish eating it. You would probably think, “Well, I should probably pay for it? There must be a catch!”

However, the waiter comes, asks whether everything has been alright, collects the dishes and leaves. You can decide to stay and pay for the dessert, but you don’t have to. You can just leave the restaurant with a full belly and be on the way out!

This allegorical story pretty much depicts the state of online casinos nowadays. Casino platforms—and slot sites in particular—have various types of welcome bonuses which usually award new users with real money that they can use to play online slots and other popular casino games. However, once the casinos decide that they have had enough of it, they can just quit and never visit the platform again. In other words, the casino operators were desirous of attracting new customers, but they have bumped into an impenetrable obstacle called competition.

The industry on the verge of collapsing in on itself

Ever since the first online casino was made, the casino industry has been in the state of rapid growth and expansion. The benefits of playing online slots from the comfort of your home proved to be a great opportunity for the development of a new and flourishing business.

The first casino-oriented website appeared back in the ‘90s when there was not that many web surfers overall. A decade later, we were able to witness a thriving industry and dozens of prospering online casinos attracting thousands of new users and making a huge profit.

But something happened along the way. Being a well-to-do business, online casinos started popping up all around and created a very strong competition. Suddenly, offering plenty of games wasn’t enough, so the business’ pioneers had to think of something else to attract new customers and retain the old ones.

The no-deposit bonus pitfall

Rewarding new players with additional money to use on the platform was very generous and unselfish on their behalf. However, users had to deposit money as one of the conditions to claim the deposit bonus. This created a healthy rivalry among the casino sites and users were able to enjoy playing hundreds of interesting casino games.

The downfall had begun when many new slot sites with a free sign up bonus appeared on the web, along with similar casino platforms. It seems that, at this point, they have crossed the line, which will lead to their losing the battle with the players.

The only condition that visitors must fulfill in order to receive the bonus and play their favorite casino games is to sign up on the casino offering the reward. After completing the task, their casino account balance will immediately be loaded with funds.

Players have figured out how to cheat casinos

Sign up bonuses have lead to a somewhat logical behavior of players. All of a sudden, they started signing up to every casino that offers free money and asks nothing in return. As soon as they run out of bonus cash, they leave the casino and search for new ones that offer similar bonuses.

Cheating in casinos is not in accordance with their terms and conditions, but this cannot be considered cheating. There are no conditions that obligate players to deposit money after they receive the free sign-up bonus. In other words, this behavior is not illegal and the players of this type are making the most of it, causing further troubles to casinos and their sustaining.  

Conclusion—the player wins!

Welcome bonuses are not an innovative concept, as they existed way before online casinos were created. In fact, this Wiki article suggests that this type of reward has been quite popular, especially in professional sports.

Many online businesses offer free stuff, but they almost always require something in return. Giving something for free and not asking for anything in return is probably the best way to put an end to your business.

So, why would they do such a thing? Did casinos really decide to overstep the boundary and pave the way right to the exit door, or do they have an ace hidden up their sleeve which they plan to play sometime in the future? We don’t know that yet, but the current state of affairs suggest that they are going down and that we live in the day and age when we finally have the power to win at casino games.