Clearing a £1,000 wagering requirement on a game with a 1% house edge costs about £100. Clearing the same requirement on a slot with four times that edge costs about £40. Understanding how wagering requirements work means understanding why the cheaper-looking game is the expensive one: the multiplier in the headline is only the first of three numbers, and game weighting is the one that decides what the offer actually costs.
What a wagering requirement is
A wagering requirement is the playthrough a casino attaches to a bonus, also called rollover. It is a turnover target rather than a loss target: the site counts how much you bet, not how much you lose, and the bonus stays locked until the figure is reached. The Gambling Commission’s licence code puts it in one sentence.
“A wagering requirement is where a customer is required to make wagers totalling a particular value for funds to become withdrawable.” — Gambling Commission, LCCP social responsibility code 5.1.1
That value is written as a multiplier on the offer — 10×, 20×, 35×. It is not a win target and not a fee. Each qualifying bet reduces the remaining playthrough, and winnings from those bets can normally be staked again toward the same requirement, which is why a £50 bonus at 30× means £1,500 of betting activity rather than £1,500 that must be found from a fresh deposit. What the requirement does cost is the house edge applied to that volume, and that is where the arithmetic below goes.
The three numbers that decide the cost
£50 bonus, 30×, bonus only, slots at 100%: 50 × 30 ÷ 1.00 = £1,500
£50 bonus + £50 deposit, 30×, slots at 100%: 100 × 30 ÷ 1.00 = £3,000
£100 bonus, 10×, roulette at 30%: 100 × 10 ÷ 0.30 = £3,333
The Behavioural Insights Team’s randomised trial of 4,012 UK adults who gamble found that 7 in 10 could not calculate how much they would need to bet to meet a wagering requirement, rising to almost 9 in 10 when the requirement applied to bonus plus deposit. After viewing a realistic advert and sign-up page, 3 in 5 did not realise a wagering requirement applied at all. Play rates did not change with the size of the multiplier, which is the finding that matters commercially: a large headline offer can carry the cost in a number most people do not read.
Why the low-edge game is the expensive one
The Commission capped the multiplier and deliberately left weighting alone, saying it would watch whether operators adjusted weightings to undo the cap. That leaves a gap in the published guidance that is worth completing, because the two numbers interact in a way that reverses the obvious advice.
The instinct is to clear a bonus on the game with the smallest house edge. Weighting inverts that. A game weighted at 10% needs ten times the turnover, so its edge is applied ten times as often. Taking the Commission’s own £100 bonus at 10× — a £1,000 requirement at full contribution — and running each game to the same finish line:
| Game | House edge | Contribution | Turnover needed | Expected cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slot, 96% RTP | 4.00% | 100% | £1,000 | £40 |
| Blackjack, basic strategy | 0.50% | 10% | £10,000 | £50 |
| Slot, 92% RTP | 8.00% | 100% | £1,000 | £80 |
| Roulette, single zero | 2.70% | 30% | £3,333 | £90 |
| Crash, 99% RTP | 1.00% | 10% | £10,000 | £100 |
| Live game show, 96.08% RTP | 3.92% | 10% | £10,000 | £392 |
The crash row is the one worth sitting with. It has a quarter of the slot’s house edge and costs two and a half times as much to clear, purely because it counts at 10%. The live game show row is worse still: a mid-range edge combined with a 10% weighting produces an expected cost roughly four times the size of the bonus itself, which is another way of saying the offer is not clearable on that game in any useful sense. The 96.08% figure there is Evolution’s published optimal RTP for Crazy Time, and the game’s other bets are priced lower.
The practical rule that falls out is the opposite of the intuitive one: with weighting in place, clear on the game with the highest contribution, not the lowest edge, and check the weighting table before the game list. A 100% slot at 96% is usually the cheapest route on offer, and it is cheapest by a wide margin.
How often the requirement is finished at all
Expected cost is an average, and it hides the outcome that actually ends most bonus attempts: the balance running out before the turnover target is reached. That is a question about variance rather than edge, and it is answerable from recorded rounds.
We ran 200,000 simulated bonus runs, drawing each round at random from the 2,500 real settled rounds in our Stake Crash feed. Each run starts with a £100 balance made up of a £50 deposit and a £50 bonus, stakes a fixed amount per round with a 2x cash-out, and finishes either by reaching the turnover target or by running out of money to stake.
Two things fall out of that. The first is that the requirement level matters more than it looks: a 30× applied to deposit plus bonus was completed in 44.8% of runs, against 93.7% for the British 10× cap on the bonus alone. The second is that the draw pool here is a 1% house-edge game, the most generous CasinoDrop measures, and it is a game that typically carries the 10% weighting from the table above. A bonus cleared on a slot faces four to eight times the edge, so these shares are a ceiling rather than an estimate.
at £1 stakes: 3,000 rounds, completed in 74.4% of runs
at £5 stakes: 600 rounds, completed in 44.8% of runs
Bonus funds, your own money, and the UK split
Bonus funds, and winnings made from them, stay restricted until the playthrough is finished or the offer expires. Requesting a withdrawal mid-bonus usually cancels the remaining bonus and the winnings attached to it. That is the lock most players notice only when they try to cash out.
Your own money is a different pot, at least at GB-licensed casinos. After a consumer-law investigation running from 2016 to 2019, the Competition and Markets Authority required operators to stop using playthrough to trap a player’s deposit.
“Gambling always carries a risk, but players should never face unfair restrictions that prevent them from getting at their money.” — Competition and Markets Authority
The Commission turned that settlement into licensee guidance. The deposit-withdrawal rules require the deposit balance and bonus balance to be shown separately, and wagering requirements must not apply to play with the deposit balance. Operators may still attach playthrough to bonus winnings, so long as a player can withdraw winnings made with their own funds however much or little they have played.
That split is why a UK-licensed cashier can look like two wallets. Offshore and some non-UK sites still mix the pots, and if the terms say the whole balance is restricted until playthrough is done, the deposit is locked for the life of the bonus. That is a decision to make before the first spin, not after.
The other conditions attached to the offer
Playthrough is rarely the only condition. The Advertising Standards Authority treats deposit and wagering requirements, time limits, eligibility and minimum odds as significant conditions, and under CAP Code rule 8.17 those must be clear and upfront in the advertisement rather than two clicks into a PDF.
- Whether wagering applies to bonus only or deposit plus bonus.
- The full game contribution table, not just “slots 100%”.
- The max bet permitted while the bonus is active.
- The expiry window on the offer and on any free spins.
- Any cap on what can be withdrawn from bonus winnings.
- One stake above the max-bet clause, even by accident.
- Playing an excluded title while the bonus is live.
- Requesting a withdrawal before the playthrough completes.
- Letting the expiry window pass with turnover outstanding.
Max-bet clauses deserve particular attention because a single oversized stake can void the bonus and everything won with it. The figure is whatever the operator published, commonly a few pounds and sometimes lower on free-spin campaigns. The Commission’s play-restriction guidance requires prohibited patterns to be listed in advance, so an operator may not hold a vague clause about deciding later what counts as abuse and then confiscate a win after the fact.
Weighting tables live in the bonus terms rather than in any global rulebook. Some originals and live shows contribute little or nothing, and some jackpot slots are excluded even where other slots count in full. CasinoDrop’s How We Rate scoring treats bonus-only versus deposit-plus-bonus, max bet, weighting and cashout caps as part of bonus fairness for exactly this reason: a large headline with hostile weighting is a worse product than a smaller offer with a clean 100% slot table.
The bonus calculators run the same turnover-and-weighting arithmetic used above against a real operator’s published scheme, so you can put your own wager, game mix and lossback in and see what comes out. The crash board carries the 2,500 settled rounds the clearance model draws on, and the simulator replays a real seed pair against a stake plan so you can watch a balance move at a fixed stake size rather than take the bust rates on trust.
- The weighting table is a worked model, not a survey of live offers. The contribution percentages are the values commonly published in bonus terms and the ones the Commission used in its own example; your operator’s table is the one that governs your offer, and it can differ on every row.
- The house edges in that table are published theoretical figures for representative games. Blackjack’s 0.50% assumes basic strategy and a particular rule set, roulette’s 2.70% assumes a single zero, and a real table may be worse on both counts.
- Expected cost is a long-run average over the required turnover. It is not what any single bonus attempt will cost, and the spread around it is wide enough that the average is a poor description of one run.
- The clearance rates come from resampling 2,500 real crash rounds, not from watching real bonus play. Nobody outside an operator can see how many of its customers finish a wagering requirement, and no operator publishes it.
- That model uses one game, one cash-out target and a fixed stake for the whole run. Real bonus play switches games, varies stakes and stops early, all of which change the outcome. It is a controlled illustration of how bust risk moves with the requirement and the stake, not a prediction for a particular offer.
- The draw pool is a 1% house-edge game — the most generous we measure, and one usually weighted at 10% or excluded. Clearing on a 100% slot faces four to eight times the edge, so the clearance shares here are a ceiling.
- The 10× cap, the deposit-withdrawal split and the advertising rules are British. They bind GB-licensed operators only, and say nothing about a site licensed elsewhere.
- The Behavioural Insights Team figures come from one randomised trial of 4,012 UK adults who gamble. They describe that sample’s comprehension, not every player’s.
FAQs
A wagering requirement is a turnover target attached to a bonus: the casino counts how much you bet, not how much you lose, and the bonus stays locked until the total is reached. Required turnover is base multiplied by the multiplier, divided by the game’s contribution percentage. A £50 bonus at 30× on slots counting 100% means £1,500 of betting activity.
The house edge applied to the required turnover. Clearing a £1,000 requirement on a 96% slot at full contribution costs about £40 on average. The same requirement on a game weighted at 10% needs £10,000 of turnover, so even a 1% house edge costs about £100. The cost is set by edge and weighting together, not by the multiplier alone.
Usually not, because weighting reverses that instinct. A game counting 10% needs ten times the turnover, so its edge is applied ten times as often. On a £1,000 requirement a 1% crash game costs about £100 to clear while a 4% slot at full contribution costs about £40. Check the contribution table before the house edge.
It is the base the multiplier applies to, and on a 100% match it doubles the volume. A £100 bonus at 30× on bonus only is £3,000 of turnover; the same 30× on deposit plus bonus is £6,000, which makes the advertised 30× an effective 60× on the bonus. The Behavioural Insights Team found almost 9 in 10 people could not calculate the deposit-plus-bonus version.
Yes. From 19 January 2026, operators licensed in Great Britain may not require playthrough above 10× the incentive amount. The cap applies to the multiplier only — the Gambling Commission deliberately left game weighting unregulated and said it would monitor whether operators adjust weightings to offset the cap. Offers from sites licensed elsewhere are not covered.
Not at a GB-licensed site. After the Competition and Markets Authority’s investigation, Gambling Commission guidance requires the deposit balance and bonus balance to be shown separately, and wagering requirements must not apply to play with the deposit balance. You can withdraw your remaining deposit and the winnings from it whenever you like. Sites licensed elsewhere may still restrict the whole balance.
The percentage of each stake that counts toward the requirement. Slots often count 100%, so a £10 spin clears £10. Table games, live casino and crash-style originals are frequently weighted to 10% or excluded, so a £10 bet clears £1 or nothing. The Gambling Commission’s own example puts roulette at 30%, which turns a 10× requirement on a £100 bonus into £3,333 of turnover rather than £1,000.
No operator publishes that figure. CasinoDrop modelled it by resampling 2,500 real recorded rounds across 200,000 simulated runs, starting from a £100 balance at £5 stakes. A 10× requirement on the bonus finished in 93.7% of runs; a 30× on deposit plus bonus finished in 44.8%. Those come from a 1% house-edge game, so a real bonus cleared on slots would finish less often.
Yes, and not in the direction most people expect. Larger stakes reach the target in fewer rounds but risk more of the balance on each one, and the second effect dominates. In our model a 30× deposit-plus-bonus requirement finished in 74.4% of runs at £1 stakes and 44.8% at £5 stakes, from the same starting balance.
Commonly a stake above the max-bet clause, playing an excluded game while the bonus is live, requesting a withdrawal before the playthrough completes, or letting the expiry window pass. Gambling Commission guidance requires prohibited patterns to be listed in advance, so an operator cannot hold a vague clause about deciding later what counts as abuse and then confiscate a win afterwards.
In the UK, yes. The Advertising Standards Authority treats deposit and wagering requirements, time limits, eligibility and minimum odds as significant conditions, and CAP Code rule 8.17 requires them to be clear and upfront rather than buried in linked terms. The Behavioural Insights Team still found 3 in 5 people did not realise a requirement applied after seeing a realistic advert and sign-up page.
Playing within a limit
A bonus does not change the direction of the arithmetic; it changes how much turnover you have agreed to put through a game that keeps a share of it. Work out the required volume and its expected cost before opting in, and treat the offer as declinable — at a GB-licensed site your deposit and the winnings from it remain yours to withdraw whether or not you take the bonus. CasinoDrop’s responsible gambling guide covers deposit caps, timeouts and self-exclusion.
- Three numbers, not one. Required turnover is base × multiplier ÷ contribution. The headline multiplier is the least informative of the three.
- Weighting inverts the obvious advice. On a £1,000 requirement a 1% house-edge game weighted at 10% costs about £100 to clear, against about £40 for a 4% slot at full contribution. Clear on the highest contribution, not the lowest edge.
- The GB cap covers the multiplier only. 10× on the incentive from 19 January 2026, with weighting left unregulated and under review.
- Your deposit is not the casino’s collateral. At a GB-licensed site the deposit balance and bonus balance are shown separately and playthrough cannot apply to your own funds.
- Most of the risk is bust, not cost. In our model even on the most generous game we measure, a 30× requirement on deposit plus bonus finished in 44.8% of runs at £5 stakes.
- CasinoDrop Stake Crash tracker — first-party, the 2,500 recorded rounds resampled for the clearance model; window 2026-08-17 to 2026-08-18
- Stake Crash round feed — first-party, the JSON the model draws from
- CasinoDrop weekly bonus calculator — first-party, runs turnover and weighting against a published operator scheme
- LCCP social responsibility code 5.1.1 — primary, Gambling Commission: the quoted definition of a wagering requirement
- Proposal 1: ban or limit the use of wagering requirements — primary, Gambling Commission consultation response: the 10× cap, the decision to leave weighting unregulated, and the roulette-at-30% worked example
- Gambling promotions to be safer and simpler — primary, Gambling Commission: the 19 January 2026 commencement
- Restrictions on withdrawing deposit and deposit winnings — primary, Gambling Commission: separate balances and no playthrough on the deposit balance
- Promotional play restrictions — primary, Gambling Commission: prohibited patterns must be listed in advance
- LCCP condition 7.1.1 — fair and transparent terms and practices — primary, Gambling Commission
- Consumer experiences and attitudes to free bets and bonuses — primary, Gambling Commission research
- Should wagering requirements on gambling bonus offers be capped? — reported, Behavioural Insights Team: the randomised trial of 4,012 UK adults, the 7-in-10 and 9-in-10 comprehension findings, and the £10-at-10× example
- Online gambling case page — primary, Competition and Markets Authority: the 2016–19 consumer-law investigation and undertakings
- Gambling sector told to raise its game after CMA action — primary, Competition and Markets Authority: the quoted statement
- Making the online gambling sector fairer — primary, Competition and Markets Authority blog
- Online gambling promotions: advice for gamblers — primary, Competition and Markets Authority
- Online gambling promotions: dos and don’ts for firms — primary, Competition and Markets Authority
- Gambling, betting and gaming: free bets and bonuses — primary, Advertising Standards Authority: significant conditions and CAP Code rule 8.17
- High stakes: gambling reform for the digital age — primary, UK Government white paper
