Bonus hunting
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bonus hunting (also known as bonus bagging or bonus whoring) is a term used to describe the process of a person taking advantage of online casinos' promotional bonuses. The process is engineered such that the mathematical advantage is put in favor of the player rather than the house.
Online casino's typically offer players bonuses as incentives to play. These are usually one-off bonuses for signing up to the casino and opening an account. The terms and conditions attached to each bonus vary from casino to casino but they generally share two common features:
- Restricted games or bets.
- A wager requirement.
Restricted games often include roulette, baccarat and craps because these games allow the player to simultaneously bet on winning and losing outcomes (a bet on both red and black in roulette), greatly reducing variance. Sometimes blackjack or other low house edge games are not allowed as well.
Wager requirements prevent players from simply withdrawing his or her bonus money straight after receiving it. Before the bonus money is converted to withdrawable money the player must wager a certain amount of money on the unrestricted games. This does not have to be done all in one bet and can be spread out over many bets. For example, to meet a $2000 wagering requirement the player could make 1000 $2 bets on blackjack, provided blackjack is not a restricted or banned game for that particular bonus.
Typically games such as blackjack and video poker have a low house advantage. The house advantage for these games tend to be around 0.5%. Thus, in the example above, by playing $2000 worth of Blackjack with a house advantage of 0.5%, a player is, expected to lose $10 in total. (NOTE: The expected value is merely an average value and may well be less than the actual value. Risk of ruin is an important topic that comes into play).
Assuming that the player only loses an amount close to the expected loss, and the bonus awarded to the player after meeting this wagering requirement is greater than $10 (and they typically are) then the player has made a profit. The whole process is mathematically calculated and whilst it is possible for the player to have a horrendous run of luck and lose more than $10 playing blackjack it is more probable that they will lose $10 than any other amount. The run of luck is subject to variance and follows a normal distribution.
