Milking Casino Bonuses Online Casinos Apr 24, 2001, 15:23 By R. Hood http://www.gamblingonlinemagazine.com

Most of the time Internet casino bonuses seem almost too good to be true.  I always have had a hard time imagining how the online casino can make money when they give me a 25% bonus on my deposit, while at Caesars I am lucky to get a free buffet.  So after a little snooping around and finding some inside information, I think I've found the answer.  In Las Vegas, the casinos work on a hold percentage (the percentage of the original bankroll the player loses to the casino) of around 10%.  But online, the hold percentage rockets to 60% (meaning that online gamblers, on average, loose 60% of what they put on deposit).  So while the casino has about a 10% margin from which to pay for your buffet lunch, the online operator has 60% of what you deposit to put towards these amazing promotions.

When your online casino offers you a 25% rebate on whatever you deposit, they do so having calculated that they are really taking the expected 60% minus the 25% that the bonus "gives back" to you.

Okay, now we know how it works.  But what good is that, after all we knew that online casinos made money before we started this investigation?  This is where the crafty cat gets his dinner.

Since online casinos are so generous with their bonus-ing, the clever player can take advantage of loopholes in the casino's rules that make "Bonus Taking" possible.  Bonus Taking is the practice of signing up at an online casino, and then laying down just enough action to receive your casino bonus.  Usually the casino will make you play at least the value of your deposit to qualify.  Now, the obvious reason for this is that the casino assumes that once you start playing, you'll play until you lose the farm.  But if you play with control, and if you play with the goal of scoring only the casino bonus, and not doubling or tripling your money, you can earn a nice little profit from scamming the house.

To successfully execute Bonus Taking you'll need to look for the casinos that offer the best bonus programs.  Targeting casinos that offer a 20% bonus on initial deposits should be your minimum threshold.  If you can find casinos with offers like 30, 35 or even 40% bonuses on deposits, then mark those casinos down as potential targets as well.  However, usually the casinos with bigger bonuses have stricter rules for cashing out.

That leads us to the next step.  You'll need to study the casino's rules for qualifying for your bonus, and then prey on the casinos that make you wager double or triple your deposits value before qualifying because these casinos will bleed the Bonus Taker dry.

The next step is the most crafty.  You'll need to mask your play so it doesn't look like bonus taking.  As you can imagine, casinos hate Bonus Takers even more than they hate legitimate winners.  Why?  Because bonus takers leave the casino almost no chance to win.  To effectively mask your play gamble reasonable amounts over a period of a few days.  That will make it look like you are actually a legitimate customer to the casino.  Remember, if the casino smells foul play, they can refuse you your deposit, making your entire effort worthless.  Over the four or five days that you play at the target casino, you could wind up wagering a lot more than you intended, especially if you are winning.  It is never good practice to get caught up in a "winning streak" and ride it all the way to bust.  Remember this strategy requires discipline.  But in the same token, if you win a bundle in the first few hands of play than consider cashing out, especially if the amount you won is larger than the bonus you are trying to scam.

If you play your cards right, and have the patience and discipline to do it, Bonus Taking is a casino scammer's dream.