A Casino Bonus Glossary: Fifteen Terms Every Offer Uses, Plainly Put

The vocabulary a set of bonus terms uses. One sentence each, and a link to the page that explains it in full where the term is worth more than a sentence.

The five that decide an offer are marked; the rest exist so those five can be read.

Where the terms sit relative to each other

A bonus balance is the thing all of this is about: credit that is not money until a condition is satisfied. The wagering requirement is that condition, expressed as a multiple of the winnings. The maximum win caps what can leave once it is satisfied. Expiry is how long you have. Game weighting decides which play counts towards the requirement, and restricted games are the ones that count for nothing or void the bonus outright.

Around those sit the terms that describe the award itself. Free spins are slot credit at a fixed stake; the spin value is that stake, and multiplying the two gives the play actually handed over. No deposit describes the trigger — a completed registration and identity check, with no payment. A minimum deposit is what a deposit-triggered offer requires instead.

And around those, two properties of the game rather than the offer: RTP, the share of stakes a slot returns over a very large number of spins, and volatility, how widely results spread around that average. Over a fifty-spin award only the second is doing anything.

Terms

How to use a glossary on a site like this

Most of these terms only matter in combination. “Wagering requirement” on its own is a definition; “wagering requirement, applied to the winnings, on slots only, inside seven days” is an offer, and the four conditions interact in ways no single definition captures.

So the glossary is a decoder rather than a syllabus. Look up the word that is blocking a sentence, then go back to the sentence. Where a term is worth more than one line, the definition links to the page that does the work.

The five that decide an offer

Wagering requirement, maximum win, expiry, game weighting, and spin value. Four of those five are published prominently because licence conditions require significant terms to be presented where a reasonable person will find them. The fifth — spin value — is the one reliably left out of the headline, and it is the one that decides what you are actually being given.

Everything else on this page exists so those five can be read without stopping.

Why the definitions are one sentence each

Because a glossary that explains is a guide, and a guide that has to be read before an offer can be understood is a barrier. The purpose of a line here is to unblock a sentence somewhere else, then get out of the way.

Where a term genuinely needs more than a sentence — wagering, weighting, expiry, max cashout, RTP — the definition links to the page that gives it the space. Those five carry most of the weight in this whole subject, and the other ten exist so those five can be read.

The terms that mean different things in different places

Bonus is the worst offender. On a no-deposit spins offer it means slot credit. On a welcome offer it means matched cash. On a sportsbook it means bet credit that returns winnings without the stake. The three behave nothing alike and are all advertised with the same word.

Free is the second. A free spin costs nothing to receive and can cost a great deal in staking to convert; a free bet requires a qualifying wager first. Neither is dishonest and neither means what it appears to at a glance.

Wagering is used both for the requirement and for ordinary staking, sometimes in the same paragraph of a terms document. Where it appears next to a multiplier it is the requirement; where it appears next to a game or a limit it is just betting.

How this page stays in step with the rest of the site

The definitions here and the inline popovers throughout the site read from the same source, so a correction in one place appears in both. That is a small thing and it prevents the usual failure of a glossary — drifting quietly out of agreement with the pages it was meant to support.