Are casino free spins really worth it?

If you're into online casinos and think you might enjoy spending and hour here and there spinning video slots for the chance of winning big, you've probably noticed that there are a number of casinos that offer new players free spins either just for signing up in a casino or together with your first deposit. However, the question is, are the casino free spins that you'll be getting actually worth it?

All of us enjoy getting things for free, there's no doubt about that, be it free spins in online casinos, free stuff from your favorite shops, or anything else for the matter. However, compared to many other things you can get for free without many or any strings attached, when it comes to free casino spins the situation can be different.

Here's the thing with free spins - very often when casinos offer free spins on slots, there's a small print that first time spinners might not even notice. And while the casino might have not been hiding the info on purpose (or maybe they were), we don't generally like to read the terms and stuff. Right? But when it comes to free casino spins offers, you should.

In general, there are four issues the casino free spins offers might have. These are - wagering requirements, low spin values, max real money withdrawals from your free spins winnings, country restrictions on free spins, the lack of no deposit free spins offers, no jackpot win option. And these are just the first ones that popped into my head - in reality there might be some other issues as well, such as the fact that free spins might sometimes be available only on slots you don't really like too much, or where the RTP (Return To Player) is lower than usual.

Now, lets go over the details of all those pitfalls of free spins.


Very often online casinos create a welcome bonus to new casino players. The bonus can be either no deposit free spins offer (where you get the free spins just for registering) or free spins offer after your first deposit to the casino. It doesn't really matter which one it is. Free spins give you the option to play on videoslots for free but still win real money with them.


What matters is the fact that very often those free spins offered by the casino have a playthrough requirement, also known as wagering requirement. What this means, is that the money you win through using the very attractive free spins offer can't actually be withdrawn from the casino after you have finished your spins. How many times you need to wager your free spins winnings depends a lot on the casino and the specific offer, but as much as I have seen, they can range from 1x to 60x. Just recently I saw an offer from a casino I had never seen before, which offered new casino players up to 50 high value free spins together with the first deposit. They were offering one 0.50c free spin for every 1 euro you deposit, and so up to 50 spins. It sounds pretty neat, doesn't it? You deposit 50 euros and you get 25 euros worth of free spins on top of it. But then I kept reading, and those free spins had a playthrough requirement of 60x. Honestly, that's pretty much the highest requirement I have ever seen.

So what does it means to the player who has played his or her free spins and now needs to wager the winnings? Okay, let's say you got those 50 free spins. Let's say you managed to win 25 euros with those free spins and now that's the sum you have on your account. In order to cash out anything from the casino, you first need to play slots 60 times more than you just did, with the same money you just won. You need to play and win and play and win because you need wager the money 25x60 times. So before you can consider cashing anything out, you need to play for 1500 euros. And in order to do that, you need to be lucky, I mean really, really lucky, for hours and hours and hours.

By the end of the day, with this kind of huge playthrough requirements, you'll end up losing all of your money long before you get to the spot where cashout would be possible.

Of course, not all casinos have such high requirements - some casinos only attach a 1x wagering requirement to the free spins winnings, and there are also a few casinos where you can cash out instantly without any additional need to play. From my personal perspective, the latter is the only free spins offer worth anything, or as long as the playthrough requirement is anything below 10x, that *can* still be okay as well.


While it's not necessarily a thing, many casinos have it written down in the terms of their bonus offer that the maximum amount you can win with the free spins is either 50 euros or maybe 500 euros. I've even seen offers where the maximum you can win (before the potential playthrough requirement) is just 5 euros. This means that, whether it's a no wagering free spins offer or not, you can theoretically win thousands with the bonus spins, but the maximum you can actually win is the 5, 50, or 500. Everything else will be just removed from your casino account immediately.


There have been people who have managed to score big and win a huge jackpot with the free spins the casino has given them, and at these times there have even not been any need for wagering. But more often it's stated in the terms that no jackpot can be won with the free spins. Plus, very often you can use the free spins only on one non-jackpot slot machine anyway, so there's not even that option. But then again, in case of those casinos which do allow you to win a slot jackpot, very often there are no strings attached to potential jackpot winnings at all. Which, of course, should be considered a good thing.


While this one is not very common, I have seen casinos which offer free spins to new customers, but for some reason they state that if you're from country X or Y, you're not eligible for the free spins. What makes it strange is the fact that the casino in general accepts players from those countries.


Whenever a casino offers you free spins as a bonus for registering on their site or making your first deposit, those spins have a certain value. And usually the value is the lowest possible bet amount on the slot machine where the spins are offered. For example, if you got the free spins for playing on Jumanji board game slot, then the minimum bet there is 10 cents, and you can be (almost) sure that this is also the value of each of the free spins you're receiving. Of course, sometimes casinos do offer high value free spins as a welcome bonus as well, but that's not very common.


If you like spending time in online casinos and playing slots, it's a no-brainer - free spins are good. However, if you also hope to win something with the free spins, make sure you join the casinos that offer you free spins that are actually worth it. Meaning, as a main thing, without any playthrough requirement and preferably they would be no deposit free spins - meaning you get the spins right after registering at the casino, and BEFORE your first deposit.