An knowledge of the relevance of free casino chips should be placed into its proper context: will be the offers of the free chips coming from honest online casinos?
The first online casinos opened a decade ago, and now there are hundreds that can be found online. Estimates vary regarding the number of people who gamble online, but recent estimates suggest that a figure of around seven million worldwide would not be too much out. Taking that into account, and with an additional estimate greater than $12 billion spent in online casinos alone (not including physical land-based casinos), offers of free casino chips may understandably be seen as something of a drop in the ocean.
Increase that the question of whether or not these free chips are being provided by honest online casinos, and we enter an area worth some study or serious research.
Firstly, let us consider what these free casino chips are actually worth to the average person online casino player. Free casino chips are of four main types:
No Deposit Bonus. That is simply free money. Honest online casinos will offer you free casino chips without strings attached, simply to attract visitors to play at their virtual tables. There will sometimes be minor strings attached. For instance, the casino may require credit card details in advance. Always read the terms.
Matching Deposit Bonus. This is where the house will match your deposit. Often this is done in multiples. For instance, a 200% bonus will mean that if you were to deposit $100 then your casino would add $200 in free casino chips to your account. Very nice! Especially useful for new players starting out.
Uncashable Bonus. Here is the so-called ‘sticky’ bonus. This may never be cashed, but its usefulness is based on that fact that it stays in your account and enables you to use the bonus account to ‘leverage’ higher wagers. These free casino chips stay latent in your account only to allow you to do things that you otherwise could not.
Loyalty Bonus. This is often as it sounds. All honest online casinos, and offline ones too, want to keep hold of their good returning customers, and will offer loyalty bonuses, including free casino chips, because of this.
Remember that online casinos can afford to do this since they simply don’t have the overhead that their offline land-based counterparts have. Equally, there is absolutely no excuse for an online casino NOT to be honest for exactly the same reason. They can offer free casino chips AND be an honest online casino in circumstances where their physical equivalents would find the financial burden impossible.
So how do we start identifying which will be the honest online casinos and which are not? Well, a whole lot has changed since the earliest online casinos set up shop within their offshore locations in 1996. Self-regulation (at best dubious) resulted in accreditation of bodies like ECOGRA (E-Commerce Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance). Look out also for proof good customer care, positive feedback from online casino forum members and decent helpline facilities. The more honest online casinos will offer you (will actively boast) 24 hour live chat and live email support and toll-free telephone help. Is there a mailing list it is possible to join to keep in contact with the latest tournaments and special deals? Trust lies in the centre of any subscription process (or people would not subscribe) so that alone is a wonderful indicator of a genuine online casino.
Transparency of accounting systems is another good indicator of honest online casinos. When testimonials are published make certain that it is from greater than a set of initials, and make certain they have a state or country. UFA88S.info could be ‘virtual’ in concept, however they are used by real people!
But the best indicator of a genuine online casino is by personal recommendation. This also includes affiliation of such casinos into trusted casino websites and portals. If an offer of free casino chips [http://www.gamble-on-the-internet.com/free-casino-chips-and-honest-online-casinos.htm] is made by an online casino on such a site then it can probably be trusted.