Reference

The words that decide what a bonus actually costs

Most casino glossaries define the easy terms and skip the ones that cost money. These are the ones that cost money — defined plainly, with the arithmetic where the arithmetic is the point.

If you read one entry

Read wagering base. It is the single line that decides whether a bonus is mildly bad or badly bad, it is almost never in the headline offer, and at a 4% house edge it moves break-even from 25× to 12.5× — which is the difference between a 35× offer costing you a little and costing you a lot. The full table is here.

Wagering requirement: How many times a bonus must be staked before winnings can be withdrawn. The multiplier alone tells you almost nothing — what matters is the base it applies to. 35x on a $100 bonus is $3,500 of turnover; 35x on deposit + bonus after a 100% match is $7,000. Same headline, double the bill.
Wagering base: Whether a wagering multiplier applies to the bonus alone or to deposit + bonus. It is the single most important line in any bonus term and it is almost never in the headline. At a 4% house edge a bonus breaks even at 25x on a bonus-only base but at just 12.5x on deposit + bonus, so the same 35x offer is either mildly bad or badly bad depending on this one word.
House edge: The long-run share of every amount staked that the game keeps. A 96% RTP slot has a 4% house edge, so staking $7,000 costs an expected $280 regardless of how it is spread across spins. It is an expectation over many trials, not a prediction of any single session — which is exactly why bonuses with negative expected value still feel winnable.
RTP: Return to player: the percentage of total stakes a game returns over a very long run. 96% RTP means 4% house edge. RTP is a property of the game, not of your session, and the same title is often shipped at several different RTP settings that the operator selects — so the figure in a review may not be the figure you are playing.
Max cashout: A cap on how much may be withdrawn from bonus winnings, regardless of how much was actually won. Often expressed as a multiple of the deposit or the bonus. It is the clause that turns a large win into a small payment, and it is applied after the fact — which is why it belongs in the terms you read before depositing, not after.
Game weighting: The percentage each game type contributes toward clearing a wagering requirement. Slots typically count 100% while table games count 10%, 5% or nothing at all. Since table games carry the lower house edge, weighting is what forces a bonus to be cleared on the more expensive games — it makes the real cost higher than the multiplier alone suggests.
Max bet: The largest stake permitted per spin or hand while a bonus is active, commonly around $5. Exceeding it — even once, even accidentally — is the standard basis for voiding a bonus and everything won with it. Because large turnover requirements take a long time at a small maximum stake, this clause and the expiry window interact badly.
KYC: Know Your Customer: identity verification, usually documents plus a selfie and sometimes proof of source of funds. The important detail is when it is triggered. Most crypto casinos advertise no KYC to sign up but require it at withdrawal, which means the check arrives at the exact moment you are trying to take money out.
Provably fair: A cryptographic scheme letting a player verify that a result was not altered after their bet, using a hashed server seed, a client seed and a nonce. It proves the roll was not tampered with. It does not prove the game offers good value, does not prove the house edge is low, and does not prove the operator is solvent or will pay you.
Reverse withdrawal: A window during which a pending withdrawal can be pulled back into the playable balance. Some operators make it the default and hold funds for days before sending them. It exists to give a player time to change their mind and keep playing, which is precisely why the option to disable it is worth finding before you need it.
Curacao licence: The most common licensing regime for crypto casinos. It is a permissive, light-touch framework: it exists and can be verified against the register, but it offers a player far less recourse in a dispute than a UK, Maltese or Brazilian licence. Treat a Curacao licence as a minimum bar cleared, not as a guarantee of anything.
Rakeback: A share of the house edge returned to the player, usually as a percentage of wagers rather than of losses, and often continuously rather than as a lump. Unlike a match bonus it typically carries no wagering requirement, which can make a small rakeback worth more in practice than a large bonus with a 40x condition attached.

See what a multiplier costs →Guides Glossário (pt-BR)

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