The Downside of Bonus Abuse
Here's a great way to make a quick $50 or $100 bucks: You know how tons of online casinos and sports books offer special signup bonus through which your initial deposit is matched by the house? Wouldn't it be a breeze to just sign up, get the bonus, make a few bets and cash out with most of your bonus money in hand? Well, yes, it can be done, but it's not as brilliant a plan as it initially appears to be.
The first thing you'd do, naturally, is take a trip to the site's policies page and see whether they cover their butts by putting restrictions on signup bonuses (such as internet casino requiring that you bet a certain amount of money before you can withdraw bonus money). Believe it or not, many sites don't outline strict rules of this nature.
With that in mind, it would be easy to deposit $50, collect a bonus $50, make two $5 bets and walk with at least $90. Then, if the operators of the site complain that you're taking advantage of them, you can just point out that there are no rules prohibiting you from doing this.
Unfortunately, it's not that easy. Many of the hundreds - maybe even thousands - of online casinos and sportsbooks out there, could easily tell you to take a hike with no higher authority to intervene. And many have done just that. This has happened, in part, because of an influx of wide-scale bonus abuse.
In some cases, bonus abusers have registered dozens of accounts apiece and tried to close out each account without giving the sites a chance to win back the bonus money. Because many of these sites don't have bonus-abuse policies in place and they don't want to take the huge hit, they often respond by refusing to pay out. And in the process of closing down all accounts that look suspicious, it's quite easy for site operators to group a few innocent (or at least relatively harmless) players in with the wide-scale bonus abusers.
It's certainly not the best way to handle the situation, but it happens.
You might also figure, "Hey, it's worth a shot. If they give me the boot, so be it." But keep in mind that site operators, who don't take too kindly to players who try to steal money from them, can also reserve the right to completely freeze your account. That means you lose access to the money in your account - even the money that came out of your wallet. And in many cases, no one can stop them.
The bottom line: If you try to take advantage of casino and sportsbook operators, don't be surprised if they come out swinging. And don't be surprised if they don't fight fair.
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