Looking for the latest casino bonuses? Look no further because we have a list of the best online casino bonuses.
As a review portal we know how important good bonuses are to our Canadian visitors. Thatâs why we only feature sites that offer a great selection of welcome bonuses, no deposit bonuses, re-load bonuses, free spins and more.
See our top 3 online casino bonuses available to Canadians in the table below. For more information on the different types of bonuses and how to get them read on below. Please note that the information on this page is not applicable to players residing in Ontario. All information presented on this page is for information purposes only and targeted towards all CA states except Ontario.
Top Bonuses for March 2025
LoadingWhat are the different types of casino bonuses?
Every Canadian online casino offers a welcome or sign-up bonus as a means of getting you through their âvirtualâ doors and becoming a player. The bonus offer is normally the main thing highlighted on the casinoâs homepage. It’s also one of the main ways in which casinos compete trying to offer as an attractive welcome package as possible.
Most sign-up bonuses are match bonuses where the casino will âmatchâ your deposit by a certain %. These bonuses are sometimes also called âstage bonusesâ as the casino offers the full welcome bonus amount across a number of deposits by the player – stages.
As an example the Royal Vegas bonus is comprised as follows:
First deposit: Receive a 100% match bonus up to $250
Second deposit: Receive a 25% match bonus up to $200
Third deposit: Receive a 50% match bonus up to $750
This is a 3 stage match bonus, to get the full first bonus of $250 youâd need to make a $250 deposit, for the second bonus youâd need to make a deposit of $800 (4 x $200), and for the third bonus a $1500 deposit ( 2 x $750). The total possible bonus is $1200 and thatâs what Royal Vegas advertises but you can only get this after 3 deposits.
A 200% match bonus sounds amazing. You deposit $100 and play with $200 for example. No downside, right?
Wrong. Most of these offers will have a wagering requirement that is based on the bonus plus your deposit amount.
So letâs say the wagering is a pretty standard 35xB+D (bonus+deposit amount.
For a $200 bonus example above, this would be a total of $10500 to wager.
Of course, itâs still much better than playing with just raw cash in terms of expected value, but we wanted to point out that itâs not going to be all that easy to wager these high match deals.
The high match deals, like the 200%, can go very high in amounts which might make you wonder.
How can a casino offer a 200% match to $5,000 (example) and still be profitable?
The thing is that past a certain point a higher bonus is almost more beneficial for the casino than you.
This is because of the max bet with bonus usually being capped at $5 or $7.50 in the best case scenario.
When playing with a bonus, you want to be as much of the bonus funds on volatile slots as possible.
A high bonus amount means that the bet amount per spin is not high enough to move the needle, where this could be an advantageous play for you.
TL;DR Video: Most Important Things to Know About Casino Bonuses
Here is a list of our recommended casinos with the best first deposit bonus.
As you have read above, typically, bonuses depend on your deposits, more precisely, the sum you placed when making a deposit.
However, sometimes a casino will offer you free cash to play, no string attached.
Although no deposit bonuses are symbolic in comparison to deposit-linked ones, you will be playing with the casinoâs money after all.
These come with some stiff wagering requirements, often feature a maximum withdrawal clause and about 500+ other clauses.
They work well if you just want a taste of what certain games are like and donât want to deposit.
Most popular games at online casinos are slots, no question about it, and with free spins bonuses youâll have a chance to play
Usually, free spin bonuses are offered on specific games, rather than all slots at a casino. Most casinos are offering free spins on Starburst, Book Of Dead and in some cases Immortal Romance or Dead or Alive.
These bonuses are offered when a casino tries to promote a particular game or to make you interested in an upcoming casino tournament.
Free spins can be offered as both â a deposit incentive or a no deposit bonus.
There are also some new terms brought in as of late â mega spins and super spins, but we will cover all that on our free spins page.
fter you spend your sign-up bonus, you will not be left to play only with your own money, at least not with some casinos.
Reload bonuses are similar to sign-up bonuses, except they are offered to existing players.
Basically, when you make a deposit, you will be able to claim a certain percentage as a reload bonus.
Some casinos give reload bonuses on a monthly basis, therefore the name âmonthly bonusâ is frequently used.
This is a tool of CRM (customer retention management) and is often used after you havenât played at a particular casino in some time.
These bonuses are not easy to get since they require the playerâs commitment to the casino.
Loyalty bonuses are, as their names suggest, reserved for loyal members, those who have been playing with the casino for some time.
Online casinos are trying to find ways to reward their devoted members, therefore these may be offered when the player is moving up the casinoâs loyalty program.
In addition, it is quite common for a casino to offer different bonuses for different loyalty levels.
A very common loyalty scheme offered by casinos is points for cash. Every time you gamble for real money you collect points based on the number of wagers made.
Casinos then offer to exchange these points for money and in some cases have loyalty stores, where you can spend them for gadgets or even trips to space.
This is the latest industry trend â casinos offering their own bonus wheels every time you reach a certain amount of money wagered.
Some casinos take a tiny percentage of all wagers made on their site and put it up as a progressive jackpot that can be won on these bonus wheels.
Others simply let you win instant cash prizes every time you spin this wheel and sometimes, after a period of no play, they will send you a free wheel spin as a reactivation bonus.
These are some of our favorite types of bonuses, as they are typically wagering free and credited as real money.
A couple of examples of casinos offering these are VideoSlots and Rizk, but we are sure that there will be more.
Casinos are always looking for cost-effective ways to generate new players and one way they came up with is the refer-a-friend bonus. Simply refer a friend who opens an account and becomes a real money player and you can be rewarded with a bonus to your own account for this referral.
Quite a few online casinos run tournaments on particular games, generally slots but also on table games, where the winner or top placed players win bonuses or cash prizes from the prize pool. You will need to register for these tournaments and play during the time period set by the casino. You’ll find details of these tournaments in the casino lobby or via email from the casino. Generally, at the beginning of the tournament you will be given a certain amount of chips, and then have a limited amount of time to build the biggest amount of chips by playing the particular game.
Online Casinos like their bricks and mortar counterparts love VIP players, high rollers or âwhalesâ. To hang on to them they will often give them unique bonuses. Again the structure of these VIP bonuses will differ, some casinos will offer them as part of a formal VIP program whilst other casinos such as Mr Green Casino will give them to their elite customers on a more informal basis, where you will be invited directly by the casino.
How do I actually get the bonus?
Whilst many people would like to believe that casinos are in the business of giving out free money in order to attract new players or keep existing players, in practice bonuses whether match, no deposit or free spins all come with conditions attached. These are hurdles which the player has to cross in order to actually get the bonus in the form of cash. They were created in the initial years of the industry to stop âbonus whoringâ where players just went to a casino, made a deposit, got credited with the bonus and withdrew leaving the casino out of pocket.
1) Play-through the bonus
The major step all players have to complete is to play through the bonus or in other words, meet the wagering requirements set by the casino. The wagering requirement states how many times the bonus (or in certain cases bonus + deposit) must be staked before the bonus can be cashed out.
Taking the Royal Vegas welcome bonus as an example, it must be played through x 40 before the bonus can be withdrawn. If you deposited the full $250 on the first match deposit you would need to wager/stake $10,000 (40 x $250) in order to play-through and release the first $250 bonus. This doesnât mean that you have to stake and lose $10,000, just that Royal Vegas requires you to wager that sum in total. Â Also, you don’t need to make the max deposit on a welcome match bonus, you are free to deposit less e.g $50 thus requiring less demanding wagering to clear the bonus.
Recently a large number of casinos, mainly running Microgaming software increased their wagering requirements on their welcome bonus. You can now expect average wagering requirements of x 40 on the bonus with x 35  and less being good and x 50 being at the top end. Wagering requirements apply not just to a casinoâs match welcome bonus but to other bonuses such as:
Free Spins: On a free spins offer any money won from the free spins will be converted into a bonus which then has to be played through in order to be released. For example with Euro Palace’s free spins offer the winnings have to be played-through x 40 before they can be released
Refer-a-friend bonus: With the refer a friend bonus you similarly have to play through the bonus amount.
2) Choose the right game
When aiming to clear a bonus itâs not enough just to wager the amount required, in practice, you also need to choose the right casino game in order to stand a realistic chance of clearing the bonus. Casinos grant games different % wagering requirement contributions according to their house edge. Choose the âwrong gameâ with regards to its % contribution and in practice, you will never come close to clearing the bonus.
The game % contributions differ from casino to casino. Generally, slots which have a high house edge (i.e. the game favours the casino) contributes 100%, whereas blackjack which has a low house edge due to the skill element which can be used will contribute from 10% to sometimes nothing at all. Hereâs Royal Vegas’s game % contributions breakdown as an example:
| Games | % Contribution |
|---|---|
   | 100 |
 | 20 |
    | 10 |
 | 2 |
 | 0 |
If your first deposit was $100 and just played slots you would need to wager $4000 (40 x $100) before you could clear the $100 bonus, if however you played Blackjack you would need to wager $40,000 as every $10 you wagered would only contribute $1. In practice, with the wagering requirements on welcome bonuses being on average x 40 you need to play a game which contributes 100% to the wagering requirement. Look out for slots, keno and other parlour games which generally contribute 100% or 1-1.
3) Make a depositÂ
In the case of no deposit bonuses and free spins no deposit, even after playing through the bonus (the winnings in the case of the free spins) you will often need to make an actual deposit before you can cash out the bonus. On most casino sites you forfeit the welcome bonus if you make a cash withdrawal before completely playing through the bonus.
4) Cashable vs Non-Cashable Bonuses
Another small print term is the whether the bonus is cashable or not. Some bonuses are added to your account to wager but can’t be withdrawn. These are non-cashable also known as ‘sticky’ bonuses. Bonuses that you can withdraw once you’ve played through the wagering requirements are cashable otherwise known as non-sticky bonuses.
Wage Requirements
Now we are coming back to the beginning of the text and the question about who would give their money for nothing.
Online casinos do offer bonuses, but they are awarded to be played, not to withdraw them any time you want. In order to ensure you will use the bonuses for the purpose of gaming, the casinos have imposed wagering requirements.
Therefore, if a casino sets a wagering requirement (sometimes called play-through) of 35 times the bonus, it means a player has to wager 35 times the casino bonus before he will be allowed to withdraw any money.
That can be tricky, especially if you have blindly claimed a bonus without reading a fine print before. Meeting a wagering requirement can be even more problematic since different games usually count differently towards meeting wagering requirements.
Namely, slot games often contribute with 100% of their bet value towards the play-through requirement but other games may count very little or even not count at all (which is common for live dealer games).
Is The Bonus Sticky or Non Sticky?
Once the wagering requirements have been met, you can ask the operator to pay. But which amount will you be receiving â both the winnings and bonus or only the first?
That depends on whether the bonus is cashable or non-cashable (also referred to as âstickyâ).
Some Canadian online casinos will let you collect the freebie as well as the fruits of your gameplay; others provide bonuses for you to bet with but are not willing to hand them over no matter what.
Related T&C should specify whether the bonus is sticky or not.
The majority of the casinos youâll find on this site will offer cashable bonuses, but in cases where the deposit match is 200% or higher, it is likely that the bonus is ânon-stickyâ.
Maximum Cash-Out Limits
Imagine getting extremely lucky while playing with someone elseâs money, either by experiencing a winning streak with the game of your choice or by hitting a generous progressive jackpot.
Many online casino games have the potential to pay 6 and even 7-figure wins, but you may not be able to collect such huge amounts when playing with bonus funds.
While some deals come with an unlimited payout potential, others have maximum cash-out limits.
If the promotion you decided to enter comes with a withdrawal cap of $1,000, thatâs the most youâll (potentially) see landing in your bank account even if the game won you millions.
Max Bet Limits
We have yet to see a gaming site which offers bonuses but doesnât limit the size of your bets.
Promotional T&C will state that youâre not allowed to place any wagers that exceed the maximum bonus bet size of X when using bonus money.
The casinos do this to protect themselves against bonus abuse. If there would be no maximum bet limits, you could claim the bonus money, bet $500 per spin on slots, wait until significant wins and then stake down to finish wagering.
All that is not possible when the maximum stake with bonus funds is between $3 and $10 (mostly capped at $5 though).
Youâll likely also be warned against placing minimal risk bets such as wagering on Red and Black simultaneously in Roulette or betting player and banker simultaneously in Baccarat too.
Game Weighting/Eligible Games
Another point to explore is the contribution of different games towards play-through requirements. Youâll never see all bets counting the same.
Generally, wagers placed on video slots (with certain exceptions) count 100% but table games may contribute as little as 5% and bets on live dealer games may not count at all.
Whatâs more, one may not be allowed to use bonus funds for playing certain games at all. Eligible games and game contributions will differ from one online casino to another and even between promotions offered at the same gaming site.
If youâre a live gaming fan, youâll be happy to know there are Canadian casinos that feature bonuses tailored to your taste. Theyâll either let bets on live games contribute to a certain degree or offer dedicated deals with wagering requirements which can be met only by playing in their Live Casinos.
On top of the crucial details mentioned above, one should also check if the promotional offer has any country restrictions, as well as its validity. Being able to wager the bonus the required number of times within 60 days is obviously preferential to having to do so in two weeks.
Payment Method Restrictions and Benefits
The most common bonus restriction related to the chosen funding method applies to eWallets â primarily Skrill and Neteller, but sometimes also PayPal.
While multiple benefits of these payment options make them popular among Canadian players and those from other parts of the world, and numerous operators seem happy enough to accept them, depositing via Skrill or Neteller may rob you of your welcome gift.
Why? It appears that bonus hunters also favor eWallets and Skrill/Neteller depositors have been known to duplicate accounts and abuse introductory offers.
Since, at the same time, operators have to pay hefty fees for related transaction processing, this kind of behavior can generate substantial losses.
If your chosen casino has such restrictions and youâre keen on benefiting from its welcome offer, youâll simply have to use an alternative deposit option.
What about bonus whoring?
Bonus whoring is the slightly inelegant but accurate term applied to players who seek to take advantage of casino’s welcome bonuses and specifically no deposit bonuses. Bonus ‘whores’ will never make deposits, instead they opt for no deposit casino bonuses where they don’t have to play through the deposit. Generally, they will play skill-based games such as blackjack or variants of poker where they can accumulate money by using skills to minimize the ‘house edge’. As no deposit bonuses only involve small sums they are able to ‘clear’ the bonus and take any winnings from their wagering relatively easily.
Bonus ‘whoring’ was rampant in the early years of online casinos but now has been virtually eliminated. Casinos now employ a number of practical safeguards against bonus abuse including increasing the % wagering demands on no deposit bonuses, reducing the % contribution of skill-based games such as blackjack and using software that can detect players likely to be engaging in bonus abuse by their betting habits and techniques.
Bitcoin Deposits for Casino Bonuses
On the other hand, Bitcoin users are frequently rewarded for choosing to pay with the popular digital currency. Players like it because of its flexibility, security, speed, and privacy, as well as the fact no bank account is required to pay and get paid.
Unlike the above-mentioned eWallets, Bitcoin transactions cost operators virtually nothing.
This is why youâll come across gaming sites with dedicated offers for Bitcoin depositors, as well as those willing to give significantly larger bonuses to players using cryptocurrency rather than FIAT currencies such as $CAD, EUR, USD, etc.
One such example is Bitstarz Casino. Its welcome package consists of match bonuses attached to the first four deposits â 100% offered with the initial one, 50% with the second and the third, and again 100% with the fourth.
Respective caps are either $100/1 BTC or $200/2 BTC. If we tell you that 1 BTC is currently worth about $5,000, it becomes obvious how much more Bitcoin depositors get to collect.
How to pick a welcome bonus?
As welcome bonuses are the one bonus that all online casinos offer, hereâs our guide to picking the right one for you
1) Are you going to be a big or small depositor?
Ask yourself how much youâre going to deposit and play with? If youâre a big depositor and player then go for the biggest welcome bonus as possible i.e. the total amount across all stages.
2) How many deposits are you going to make?
If youâre only going to make one deposit, maybe because you want to test the casino, then you want to choose a front-loaded bonus, i.e. a bonus which offers a good match amount on the first deposit.
3) Which games are you going to play?
Be aware that generally only slots, keno and parlor (casual) games contribute 100% to the play-through requirements.
Some games notably table poker games can offer up to 20% but if you choose these games then itâs going to take much longer to clear the bonus!
As we have seen before, the bonuses are a big thing in online casinos. Online casinos use them to attract and keep their members, while players often find playing with free chips irresistible.
However, being greedy is not the best approach, because, sometimes, bigger bonuses are not better.
Big cash bonuses can be subject to the difficult wagering requirements, making you wish you have never claimed a bonus. There will be occasions when the fine print contains crucial information that you overlooked or misunderstood.
Furthermore, even if you did your homework and figured out how a bonus works, there could be a much better bonus offer out there and you were completely unaware of it.
We at Lion Casinos feel that the best casino bonus should be a perfect mixture of all ingredients: bonus amount, games that can be played with it, acceptable wagering requirements and more.
Moreover, we are willing to search, find and present you the top bonuses in the gaming industry, making sure you will not miss the one that suits your needs perfectly.
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