Free spins are one of the most common bonuses used by online casinos to attract new players. Unlike cash bonuses or reloads, free spins bonuses are “low maintenance” and much more accessible.
They offer a win-win situation for all concerned - players can get a taste of the real-money gambling without spending a dime, and casinos have a reliable way of getting players hooked. But when played right you can actually win real cash with these bonuses.
Recently, we decided to test out if this was true or not. To do that, we looked at some of the best casinos that offer free spins to US players. We made it a point to pick casinos that offer the right mix of features:
● A lot of free spins, because of course, the more the merrier!
● A lower wagering requirement, to make it easier to cash out
A quick guide to wagering requirements
Online casinos are not a charity - they rarely give anything away 100% free! Most bonuses at casinos come with a wagering requirement, usually mentioned as 30x, 45x, 60x, etc. The lower this is the better for players because that means they have a chance to withdraw winnings faster.
We will explain this using the first casino we played at, which was this cool website called Sloto Cash Casino.
Playing 50 Free Spins at Sloto Cash
Sloto Cash casino offered a generous 50 free spins on the popular slots game Lucha Libre 2, with the not so liberal wagering requirement of 60x. You win some, you lose some eh?!
The sequel is better than the original
We signed up at the casino and used the code 50WELCOME to claim the 50 free spins. Then we loaded the game Lucha Libre 2 and started wagering on this fun game with Mexican wrestling themes.
Within our first ten spins, we had already won a Mucho Mayhem bonus, which gave the option to pick one out of three amazing bonus moves. We won another half a dozen free spins, with bonus multipliers to boot.
Thanks to the numerous 2x and 3x multipliers, we had built up a comfortable pot of around $23 by the time our limit of 50 free spins (and other free spin bonuses during the game) had run out.
But since the wagering requirement here was 60x, we had to spin for $1380 (23 x 60) before we could withdraw our winnings. Though we did hit a few multipliers along the way, it was never enough and eventually, our purse was empty.
Onto Grande Vegas Casino for 50 Spins on Ghost Ship
Ghost Ship is a pirate-themed slot with a high RTP of 98.5. So, we had high hopes when we claimed the free spin no deposit bonus at Grande Vegas.
But since this was a slots game with jackpot feature, the hit percentage did not really work out for us over the course of the 50 free spins. We did manage to grab around 12 free extra spins with the Pirate and Dutchman bonus and wild cards.
On the whole, we did not enjoy the experience as much as Lucha Libre 2, as we did not win anything of note with this RTG slots game at all.
Its third time lucky at Diamond Reels Casino!
For our third and last shot, we chose carefully, having learned a lot about no deposit free spins from our experiences so far. Diamond Reels looked promising, as it had both a high number of free spins (50) and a low wagering requirement (30x). So, we loaded a free new account and claimed our bonus, valid on the RTG Slot PayDirt.
And this time around, we really did hit pay dirt, if you know what I mean. Thanks to the Wild and Scatter cards in this game, we made around $35 by the end of our free spin bonus. Thanks to the 30x wagering, we now had to wager $1050 before we could withdraw any cash.
But Paydirt took care of everything when we wagered our hard earned $35. We were playing at relatively low stakes of $0.50, giving us roughly 70 spins before the cash ran out. But the Wild Mine icon landed in our favor, giving us a shocking 2500x multiplier on one of our 50 cent bets.
The result was a payout of $1250. This is hardly surprising according to many reviews since Paydirt is a game that is capable of dishing out up to 50,000x your wager amount in winnings! That $1250 was enough for us to complete our initial 30x wagering rule, leaving us in the end with a cool $368 to be withdrawn, absolutely free!!