Are free spins offers on slots really free? What is the catch?

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Are 'free spins' really free, or is there some catch along the way? How can casinos offer users something for nothing and still make a profit?

These are all fair questions and to be honest, if you have ever come across an offer online that promises "free" anything and you have investigated the offer in a little more detail, you often find that what at first appears to be free, is actually anything but.

A great example of this is my local golf shop which is offering a "free hybrid club", which sounds great but it is only when you read on that you discover that the offer is only available to those of us buying a full priced driver of the same name.

The golf club is technically free, but you have to spend the best part of £300 in order to obtain it.

So against this backdrop, which is a commonly used trick when marketing any form of product or service, it is easy to assume that online casinos are essentially using the same approach.

Some undoubtedly are, but here's the key point - not all the offers you see require you to spend money or place a deposit into an account, or even register your bank or credit card details in order to receive them.

The problem is - all these different types of free spins offers are often called the same thing - a free spin offer, so in this article, we'll examine the different types of free spins offer available and what they actually mean for you and your pocket.

Essentially there are two types of free spins offer; the first is a conditional free spins offer which is where the player has to do something financial-based in order to realise the free spins. The second is an unconditional offer where the player can simply register with a casino and use their free spins without any further obligation required.

Let's take a look at each in a little more detail.

1. Conditional Free Spins

A conditional free spin offer is one where the recipient of the offer usually has to do something in order to receive the free spins. These are without doubt the most numerous type of free spins offer available on the market today with a whole host of casinos using them to attract new players to the site.

A good example of this type of offer is where a player has to register on the site and make a minimum deposit into their account in order to release the free spins to them. Of course, there is no obligation on the player to spend the money before they realise their free spins, but the casino is expecting the player to play through at least the minimum deposit with them following the acceptance of the free spins

The casino then hopes that the player will enjoy playing on the site that he or she will then deposit further money into their account when the initial funds have run dry to continue playing. It is a simple but effective strategy, especially when allied with deposit bonuses which offer the players cash on top of their free spins, in order to attract them to play.

Other conditional free spin offers can include those which are awarded when a player has wagered a stated amount of money on a certain game at the casino. Conditional free spin offers are also used by casinos to tempt existing customers to play certain games for a certain amount of money, with the promise being that if they spend £X on the named slot, they will be rewarded with free spins, or credits amounting to free spins on the named slot.

Finally, the other conditional free spin is when a player receives the offer and wins some money, but in order to access the money to play on the site, they have to deposit cash into their account. Although, in this case, the player doesn't have to deposit money to play the spins, the net result is still the same in that if they win money, they have to deposit cash in order to withdraw it.

Some people view these practices as unsavoury and misleading. That is not the case at all. These are simply the same practices that you see across the whole range of different services and products. Casinos still work under the same market conditions as your local golf shop, supermarket or Apple store.

2. Unconditional Free Spins

Unconditional free spins are much rare to find and these are the offers which are the holy grail of the gambler. As the name suggests, these are offers where players can simply join a site by starting the journey here and registering.

The best bit about these offers is that if you win money on your free spins, then it is credited to your account (though it will likely be subject to play-through requirements, so you can't withdraw it immediately and walk away).

This means that if you are lucky, you can begin your bankroll at a casino without having to deposit any cash into the account yourself.

Of course, in many cases, the player does not win anything on the free spins and it is then up to them whether they deposit cash into their account to continue playing at the casino. However this is their choice and there is no need for the player to do so in terms of the bonus they have received.

In the past some casinos offered free spins where players could even walk away with their winnings, but these are now very rare to find especially with so many punters looking for precisely these offers to take full advantage of.

Of course, what offer a casino chooses to tempt its potential customers with is up to them but in the modern online world, casinos have a far greater understanding of what offers not only work in tempting customers in, but also which offer them the greatest degree of profitability in terms of turning potential customers, into paying ones.

So the key thing to remember from this article is that free spins may mean different things depending on the offer you receive. If you are prepared to be flexible and are happy to complete the process required to realise free spins at a number of top casinos, such as those found on this website, then you have many hours happy gaming ahead of you.

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