A bonus is not money. It is a contract that offers you credit in exchange for an obligation to bet a specified amount, and like any contract it can be priced. The pricing takes one line of arithmetic, and once you can do it in your head at the cashier you will accept perhaps one offer in five.

The break-even formula

Every wagering requirement forces a volume of turnover. Turnover has a cost, and that cost is the game's house edge multiplied by everything you put through it. So:

Bonus EV = bonus credit − (required turnover × house edge of the game you clear it on)

Required turnover is where operators differ. Some multiply the bonus alone; some multiply deposit plus bonus, which doubles your obligation on a 100% match. Read that clause before anything else, because it is worth more than the headline percentage.

Worked example. You deposit 400 units and take a 100% match, so you hold a 400 bonus. Wagering is 35× the bonus: 35 × 400 = 14,000 units of turnover. You clear it on slots at 96.2% RTP, a 3.8% edge.

Expected cost of that turnover: 14,000 × 0.038 = 532.

You were handed 400 and the clearing process is expected to cost you 532. The offer's expected value is −132, before you have made a single mistake. It is a fee dressed as a gift.

Rearranging for the number you actually want

Set the EV to zero and solve for the wagering multiple. With turnover based on the bonus only:

Break-even multiple = 1 ÷ house edge

At 3.8% that is 1 ÷ 0.038 ≈ 26.3×. Anything above roughly 26× on a 96.2% slot is negative before extra restrictions. On a 97.5% game the edge is 2.5% and the break-even sits at 40×. On a 94% game it collapses to 16.7×.

If the requirement is calculated on deposit plus bonus, halve your tolerance on a 100% match — the same 35× now demands 28,000 units of turnover and costs 1,064 to clear against a 400 credit.

Clearing game RTP	Edge	Break-even multiple (bonus only)	Cost to clear 35× on a 400 bonus
98.0%	2.0%	50×	280
97.0%	3.0%	33×	420
96.2%	3.8%	26×	532
95.0%	5.0%	20×	700
92.0%	8.0%	12.5×	1,120

 

The three clauses that quietly move the answer

Game weighting. If table games contribute 10% toward the requirement, then 1,000 wagered counts as 100 cleared. Your effective turnover on that 14,000 obligation becomes 140,000. Even at a 0.5% edge that is a 700-unit expected cost — worse than clearing on slots. Low weighting on low-edge games is the mechanism that makes "clear it on blackjack" advice fail.

Maximum bet while a bonus is live. A 5-unit cap on a 14,000 obligation means 2,800 rounds minimum. At six seconds a spin that is four and a half hours of clicking. Your time has a cost, even if the terms do not price it.

Maximum cashout. A cap of 5× the bonus means the entire right tail of outcomes is trimmed. If you run the bonus up to 6,000 and can only withdraw 2,000, every calculation above was measuring value that was never available to you.

Completion probability, not just expected cost

Expected cost assumes you survive the turnover. You often will not. With a combined balance of 800 units and 14,000 to bet through, you are cycling your bankroll 17.5 times. On a high-variance slot the probability of dropping to zero somewhere in that sequence is substantial — most bonuses fail not by finishing negative but by never finishing at all.

Two practical consequences. First, bet sizing matters: a 5-unit stake against an 800 balance is 160 units of runway, which a medium-variance game survives far more often than a 20-unit stake would. Second, a bonus you cannot realistically complete has an expected value close to the negative of the deposit you locked up to get it, not the cheerful figure on the promo page.

Why per-hand rebates price out differently

A rebate is the structural opposite of a matched bonus. There is no credit granted up front and therefore no obligation created: instead of being paid to generate turnover, you are paid a fraction of the cost of turnover you were going to generate anyway. That removes both terms that ruin bonus maths — no multiple to clear, and no cap trimming the tail. It shows up in the effective RTP of the game itself rather than in a promotions tab. On Duel Blackjack Live, the operator's Blackjack Beta table, the mechanic is 60% Instant Rakeback on every hand, credited as each hand settles; quoted with it included, the effective RTP is 99.78%, and the rebate carries neither a playthrough nor a condition. Because there is no lock, the value lands on a balance you can act on immediately, and because there is no multiple, there is nothing to break even against — the comparison is between a lower running cost and a higher one, not between a gift and a contract.

That is the mental model to carry into any cashier: does this offer reduce the cost per unit I stake, or does it hand me credit and then bill me in turnover?

Run the check in fifteen seconds

1. Find the multiple and what it applies to — bonus, or deposit plus bonus.

2. Multiply out the turnover.

3. Multiply turnover by the edge of the game you will actually clear on, after weighting.

4. Compare that cost with the credit.

5. Look at max bet, max cashout, and the expiry window. Any one of them can turn a positive number negative.

Take the 400-unit example one last time with better terms: 20× on the bonus alone, cleared on a 97% game. Turnover 8,000, edge 3%, cost 240 against a 400 credit — expected value +160. Such offers exist; they are simply much rarer than the ones with a 35 in front of them, and they usually come with a tighter cap on the maximum you can win.

None of this makes a positive-EV bonus a source of income. It makes the difference between paying a known fee for entertainment and paying an unknown one. Set your deposit limit first, price the entertainment before you accept the credit, and treat every wagering requirement as what it is: a price tag written in turnover rather than in currency.