WAGERING REQUIREMENT CALCULATOR
Enter a crypto casino bonus, its wagering multiplier and game weighting to see the total turnover you must bet — and the honest, house-edge-based cost to clear it before a single dollar can be withdrawn.
Independent, data-led tool — see our methodology · Last updated
Turnover = multiplier × basis. Because weighted games contribute only part of each bet, the wagering you actually place = turnover ÷ weighting. Cost to clear = wagering placed × house edge. Net EV = bonus − cost to clear. If the bonus is smaller than the cost, the offer is negative-expectation before you start.
A $100 bonus on a 4% slot (100% weighting, bonus-only basis). Cost to clear rises directly with the multiplier.
| Wagering | Turnover | Cost to Clear (4% slot) | Net EV on $100 Bonus | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0x (rakeback) | $0 | $0 | +$100 | Best — keep it all |
| 5x | $500 | $20 | +$80 | Excellent |
| 10x | $1,000 | $40 | +$60 | Good |
| 20x | $2,000 | $80 | +$20 | Marginal |
| 30x | $3,000 | $120 | -$20 | Negative EV |
| 40x | $4,000 | $160 | -$60 | Negative EV |
| 50x | $5,000 | $200 | -$100 | Avoid |
How a wagering requirement actually works
A wagering requirement — also called playthrough or rollover — is the total amount you must bet before any bonus winnings can be withdrawn. It is quoted as a multiplier such as 40x. The catch is what the multiplier is multiplied by. Some casinos apply it to the bonus only; others apply it to deposit plus bonus, which can double the number. On a $100 deposit with a $100 match bonus, a 40x bonus-only requirement is 40 × $100 = $4,000 of qualifying bets. The same 40x on a deposit-plus-bonus basis is 40 × $200 = $8,000. Same advertised "40x," twice the work — which is exactly why the basis is the first thing the calculator above asks for.
That turnover figure is only half the story, because not every game counts the same. Game weighting (sometimes labelled "contribution") is the percentage of each wagered dollar that is credited toward the requirement. Slots almost always count 100%, so a dollar bet clears a dollar of requirement. Table games are deliberately throttled: blackjack and roulette frequently contribute just 10–20%. At 10% weighting you must wager ten dollars to clear a single dollar of the requirement. So a $4,000 requirement played on a 10%-weighted table game means $40,000 of actual bets placed. The calculator does this division for you and shows the real volume under "Actual Wagering to Place."
From turnover to the real cost of clearing
Once you know how much you must actually wager, the cost is straightforward and it comes straight from our house edge calculator logic: cost to clear = wagering placed × house edge. The house edge is the long-run share of every bet the game keeps. If you must place $4,000 of real wagering on a 4% slot, the math expects the edge to take $4,000 × 4% = $160 from you along the way. Subtract that from the bonus to get the bonus's net expected value. A $100 bonus that costs $160 to clear has a net EV of −$60: on average you lose money chasing it, even though the headline number looked like free cash.
This is the core reason high-wagering bonuses rarely pay. The turnover they demand is so large that the house edge applied to it routinely exceeds the bonus itself. A 50x or 60x offer on a slot is, for most players, a structured way to lose money slowly while feeling like you got a gift. The bonuses that genuinely add value are the unglamorous ones: low multipliers, generous weighting, and best of all 0x-wagering rakeback or cashback, where you keep every dollar with no playthrough at all. Our crypto casino bonuses page and bonus calculator are built around finding exactly those.
The max-cashout trap
There is one more term that quietly decides whether a bonus can ever pay: the max cashout cap (or "max win"). This limits how much you may withdraw from a bonus regardless of how much you actually win. A $50 bonus with a 5x cap lets you take out at most $250 — if a lucky run took you to $2,000, the casino keeps the other $1,750. Caps are insidious because the entire theoretical case for grinding through a wagering requirement rests on the chance of a big upside swing paying for all the small grind-down sessions. A tight cap amputates that upside while leaving the downside fully intact. The result is a distribution stacked against you: capped wins, uncapped losses. The calculator flags when your potential winnings would run into the cap so you can see the ceiling before you commit.
How provably fair keeps the math honest
Everything above assumes the house edge you were quoted is the house edge you actually face. That assumption is exactly what provably fair games let you verify. Using a hashed server seed, your own client seed, and an incrementing nonce, you can confirm after every bet that the outcome was not manipulated — so the published RTP is the real RTP, and the cost-to-clear this calculator estimates is the true cost, not an optimistic one. It does not lower the edge or the wagering requirement, but it guarantees the operator cannot secretly make either worse. You can audit any individual result with our provably fair verifier. When you have decided a bonus is worth taking, our best crypto casinos list shows which provably fair operators pair fair games with the lowest-wagering offers.
Worked example
Suppose you are offered a 100% match up to $100 with 35x wagering on the bonus only, slots count 100%, and the slot you will play has a 4% edge. Required turnover is 35 × $100 = $3,500. Because slots weight at 100%, the actual wagering to place is also $3,500. Cost to clear is $3,500 × 4% = $140. Net EV is $100 − $140 = −$40 — a losing proposition on average. Now drop the same offer to 8x wagering: turnover $800, cost to clear $32, net EV +$68. The only thing that changed was the multiplier, and it flipped the bonus from a trap into a genuinely good deal. That single comparison is what this calculator exists to surface — run your real terms through it before you opt in, and remember you can always decline a bonus to keep full control of your funds.
One last practical note on reading the small print. The four terms that decide a bonus are almost never displayed together: the multiplier and basis live in the headline, the game weighting is buried in a contributions table, the house edge depends on which specific game you open, and the max-cashout cap is often a single line near the bottom of the terms. A bonus can look identical to a great one on the front page and be worthless once those four numbers are combined. That is precisely why we built this tool to take all four at once — change any single input and watch the net expected value move, so you can see which term is actually killing (or saving) the deal before you commit a single satoshi.