Your First 5 Casinos

Follow this article and the linked guides, and we believe that anyone can grow an initial $100 into $1000 with minimal risk. In fact, the expected average result is closer to $1200, so we are being conservative with this claim. All you need to start is $100.

Casino whoring your bankroll to $1000

If you are unfamiliar with online casinos or casino bonuses and have not read the previous articles in our Beginner's Crash Course, then you might like to take 5 minutes to read our guides for beginners on the subjects - Beginner's Guide to Casino Bonuses and Bonus clearing strategies. This will bring you up to speed and explain how we plan to accomplish building your bankroll to $1000 by playing blackjack. In a nutshell, we'll be "casino whoring" - going from one casino to the next, taking advantage of their promotional offers and "bonus bagging" plenty of extra cash along the way.

I have played at all of these casinos personally, although in a different order, and my experience has shown that this is an ideal list of first five casinos to play at if your goal is to increase your bankroll fast. Now off we go to our first casino:

Bonus:

$300

Deposit:

$100

Wager:

27xB

Exp Profit:

$268

Golden Palace - $100 deposit, $300 bonus

Golden Palace Casino (our review here) offers an extremely generous $300 bonus on a $100 deposit. You are required to wager through $8000 before withdrawing, or 27 times the bonus amount (27xB). The game to choose is blackjack due to the low house edge of around 0.4%. If you follow our blackjack basic strategy guide, on average you can expect to end up with around $368 when you finish (a profit of $268) - but this amount will vary depending on your bet size and luck. The lower your bet size, the less you should vary from the expected result, but the longer the wagering will take. I recommend that you never bet more than 1% of your bankroll when bonus clearing and as it is your first attempt, start with $2 hands of blackjack and adjust from there according to your patience and risk tolerance once you get the hang of things.

Remember: the smaller the bet size, the lower the variance and the greater the chance that you will tend towards the average expected result.

How did I do?
I was quite successful at clearing the Golden Palace sign up bonus - I completed wagering requirements with a $513 balance. You can read about my experience in my blog, Bankroll Boost.

Bonus:

$200

Deposit:

$200

Wager:

20xB

Exp Profit:

$184

Casino on Net (aka 888.com) - $200 bonus

Casino on Net (our review here) has a 100% welcome bonus, up to a maximum of $200. The wagering requirements are reasonable at 20xB ($4000), although please note that if you deposit using a Neteller account, you will have to wager 50xB ($10,000). Remember to play using small wagers on the blackjack tables - always following our blackjack basic strategy chart. Nothing comes for free, but casino whoring your first grand only requires a little patience - so if you feel tempted to bet big to speed things up, take a rest, go for a walk outside, or continue where you leave off tomorrow. There is no rush!

How did I do?
Lady luck was not with me this time. After completing the wagering requirements playing blackjack, my balance was only $138, a loss of $62. Read the full story in my blog, Bankroll Boost.

Bonus:

£200

Deposit:

£200

Wager:

25xB

Exp Profit:

£180 ($360)

Victor Chandler Casino - £200 bonus

Victor Chandler Casino (our review here) offers a whopping £200 bonus via a 100% match deposit. By now, if you have followed our advice, you should have enough in your bankroll to deposit the required £200 (roughly $400). This casino is played entirely in your browser via a flash interface, so there is no need to download and install anything. Again, hit the blackjack tables and stick to our blackjack basic strategy chart and you should walk away with a handsome profit after meeting the 25xB wagering requirements - on average you can expect to end up with £380. Note though that the bonus is paid after meeting the wagering requirements, not before.

Was Victor good to me?
You bet he was. My ending balance was £571 (approximately $1142), although when I did it the bonus was actually £250 rather than the £200 it is today. Full story in my blog.

Bonus:

£100

Deposit:

£100

Wager:

4xB

Exp Profit:

£98 ($196)

Ladbrokes - £100 with only 4xB

Ladbrokes Casino (our review here), an arm of the famous UK sports betting corporation, offers a 100% bonus up to £100 (or $200), with an incredibly low 4xB wagering required. Wait, there has to be a catch right? Yes, there is. Playing blackjack, the minimum bet size is 10% of your deposit - so £10 if you deposit the maximum - and the bonus is only awarded after the wagering is completed. Now that is way over our recommended 1% of your deposit, so it is riskier than the other bonuses, but by now your bankroll should be looking healthy enough to take on the risk. On average you would expect to end with £198, but obviously due to the enforced minimum wager size, you almost certainly won't hit that amount.

Did I cope with the variance?
I almost busted on this one due to the large bet size but ended up ahead with a round £250. You can read the tale in my blog.

Bonus:

$200

Deposit:

$200

Wager:

24xB

Exp Profit:

$180

Bet365 Casino - $200 bonus

Now that your bankroll is enlarged a bit, try Bet365 casino (our review here), which gives a 100% bonus on deposits up to $200. Again, blackjack is the game of choice at this casino - make sure you stick to the basic strategy guide, and understand the best way to clear the bonus. Bet365 requires 24xB worth of wagering, so the expected average ending balance is around $380.

How did I go at Bet365?
As you can see in my blog, Bankroll Boost, in an effort to finish quickly I upped the bet size and ended with $197 in the bank, a loss of $3. Lesson learned - patience is a virtue.

Taking stock

By now you should be intimately familiar with playing at online casinos. You will have seen a variety of different casino software packages, and should be able to play a mean game of blackjack.

I have mentioned the expected average result at each casino along the way. Remember that starting with $100, had you achieved the average result at each casino, you would now have $1288, a profit of $1188:

Obviously you will not have achieved this exact result. Some of you will finish below that, and some above - after all that is why it is called an average. What my experience shows is that it is possible to lose money from time to time (see Bet365 and Casino on Net), but that in the long run, the amount of bonus money given to you by the casinos puts you way out in front when you play using a mathematically correct strategy. Therefore we here at Casino Listings stand by our claim that you can turn $100 into more than $1000 with minimal risk using casino bonuses.

We hope you have enjoyed your introduction to the online casino world and have learnt a lot along the way. We would love to hear your stories of how you went at your first five casinos, so feel free to leave a comment below and tell us how you fared. Why not also drop by our casino forum, introduce yourself, and say hello?

More Bonuses?

What? You want more? Of course, we have bonuses listed for over 160 different online casinos on this site. We have prepared several categorized lists of all the best casino bonuses on offer such as sign-up bonuses, blackjack bonuses, and monthly and weekly bonuses, plus many, many more.