If a friend you knew recommended an online casino, it would carry much more weight with you than all the reviews, ratings and advertisements that you would find on the Internet. This is the power of the Refer A Friend bonus. Online casinos provide incentives to their existing players to bring their friends on board. Everybody wins because the online casino gets more traffic, the player referring his friends gets bonuses and the referred friend easily finds a reputed online gambling site.
The Refer A Friend bonus is simply structured. A member of an online casino asks a friend to register at the casino. The friend obviously cannot be another existing member of the online casino. While registering, the friend has to indicate the name or account number of the person making the reference. After registering the friend has to open a real money account and make the minimum stipulated first deposit. Once he does that the player who has made the reference gets his Refer A Friend bonus.
Though the structure of the Refer A Friend bonus is largely similar across online casinos there are differences of detail. Many online casinos allow their members to refer as many friends as they want and whenever they want. The members get the bonuses for each friend referred provided the friend complies with the required conditions. Some online casinos limit the number of friends that a player can refer. The idea behind this limitation is to ensure that players do not refer any number of unknown people just for the sake of claiming the bonuses. Ultimately the casino is interested in drawing players who will wager over a long time. Some online casinos limit the references to a certain number per month, in which case the player can refer more friends in the next month. Other online casinos have an overall limit on the number of friends that can be referred.
There are two prevalent systems for working out the amount of the Refer A Friend bonus. In one system the player gets a fixed lump sum amount as bonus independent of the amount deposited as friend. This bonus is less than the minimum deposit required of the friend. In the other system the bonus is a percentage of the deposit made by the friend. In this system there is an incentive for the player to convince his friend to make a larger first deposit.
The latest trend in Refer A Friend bonuses is the multi-stage bonus. Only a few online casinos offer such bonuses. Again, two systems are prevalent. Usually the Refer A Friend bonus is given only on the first deposit made by the friend. Some online casinos have started giving the bonus on the second or even the third deposit made by the friend. The logic is that since the referring player is getting a bonus on the subsequent deposits he will be inclined to convince his friend to continue wagering at the online casino. In the other multi-stage Refer A Friend bonus the player receives bonuses when the friend refers other friends to the online casinos. The bonuses in the second and third stages are successively smaller.
