Wagering Requirements Explained: How the UK's 10x Cap Works

A multiplier that tells you how much you must stake before bonus winnings can be withdrawn.">wagering requirement, also called a playthrough, is a condition in a bonus's terms. You have to place bets adding up to a set total before the bonus, and anything you win with it, becomes withdrawable cash. The requirement is written as a multiplier, such as 10x, and applied to a stated amount, usually the bonus.

Each qualifying bet counts towards the total. Stake £1 on a slot that counts in full and you have cleared £1. Most casinos show a progress bar in the bonus section of your account, so you can see how much play is left. Until you reach the total, the bonus balance stays locked, and withdrawing early usually cancels it.

Wager-free offers skip all of this. Winnings from wager-free spins go straight into your cash balance and can be withdrawn like any other money. Since the 10x cap arrived, they have become the most common welcome offer at the big UK casinos.

The Gambling Commission announced the change on 26 March 2025. It was due to start on 19 December 2025, was moved to 19 January 2026, and has applied to every promotion from UKGC-licensed operators since then. A casino can no longer require you to play through bonus funds more than 10 times.

The Commission's own example shows the scale of the change. A £10 bonus with 50x wagering meant £500 of play before any winnings could be withdrawn. At the new maximum of 10x, the same £10 bonus needs £100.

Two other changes arrived on the same date. Offers that require more than one type of gambling are banned, so a casino can no longer ask you to place a sports bet to unlock slot spins. The Commission also reworded the rewards and bonuses section of its self-exclusion.">responsible gambling tooling, intervention obligations and customer protection.">social responsibility code to make its expectations clearer. That code requires bonus terms to be clear, transparent, fair and readily accessible.

In practice, if you see a UK casino offer quoting 35x or 40x wagering, treat it as out of date and check the operator's current terms before you deposit.

A multiplier means little until you know what it applies to. 'On bonus' means the multiplier applies to the bonus amount alone. 'On deposit plus bonus' means it applies to both, which doubles the turnover on a 100% match.

Take a £50 deposit with a £50 bonus. Under the old terms, 35x on the bonus meant £1,750 of wagering, and 35x on deposit plus bonus meant £3,500. Under the current rule, the most this £50 bonus can require is £500, because bonus funds can't be subject to more than 10 times play-through.

The rule is written around bonus funds, so the bonus is the number to check against. If an offer applies its multiplier to your deposit as well, add up the total and compare it with 10 times the bonus. Where wagering applies to free spin winnings instead, the same maths runs on whatever you win: £8 of spin winnings at 10x means £80 of wagering.

Start with the turnover: the bonus multiplied by the multiplier that tells you how much you must stake before bonus winnings can be withdrawn.">wagering requirement. Then apply the house edge of the games you'll play. A slot with 96% RTP has a 4% house edge, so every £100 you wager costs £4 on average.

At 10x, the expected cost of wagering is usually smaller than the bonus itself. A £50 bonus at 10x needs £500 of wagering, which costs about £20 on average at 96% RTP. That leaves an expected value of roughly £30. Under the old 35x terms, the same bonus needed £1,750 of play and cost £70 on average, more than the bonus was worth.

Free spins follow the same logic. Two hundred spins at 10p on a 96% slot return about £19.20 on average. If those winnings carry 10x wagering, clearing them costs about £7.68, leaving roughly £11.50. Fifty wager-free spins at 10p return about £4.80, all of it cash. Compare offers on value, not on the headline spin count.

These are averages. A single session can finish well above or below them, and a low cap on winnings makes an offer worth less than the maths suggests.

Game weighting sets how much each bet counts towards the requirement. Slots usually count 100%. Table games and live casino often count 10% or 20%, and some games don't count at all.

Weighting multiplies the play you need. A £50 bonus at 10x needs £500 of slot play. If blackjack counts at 10%, the same requirement takes £5,000 of blackjack bets. Even under the cap, a bonus can be close to impossible to clear for a table-games player in the time allowed.

Some casinos also exclude particular slots from wagering, often high-RTP titles. Bets on an excluded game may not count, and some terms treat them as a breach that voids the bonus. The excluded list is in the bonus terms, so read it before your first spin.

Most bonus terms set a maximum stake while the bonus is active. Casumo's current welcome terms, for example, cap bets at €5 or the local equivalent. Go over the limit, even once, and the casino can remove the bonus and any winnings made with it.

The law sets its own ceiling on slots. Online slot stakes are capped at £5 a spin for players aged 25 and over and £2 for 18 to 24 year olds, whatever the bonus terms say. If the bonus cap is lower than your legal limit, the bonus cap is the one to watch.

Payment methods can matter as much as stakes. Several big welcome offers exclude e-wallet deposits: Mr Green's current offer, for example, excludes Neteller, Skrill and PayPal. Deposit with an excluded method and you may not get the bonus at all.

Every multiplier that tells you how much you must stake before bonus winnings can be withdrawn.">wagering requirement has a deadline, and the range is wide. Among the offers we checked in September 2026, Mr Green gave three days to wager spin winnings 10 times, while 888's matched bonus allowed 90 days.

Divide the turnover by the days available to see the pace you would need. £500 of wagering over seven days is about £71 a day. The same £500 over 90 days is under £6 a day. If the pace is faster than you would normally play, the deadline is pushing you to stake more than you planned.

When the deadline passes, the casino usually removes any bonus funds you haven't cleared, along with the winnings made from them. Note the expiry date when you opt in.

Skip it if you mainly play table games or live casino. With low weighting, even 10x can mean thousands of pounds of bets, and you are better off depositing without a bonus and keeping full freedom to withdraw.

Skip it if the deadline doesn't fit how you play. Three days to clear spin winnings suits someone playing that week, not someone who logs in once a weekend.

Skip it if a cap takes away most of the upside. Some spin offers limit winnings to £30 or £100. That can still be fine for a low-cost welcome offer, but it isn't worth changing how you play to chase it. And skip it if you're likely to want your money back soon, because withdrawing before the requirement is met usually cancels the bonus and its winnings.

Wager-free spins are now the most common welcome offer at the big UK casinos. PlayOJO gives 50 spins on Big Bass Bonanza for a first deposit of at least £10, with no wagering. Sky Vegas offers 250 wager-free spins: 50 with no deposit and 200 more after you deposit and stake £10.

Where a matched bonus is still on offer, 10x is the ceiling, so the other terms decide the value. 888's 100% up to £100 gives 90 days to wager but caps winnings at £100. Casumo's 50% up to £100 needs a £20 deposit and gives seven days.

Offers change often, so treat these as examples rather than a ranking, and check the operator's current terms before you deposit. Our guide to the best no-wagering casinos tracks the wager-free offers we rate most highly.