Whenever you’re looking for an online casino bonus or search our website for one, you will come across the term „Sticky“ Bonus and „Non-Sticky Bonus“, also known as Parachute Bonus or No-Sticky Bonus. These terms are far away from self-explanatory. We will try to explain to you just what exactly these terms mean.
When choosing an online casino bonus you will essentially come across two different types of bonuses: the common Sticky Bonus and the rare Non-Sticky Bonus.
The sticky bonus is the most commonly bonus found. When opting for a sticky bonus, your deposit will most likely be matched with a 100% Casino Bonus, sometimes even higher. You are then required to match a wager requirement, which is usually around 30 to 50 times your bonus balance.
Quick example: You deposit 100€ and get 100€ Casino bonus on top with a wager requirement of 40 times the bonus, you are required to wager a total of 4.000€. The sticky bonus prevents you from cashing out your balance until these wager requirements are met.
The non-sticky bonus is very similar to the sticky bonus but with one big difference: your real money balance and your bonus money balance are split. This means that, usually, you first play with your real money balance before your bonus money comes in play. With that being said, the non-sticky bonus allows you to cash out any profits you have made, as long as you did NOT touch your bonus balance. As this sounds quite lucrative, non-sticky bonuses are pretty rare.
Quick example here as well: You deposit 100€ and get a 100€ non-sticky online casino bonus on top, which sums up to 200€. Now you have 100€ as real money funds and 100€ as bonus money funds. You play until you reach 150€ and all of a sudden you win 500€. You are now allowed to cancel your active bonus and keep your real money balance of 550€.
This is a questions that is not easy to answer. Of course at a first glance the Non-Sticky option looks way better because you can cashout instantly as long as you didn’t use any bonus money. This is definitely one of the biggest benefits compared to the Sticky bonus. But then again, if your wagering requirements only begin when using bonus money, you are more or less in a disadvantage since you could have played slots for hours with your real money balance but didn’t progress anything towards the wager.
When playing with a Sticky bonus you always know what to expect. You deposit, get bonus money, balance is bound to the wager, there’s not much room for interpretation. When playing with a Non-Sticky bonus however, it’s up to the casino to decide how they handle it. Of course you will always be able to withdraw your real money funds, but thinks like being bound to the bonus terms or wagering from the start are the decision of the casino issuing the bonus. So as always: carefully read the bonus terms before depositing!
We still think though that the Non-Sticky bonus is the better option, just solely for the fact that you can withdraw your real money funds at any time. But in the end it’s up to the player to decide which bonus option to choose.
The fact that you can cash out any time when using a Non-Sticky Bonus makes it absolutely lucrative. The player has much less of a risk since their deposit is not directly bound to the bonus as long as the bonus money hasn’t been touched. Following from this it is a much higher risk for a casino to offer such a lucrative bonus. That’s why you won’t find a Non-Sticky Bonus everywhere.
Even if you are someone who doesn’t usually play with a bonus, a Non-Sticky Bonus is always worth taking. Why is that so? First of all, there is not really a downside to it. You can always cash out any winning you made with your real money balance, just like if you deposited without a bonus. And even if you lose your real money balance, you also have your bonus balance as sort of a second chance.
This is something we cannot answer straight away. Some online casinos strictly divide the real money balance and bonus money balance, so that only the bonus money is affected by the bonus terms. Other online casinos don’t do that, here you are bound to the bonus terms from the beginning, but are still allowed to withdraw any real money balance.
Same goes for the wager requirements by the way. While in some casinos you wager from the beginning when taking a Non-Sticky Bonus, in others you won’t start working towards the wager until you use your bonus money. Although this is a good indicator for the above, if you start wagering from the beginning, you are most likely bound to the bonus terms. Keep an eye out for that and as always read the bonus terms for more information.
Finding the right playstyle for a Non-Sticky bonus is not that easy. Depending on the casino bonus terms, in most cases you don’t have to play risky. This is a big adventage across from a Sticky bonus. When choosing a Sticky bonus, most of the time you have to play a bit risky in order to fulfill the wager requirements.
With a Non-Sticky bonus, there is no need to be risky as long as you use your real money funds. The best thing we can recommend is that you play just like you would play without a bonus. Because in most cases it’s exactly that, you play without a bonus as long as you use your real money balance. So just stick to your usual playstyle, try to get lucky and most importantly have fun. And if luck wasn’t on your side, you still have your bonus money as a second chance. Then it’s up to you to decide if you want to get risky or not.
