What Are New Year's Bonuses?
To ring in the New Year, many online casinos and slots sites offer players bonus credit and promo codes so that they can explore new games at the end of a hectic festive season.
The types of New Year’s bonuses offered by casinos can vary. In this guide, we’ll take you through some of the types of deals you’ll find in January. We’ll also look at terms and conditions you can expect, and explore how you can claim bonuses of your own.
To start, let’s break down a few common types of New Year’s bonuses.
Welcome Bonuses
New Year welcome bonuses are designed to encourage new players to join a casino or slots site. These welcome deals might include cash matches, where a site matches however much you deposit with bonus credit, free spins packages, or no deposit deals where you can kick-start the New Year without having to pay in a penny.
Deposit Bonuses
Deposit bonuses give you a little extra credit when you pay a specific amount of money into your account. For example, Grosvenor Casino previously offered a New Year deal where you could claim a 150% cash match on any deposits you made up to £30. These deals are designed to give players a little extra to play with when exploring sites, though existing customers can also take advantage of deposit offers.
No Deposit Bonuses
Naturally, no deposit bonuses do the opposite to the above. In some cases, casinos give new and existing players extra credit just for registering or signing in. However, there are usually some wagering terms attached (more on those a little further down).
Free Spins
Free spins packages let you play some of a casino’s top games without having to spend any of your own money. Again, these might arrive as part of a welcome deal, or even with a no deposit bonus code. Some sites also offer free spins to existing players in the New Year to help reignite interest in their games.
Betfred, for example, has previously offered free spins packages to all players as part of New Year deals. Some of these deals didn’t have wagering terms attached – but always make sure to read the terms and conditions supplied!
Sometimes, free spins have win caps applied, which means that you can only win a certain amount of money on the back of these deals – regardless of how many spins you receive. We’ll explore this in a little more detail in our terms and conditions section below.
Tournaments
Some casinos and slots sites have tournaments running all year round, and players can compete to see who spins the biggest wins over a set period of time. Others will offer special New Year slot tournaments – perhaps themed around fireworks or ‘starting the year with a bang’. Regardless, players might typically find New Year tournaments popping up towards the end of the December before.
Mr Green casino, for instance, has served up a variety of New Year’s casino deals over the years, including a special tournament or two where players could claim cash prizes.
Tournament games can get competitive, so it’s always a good idea to set yourself time and bankroll limits and play responsibly. The best UK casinos have responsible gaming features available where you can exclude yourself from paying in and playing if you need to.
New Year’s Slots
Along with New Year bonuses and tournaments, many casinos take the opportunity to refresh their games catalogues at the start of January, bringing on board new slots and tables for players to get into (and to encourage new players to join).
What’s more, some casinos even bring on board themed slots and games built especially for the occasion! While you’ve probably seen plenty of Christmas slot games around in December, there’s even a handful of New Year games out there to really cover the whole of the festive season.
In fact, you might sometimes find that casinos offer deals tied into specific New Year’s slots to help players explore them for free. Regardless, here’s a selection of New Year-themed games you can find across UK casinos.
New Year’s Bash
New Year’s Bash is a Habanero slot game that really takes the lights and festivities of New Year celebrations up to 11! This sparkly, explosive slot game is set against a city backdrop and has 5×3 reels –you’ll need to spin in famous landmarks with fireworks erupting behind them to claim winning combos.
This 25-payline slot features champagne wilds and a free spins round where you start with 15 games to explore the slot’s various features. Light up the bulbs in this game, and you’ll retrigger the free spins. It’s available to play at sites such as Pulsz Casino.
New Year’s Celebration
Spinomenal’s New Year’s Celebration slot game is a glitzy title with a maximum prize of 2,000x your stake, and has action taking place across a sizable 5×4 grid. As you would expect, it’s a bright, memorable title, with 40 paylines and scatter symbols to watch out for while you play. Line up rockets, clock wilds, spilled cocktails and party hats.
Released back in 2023, this is a simple title but one of very few that’s themed around the New Year (not to be confused with Chinese New Year slots, which celebrate an occasion that comes along a little later on).
This slot is available to play right now at sites such as Space Casino and Prime Casino.
Important Terms and Conditions to Consider
As with all casino deals and bonuses, there will be terms and conditions attached to New Year offers. Therefore, before you go ahead and claim any promo codes or make any deposits, do make sure to read the fine print in full.
Typical terms and conditions that usually apply to New Year bonuses include:
Wagering requirements: On the back of a bonus deal, you normally need to play back a certain amount of money into a casino site before you can withdraw. For example, with the Grosvenor Casino deal mentioned above, there was a 30x wagering requirement for your deposit and bonus received. This meant that if you deposited and received £30 in total, you would need to play back £900 before being able to withdraw winnings. Terms will vary from site to site.
Minimum deposits: Some cash matching deals require you to pay in a specific amount of money to access your credit. For instance, you might have to pay a minimum of £10 to get a 100% match, meaning that you’ll get £10 back. No deposit deals, naturally, remove this requirement completely.
Minimum wagers: With some deals and attached games, you might have to place a minimum bet per spin to claim a bonus package.
Win caps: When you claim a free spins package, you might only be able to win up to a certain amount of money within your deal’s window. For example, say you claim 30 free spins to use on New Year’s Bash. Even though you have 30 spins to work through, you might only be able to win a total of £15 from the set. Win caps will vary depending on the deal and the game involved.
Offer duration: Many free spins and welcome packages only last for up to a month, after which point you’ll forfeit any bonus credit and/or winnings you received. So, you need to make sure that you use what you want before this period is up! Of course, not all deals have 30-day windows, so check carefully.
Game restrictions: Sometimes, you will only be able to use bonus credit on specific slot games, or your free spins might only work on certain New Year titles.
Regardless of the deals you enter into, always read the fine print and terms attached. That way, you can avoid disappointment and make sure that you know what to expect!
How We Choose New Year Bonuses
At CasinoBonus, we care deeply about making sure that you get access to the best-value New Year bonuses and promos available to UK players across the casino landscape. This means taking a meticulous approach to researching and comparing deals – and carefully reading all terms and conditions attached.
To start, we scour the UK online casino scene for deals and check what other experts have to say, along with reading player reviews and consulting industry barometers on the performance and reliability of certain sites. This helps us to ensure that we list deals for reputable casinos.
We then take the time to evaluate each part of the bonuses we choose to highlight. This means calculating how much bonus credit you receive, what wagering requirements apply (if any), if there’s an expiry date, and what games apply to the deal. If there are any other terms, then we also consult those.
Then we compare different bonuses side by side – checking different percentage matching, max bonus amounts, and how easy it is for players to reach wagering requirements. Which deals are the best value?
Of course, player reviews and feedback are extremely important – their insights tell us what you can expect to get out of such offers. We don’t just take a casino’s word for whether or not a deal is worth going for!
Finally, we’re committed to making sure that our lists of deals and promotions are always kept up to date with the latest terms and conditions, and ensuring that new, better-value deals are promoted wherever possible.
All of this goes towards a final ranking, where we focus largely on delivering value to you, the player. How much play can you get out of a deal? Is a deal fair and reasonable with regard to wagering and deposit amounts? Are players likely to be happy with the offer?
Conclusion
As you can see, there are lots of interesting ways to play this New Year, with some of the biggest UK casinos offering bonus deals tied into the festive season. Take a look at some of the offers we highlight here, but remember to always play responsibly and to keep track of your bankroll and play time.
If you need help at any time, consult your casino’s responsible gambling tools to take back control of your games.