Sign up bonuses

Some sites offer a one-off sign up bonus for you to try it before you deposit your own money. However, it seems to be the sites who don't offer a sign up bonus who get the most customers. Sometimes, I think when sites get over run with people signing up and playing with just the bonus, it loses them customers who have deposited. After all, who is going to want to keep putting in their own money, when it's going to be lost to someone who hasn't deposited their own money, so have risked nothing?

Some sites who offer sign up bonuses make it clear that you will never be able to win real money with it. This is because you don't get access to the cash playing bingo rooms until you have deposited your own money.

Others let you play against real players for real money when you are using the bonus. This is where people come unstuck when they are new because they think they will be able to withdraw what they have won. In actual fact you won't be able to withdraw until you have met all the wagering terms and conditions (usually 4x deposit + bonuses).

There is one other way I found that a site lets you use the bonus, and that is you can play against real players for real money with the bonus, but you are in a different chatroom. So people with bonus money can never chat to people using real money, even though they all play in the same game. So you are never going to know how many freebie players you are playing against (or how many ghost players).