Players are often duped into signing up with an online casino without ever reading the terms and conditions of a promotional offer. If a welcome offer appears too good to be true, it probably is.

There are several rogue casinos out there who promise the world but do very little to keep their promise and when you contact the customer support, they simply throw the Terms and Conditions at you, which to be honest you should have read.

The good news is that most online casinos are operated by reputable owners. The bad news is that on occasion, some will slip through the vast net and go undetected for a while before they surface on the casinoman.net radar and arouse suspicion. There have been a few online casinos that are part of the Virtual Casino group who have been offering their players (both new and old) a string of daily and weekly special offers in the form of a coupon code system.

They have in fact been sending their customers these codes via email, and when players win large amounts of cash and then proceed to withdraw, the customer support claim that the coupon was invalid, even though it was them who sent it to you via email. It clearly states that this coupon code can only be used once, but still, the system allows you to enter it and carry on playing.

Any winnings that you receive will therefore not be valid and when the time comes to withdrawing your funds, you will find out that they don’t actually belong to you because the coupon was invalid. This has been the case for several players who have made similar complaints regarding the same issue.

Rule number one - check the terms of each individual promotion before you take part in what is on offer to avoid future disappointment.

Rule number two - check the play-through requirements with each special offer. Some casinos may offer you either a free cash gift or an hour’s free-play, with players being able to keep what they win from their bonus cash or free play time. This will more often than not end in tears. Sometimes, players have to wager 500 times their bonus amount before even being able to claim any winnings and that’s if they even manage to win with these ridiculous wagering requirements. Most casinos with this type of special offer do actually state this in small print.

Rule number three – check the validity of the promotion. Most of the special offers that float around have an expiry date. Upon signing up with a new casino, make sure you know how long you have before your special offer expires.

Rule number four – Deposit amounts/requirements. To actually receive your sign-up bonus, players will usually have to deposit a certain amount. Sometimes the minimum amount that you deposit still doesn’t cut it, so check what that actual amount is in order to fully receive your bonus cash.

Rule number five – remember that when an online casino says that something is free, it probably isn’t. There are very few decent online casinos that do actually reward players with real free cash gifts and demand nothing in return. Many simply stick to making you wager silly amounts before actually receiving your cash gift.