Refer a friend bonus Guide NZ

The Strength of Referral Marketing - Getting the Most out of Your Referral Bonus

First of all, let’s take a look at referral marketing in general, before we dive into specific casino refer a friend marketing. Referral marketing is a great way for companies to attract new clients and to reward loyal customers that refer new clients to them.

Study shows that 28% of millennials will try out a product based on their friend’s recommendations. This counts for all sorts of products, not just physical products, but also digital products like, let’s say an online casino.

Chances are that when you see your favourite casino streamer play at a certain site, that you want to try that particular site out as well, rather than some other random online casino site you’ve never heard of.

If we delve deeper, we learn that players referred by other players to a certain casino site, have a 37% higher retention rate, whilst 81% of players are more likely to sign up at sites that offer special reward programs, such as a VIP or Referral program.

With new online casinos opening up their virtual doors practically on a daily basis, we see almost no reason to play at a casino without VIP or Referral program, because what is the point in staying loyal to one site if the other offers better bonuses and has these kinds of programs in place?

How Does a Refer a Friend Casino Bonus Work at an Online Casino?

Many refer-a-friend programs at online casinos work in the same way. Once an existing player refers a new player to the casino and that new player meets certain requirements, such as depositing or wagering a certain amount, the existing player gets a reward. This referral bonus sometimes comes with special requirements and is often distributed via a so-called referral link.

For the new player, there are often also some perks, such as a couple of free spins, a slightly higher deposit bonus, a free bet, or a cashback bonus. In some cases, the referral needs to enter a certain bonus code to activate the refer a friend bonus. In other scenarios, the person who refers the player will need to provide the referral with a unique link, often called an affiliate link.

This affiliate link abolishes the need for a bonus code or welcome bonus, as the referral is automatically tracked to the player referring him or her via pixel tracking software. You don’t really need to know all the technical aspects of this, but it boils down to the fact that the link is unique and contains a playerID that can be traced back to the player referring the referral.

Because of this, the casino knows exactly who referred the player and can reward the referring player for doing so, hence the referral bonus or refer-a-friend bonus is correctly credited to the right player at the online casino. At the best online casino sites that hand out the best casino referral bonuses, you can invite as many friends as you can to rack up your bonus cash. Every time you receive a deposit referral bonus, you get to play games and win real money with a bit of extra cash, thus allowing you to enjoy extended gaming sessions.

How to Refer Friends With a Refer-a-Friend Casino Bonus?

Now that you know how casino refer-a-friend bonuses work, it is time to find out how to send those out yourselves so that you too can start to earn extra passive income and increase your casino account balance, simply for referring your friends, relatives, and family members.

Although the steps outlined below might be different from online casino to casino, the basic principles are the same.

	Start off by logging into your casino account by navigating to your favorite casino website and entering your login credentials.
	Navigate to the ‘’Bonuses’’ section and click on the Refer-a-Friend promotion of the casino in question.
	You will now receive a unique referral link or bonus code to send to your potential referrals.
	Send this link to your friends and other potential referrals by email, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Twitter/X, or any other social media channel or communication method.
	Repeat this process to refer more friends (referral bonuses may be capped at a certain number of referrals, so keep this in mind).
	You will receive the referral bonuses directly in your casino account. What these referral bonuses are can vary from site to site, but you can count on free spins, unique reload bonuses, and cash bonuses.

Casino Refer a Friend Bonuses With Multiple Layers

In some cases, casinos have multi-layered refer-a-friend bonuses. These should not be confused with pyramid or Ponzi schemes, but operate in quite the same way. With these types of casino referral bonuses, your referrals can further refer other players, and these players will all become part of our ‘’down line’’. In most cases, you will have to follow the casino's instructions and have your friends deposit money with them in order to be credit bonus funds into your real money account.

This means that you will earn bonuses not only for referring your friends, but also for them referring their friends. In most cases, these casino referral systems have 2 layers, but some can have even more layers, like 3, 4, 5, or even infinite. Not many online casinos offer this type of system, but it can be a good addition to the loyalty points normally gained by participating in VIP programs at the best online casinos.

How Many Friends Can You Refer to Online Casinos?

In most cases, you can refer 5 to 10 people to online casinos to receive the maximum referral bonus whilst they enjoy a generous welcome bonus to play their favourite slot games with on top of their own initial deposit. However, there are also sites that allow you to refer 20, 50, or even an unlimited number of people, such as Stake.com.

You should also consider the fact that you don’t necessarily have to invite friends to the online casino with the refer-a-friend bonus either. Instead, you could choose to distribute your links on social media or forums, such as Reddit or 4chan to even refer complete strangers. This way, you can get the most out of the online casino referral bonus and earn money for every referred friend.

Additionally, you can take it one step further and start a casino affiliate website, where you provide valuable information to your visitors and get them to click on your links in return. Note that although this sounds very easy, it is often a lot easier said than done, and with the online casino industry being extremely competitive, very difficult to pull off.

Types of Casino Referral Bonuses

Basically, casino referral bonuses can be divided into three different types. First of all, there are the casino referral bonuses where you, as a person referring other players, receive a fixed amount of bonus funds or free spins per player you get to sign up that deposits or wagers a certain amount within a certain timeframe.

Then you have the type of casino referral bonus where the sum is calculated by the amount of money deposited by your referrals. Last, but certainly not least, is where you receive a percentage over the net wagers or even net losses of your referrals every week or month.

Although the last type of casino referral bonus is definitely the most profitable, it is also the least ethical way of referring friends to casino sites. For this reason, our experts highly recommend thinking twice before referring your friends, relatives, and family members to online casino sites with this type of refer-a-friend system in place.

Refer-a-Friend Bonuses vs Casino VIP Programs

In essence, a refer-a-friend bonus is somewhat comparable to a casino VIP or loyalty program. In the end, the most loyal players recommend their favorite gambling site to their friends and colleagues, right?

Wrong. A casino refer-a-friend bonus is very different from a casino VIP or loyalty program. In most cases, casino referral links are available to all players that have registered and deposited at the casino, whilst VIP or loyalty programs are not always open to all players.

In most scenarios, the VIP status of a player is earned through thousands of dollars wagered. At one point, players get invited into the exclusive VIP program or they have accumulated so many ‘’Comp Points’’ that they finally belong to the top loyal players at that particular casino or network of casinos.

However, some online casinos and gambling sites had a VIP or loyalty program in place that increases the refer-a-friend rewards players receive as they climb the tiers of the program. For instance, instead of 50 free spins per new player get to sign up, they will receive 100 free spins per player that signs up and makes a first deposit at the site.

The Advantages of Refer-a-Friend Casino Bonuses

Refer-a-friend casino bonuses come with a lot of perks and benefits for the people making use of them. The most significant advantage of casino refer-a-friend bonuses is obviously the cash bonus that you receive for referring other players.

However, sometimes you get to enjoy other rewards as well, such as free spins, raffle tickets, faster payouts, priority customer support, or cash back bonuses. Additionally, your referral might enjoy a higher deposit bonus, free spins, raffle tickets, or any other form of extra bonus as well.

In this case, casino referral bonuses are a win-win situation for both the referrer and the referral.

The Disadvantages of Casino Referral Bonuses

Although you might think casino referral bonuses only have significant advantages, you will be surprised to learn that this is not always the case. For instance, your friends, colleagues, and relatives may not find it too funny receiving your promotional link over and over again by email or chat.

In some cases, casino referral bonuses have strict bonus terms attached to them, which makes them incredibly hard to ever redeem for real money that can be withdrawn to a bank account, e-wallet, or cryptocurrency wallet.

When a casino refer-a-friend bonus has very strict terms attached to it, you have to ask yourself the question: ‘’wasn’t my referral better off just making a deposit on his or her own, without the referral bonus?’’ For this reason, we highly suggest always reading through the fine print of any casino bonus before accepting one.

The Bonus Terms and Conditions of Refer-a-Friend Casino Bonuses

While there are certainly online casinos, sportsbooks, and other gambling sites that have refer-a-friend systems in place where both the referrer and referral receive cash bonuses, others may impose (strict) bonus terms and conditions on this type of bonus or promotion.

For instance, most casino referral bonuses have wagering requirements attached to them. This means that both you and your referral (in the case both of you received funds as per the refer-a-friend bonus terms) have to wager the received bonus money an x amount of times before being able to withdraw any winnings derived from it to external bank accounts, e-wallets, or cryptocurrency wallets.

In most cases, these wagering requirements are set at between 30 and 40 times. However, there are also online casinos that have even stricter wagering requirements, that require 50 to 70 times the received bonus amount in total bets or wagers before any funds become available for withdrawal.

Although this sounds a little bit unfair, and maybe even farfetched, nothing could be further away from the truth. For instance, if online casinos just randomly gave away refer-a-friend bonuses without wagering requirements or other terms and conditions, all players would constantly refer each other, racking up the bonus funds from both sides ad infinitum, which could cause the online casino to end up in solvency problems or even bankruptcy.

Apart from wagering requirements, online casinos often have other bonus terms and conditions in place as well when it comes to Refer a Friend casino bonuses. In most cases, you will face maximum betting limits, such as NZ$5 or NZ$6 per spin or game round whilst playing through a refer-a-friend casino bonus.

Additionally, you often won’t be able to play all games an online casino has on offer. You will most likely be able to play most of the pokies, but table games and live dealer games are often excluded. The same can be said for pokies with very high RTP ratios, such as Blood Suckers 2, 1429: Uncharted Seas, and 9 Masks of Fire, which all have RTP ratios above 97%.

Refer-a-Friend Casino Bonus - Bottom Line

Now that you know that you can earn a significant amount of money by referring colleagues, friends, relatives, and family members to online casinos, it is time to sign up and play at one of our recommended online casinos with referral programs.

If you already play at a favorite casino site of yours, we recommend double checking whether this site has a referral program in place. If they have one, nothing will hold you back joining it and starting to refer people so that you get to enjoy those sweet referral rewards and other benefits.