Irregular Play Patterns Explained

Casinos give out plenty of promotions and bonuses to attract and retain gamblers.

Ranging from no deposit bonuses, free spins, welcome match-up bonuses, and recurrent deposit offers, it seems like there is an endless supply of offers just waiting for you to claim them.

What few people know, however, is the ugly side of the Terms & Conditions and the fact that you need to meet a couple of requirements before you can actually claim the bonus. 

Irregular play is a misunderstood term that is usually hard to define or vaguely defined, but it can be invoked by an operator to cancel your bonus. 

What are Irregular Play Patterns

“Irregular play patterns” is a very confusing term mentioned in many Terms & Conditions sections at all online casinos.

What makes it so difficult to understand is that every casino operator defines irregular play patterns in different manners or associates them with different things. 

Unfortunately, this term is often vaguely defined on purpose. This way, the operator can get away with not quite fair-play practices.

As already mentioned, virtually every single gambling website offers a sort of bonus to new players. 

You get your bonus, you have finally completed the wagering requirements and now you want to withdraw your money when suddenly the casino refuses you the payment invoking irregular playing patterns.

This might seem like a gambler’s nightmare and unfortunately, it happens pretty often for numerous reasons. Mostly it’s the players' fault that doesn’t actually bother to carefully read the T&Cs section before claiming the boss therefore they end up breaking a couple of rules and becoming ineligible to claim the wins. 

That’s precisely why it so important to avoid blindly rushing forward and claiming a bonus without carefully reading its wagering requirements and the Terms and Conditions.

While some of these T&Cs may be general, imposed by most regulatory bodies, there are plenty of other rules and terms that the operator can add leading to great differences between top gambling websites. 

Terms & Conditions

This is the section that most players just ignore. 

You know it. It’s the long page full of boring lines of text that end up with a message like “I have read and accept the terms and conditions” and a tiny box that you need to check.

Many players just scroll through that page and click on the box without bothering to go through it and that’s a major mistake. 

In the terms and conditions section, you will find plenty of rules regarding the timeframes in which you need to complete the wagering requirements, minimum deposits to be eligible for the best casino bonuses, and other stuff related to claiming and completing the specific bonus.

Irregular play patterns are mentioned in the T&C and they are often vaguely defined because ranging from one casino to another they could mean:

• Placing wagers equal or greater to a certain percentage of the deposit that you are gambling

• Making a deposit and then withdrawing the deposit without gambling it

• Creating multiple accounts at the same casino

• The use of VPNs

• A change in the amount of time or money you gamble 

• Any attempt from the player to abuse the promotion

Why are Irregular Playing Patterns conditions in place?

Unfortunately, irregular playing patterns are a necessary evil for many reasons. 

First of all, whether you may like it or not an online casino is a business and it needs to make money to survive and continue to offer bonuses. 

Terms & Conditions like irregular play patterns are in place to protect the casino from going bankrupt and for the players to abuse the casino match bonuses they receive. If the whole online market would collapse there would be no more gambling sites offering bonuses which would be very bad, especially for new players and gamblers on a tighter budget.

There is another reason why the casino operators have in place software that detects irregular playing patterns and it’s actually for the sake of the players. 

That’s why a casino detecting a change in your normal gambling habits like an increase in the amount of time or cash you are gambling could consider it “irregular”.

Depending on how harsh the regulatory body that licensed the casino is, the operator could contact you to see if everything is alright or may force you to take a break.

After a forced break, you are able to gamble again once you contact customer support and you show them that everything is alright. 

A series of questions are put to the players in this situation and if the customer supports suspects a gambling problem they would redirect the players toward a specialized organization.

Can a casino legally cancel the bonus?

According to the terms & conditions, a casino operator can legally cancel your bonus. As presented above, the T&Cs are a sort of contract.

If you break your part, that means the conduit rules set by the casino, then, the casino can legally cancel your bonus. 

You agreed to those rules once you accepted the terms & conditions and you claimed the bonus so if you break one of the T&Cs, you will lose your bonus or even the account, depending on what rule or how many did you break.

How to avoid losing your bonus

It’s easy to keep your bonus and reap its benefits once you have completed the wagering requirements. The key is to follow some simple guidelines like:

1. Don’t try to cheat. The casino has great security systems in place and they will find out extremely fast that you tried to exploit a game. 

2. Read the terms & conditions carefully. If you don’t like them, just chose another gambling website or don’t claim the bonus.

3. Try to stick to a schedule when you play and don’t go over it. That means don’t change the games you play too often and keep the amount of cash you deposit fairly constant without trying to double the deposit in just a couple of weeks.

4. Never make a deposit and immediately withdraw your cash without gambling. It will be seen as a money-laundering attempt.

5. Don’t use VPNs. Casinos have software that detects VPNs and that’s forbidden at most casino operators. You risk losing your account.

6. Lastly, don’t make multiple accounts at a casino, and don’t share your account with your family or friends. If a casino detects multiple IPs or the same IP on multiple accounts, all of them will be closed. 

Final Thoughts

Irregular playing patterns don’t represent an issue for most players that read the terms and conditions before claiming a bonus and that stick to them. 

If you follow the rules of the casino and you only play at reputable gambling websites, avoiding blacklisted casinos, you should technically never encounter an issue.