Bonus hunting is the practice of working through a list of casino welcome offers and keeping only the ones whose math is on your side. A single offer is an arithmetic problem; a hunt is a portfolio problem — how much bankroll the whole list ties up, how much turnover it demands, which entries earn their place, and what the campaign is worth in total. This planner answers the portfolio questions. For dissecting one offer in depth — sticky vs non-sticky, game contribution, the terms checklist — use the single-offer Bonus & Wagering Calculator; the two tools share the same math and vocabulary.
Bonus Hunting Planner
| Deposit ($) | Bonus ($) | WR (×) | WR applies to | Game RTP (%) |
|---|
Cashable-bonus model: each row is priced as Bonus − Turnover × house edge, assuming 100% game contribution and full completion. Sticky and non-sticky offers behave differently — price those one by one in the single-offer Bonus EV Calculator before adding them to a hunt.
What went wrong?
How to Plan a Hunt
- One row per offer: deposit, bonus amount, wagering requirement (WR) and what it applies to, and the RTP of the game you intend to clear it with.
- Calculate: the planner returns four portfolio numbers — required bankroll (the deposits your list ties up), total turnover, total cost of wagering, and combined expected value — plus a count of which rows are individually positive.
- Prune: remove the negative rows and recalculate. A hunt is built by deletion — the list you finish with should look nothing like the list you started with.
Each row is priced with the standard cashable model: EV = Bonus − Turnover × house edge. Sticky and non-sticky entries follow different formulas — price those individually in the single-offer tool first, then decide whether they belong on the list at all.
Worked Example: A Three-Offer List
| Offer | Deposit | Bonus | WR (bonus only) | Game RTP | Turnover | Cost | EV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Casino A | $100 | $50 | 40× | 96.00% | $2,000 | $80.00 | −$30.00 |
| Casino B | $50 | $50 | 35× | 96.50% | $1,750 | $61.25 | −$11.25 |
| Casino C | $200 | $100 | 25× | 97.00% | $2,500 | $75.00 | +$25.00 |
Taken as a package: $350.00 of bankroll, $6,250.00 of turnover, and a combined EV of −$16.25 — the hunt as drafted loses money. Delete rows A and B and the campaign becomes $200.00 of bankroll for +$25.00 of expected profit. That is the entire craft in one table: the average welcome offer is priced to lose, and hunting works only as a selection discipline, not as volume.
Bankroll: The Number the EV Hides
Expected value says nothing about the ride. Every deposit on your list is exposed to full loss on any single attempt, and the requirement must be financed while your balance swings. Two planning rules follow. First, the required-bankroll figure is a minimum — you fund every deposit up front, and a drawdown across the first offers must not force you to abandon positive entries later. Second, sequence by risk: clear the low-turnover, high-EV entries first, so early variance hits the smallest commitments. Sizing a roll that survives the swings is its own topic — see Casino Bankroll Management.
EV Is an Average, a Hunt Is One Sample
A +$25.00 campaign does not pay $25.00 — it pays somewhere on a wide distribution whose mean is $25.00. On a three-offer list the realized result is dominated by luck; over dozens of offers the average asserts itself. Practical consequences: judge your process by the planner’s totals rather than by any single week’s outcome, keep records per offer (deposit, terms, game, result) so the realized average can be compared against the projected one, and treat a big early win or loss as noise, not information about the method.
What the Planner Cannot Check
The math assumes the terms let you finish. Before an offer earns a row: confirm the game you priced is eligible and counted at full contribution; note the max-bet rule while wagering; check the expiry window against the turnover at your stakes; and read the max-cashout clause — a cap converts a positive row into a smaller positive or an outright negative one. One breached term usually voids winnings entirely, which is a −100% result no EV column will warn you about.
Related Calculators
- Casino Bonus & Wagering Calculator — Deep single-offer analysis, all three bonus types
- Free Spins EV & Variance Calculator — Spin-based offers for the same list
- Casino Bankroll Management — Funding the hunt through its swings
- Free Spins to Cash Converter — What a spins package is really worth