Wagering contribution
Wagering contribution is the percentage of each bet on a given game that counts towards clearing a bonus’s wagering requirement. A slot counted at 100% moves your total by the full stake, while a roulette spin counted at 10% moves it by a tenth. The rate is set by the operator, game by game or category by category, and it sits in the bonus terms rather than on the offer banner. You will also see it called game weighting or bonus contribution, and those names mean the same thing.
How wagering contribution is calculated
The arithmetic is a single multiplication. Your progress towards the requirement equals the eligible stake multiplied by the contribution rate for that game.
Turn it around and you get the figure that matters: total bets needed equal the bonus, times the wagering multiple, divided by the contribution rate.
A worked example in euro
Take a €100 bonus with a 35x requirement. On a slot weighted at 100%, that is €3,500 of bets, which is already a lot of play for a hundred euro of bonus money. Move the same bonus to blackjack weighted at 10% and the divisor changes everything: €3,500 divided by 0.10 is €35,000 of bets.
That is a tenfold difference.
A game weighted at 0% is a different case again, because no amount of play on it clears anything, and some terms go further by listing games as restricted, where a bet can put the bonus itself at risk. Read the two lists separately. A game that simply does not count wastes your time, while a game that is prohibited can cost you the winnings.
Where you meet the contribution rates
The rates live in the bonus terms and conditions, usually in a table or a list headed game weighting or game contribution. They are rarely on the promotion page itself.
Practice varies between operators, so there is no fixed standard to quote, only a common pattern. Slots, scratchcards and instant-win games are commonly listed at 100%. RNG roulette and blackjack often appear at around 10%, sometimes higher for roulette, and live casino tables are frequently set between 0% and 10% or left out entirely. Video poker tends to sit low or at nothing.
Those are typical figures from published terms, not a rule. A general line reading “slots 100%” can still carry title-level exceptions, and progressive jackpots, feature buys and certain high-RTP slots are the usual ones to be cut back or excluded.
What I check first is whether the table applies to the exact promotion you are holding, because a welcome offer and a later reload can carry different weightings.
Operators set table games low for a plain reason: their house edge is small, and a blackjack edge of around half a percent would let a careful player clear a bonus at full weighting with little expected loss. In Ireland, the Gambling Regulation Act 2024 controls who may be offered an inducement, with a ban on bonuses targeted at a specific person or group, but the Act’s text does not fix contribution rates, so the weighting remains a matter for each operator’s terms.
What wagering contribution is confused with
The term most often mixed up with it is the wagering requirement. The requirement is the multiple, such as 35x, and the contribution is the rate at which each bet chips away at it, so a 35x offer on a 10% game is in practice a 350x offer.
When two offers carry the same multiple, the one with lower weighting on the games you actually play is the worse deal.
It is also confused with RTP. RTP is the share of stakes a game returns to players over the long run, while contribution says nothing about what you win. A high-RTP slot can still be weighted at 0% under one operator’s terms, so a good return figure is no guide to whether the game clears your bonus.
Finally, contribution is not the same as the maximum bet rule. That clause limits the size of each stake while a bonus is active, and breaking it can void the bonus whatever the weighting of the game you were playing.
