What Are Casino Tournaments?
Casino tournaments are events in which players compete to win prizes. They can have a number of different formats and a variety of rules, but broadly speaking, they all work in a similar way. You register your desire to participate, play the featured game or games at the set time, and the casino automatically keeps track of the results achieved by each player. The player who wins the tournament according to the rules of that particular event wins the top prize, and a number of runners-up often receive smaller prizes.
Winning casino tournaments is a great way to land more cash on your account!
Casino Tournament Formats
There are several different types of casino tournaments, and venues are constantly coming up with new ones to continue giving players something different to try. That said, there are just a handful of formats that tend to be the most popular, as follows:
Free Casino Tournaments
These are free to enter, so all you will need to do to get involved is opt-In via a dedicated tournament page at the casino website. You will usually spend your own cash to play the featured games, and you will get to keep all of the money you win. As you play, you will earn points. Some tournaments will award points for the amount of money you wager during the tournament period, regardless of whether you win or lose, while others will award points for wins.
A leaderboard will usually be displayed throughout the tournament to see how you are doing compared to other participants. When the tournament ends, the player at the top of the leaderboard will be declared the winner, and any runners-up will also be announced, as appropriate.
Because free casino tournaments don’t cost anything to enter, prizes tend to be modest. Expect to win free spins, a fair amount of bonus cash or a boost in loyalty program points.
Paid Entry Casino Tournaments
These tournaments will require you to pay a fee in order to participate. In return for your entry fee, you will receive a certain amount of ‘tournament credits’ to spend on the featured games. You use those credits to play the games, and your tournament credit balance will determine where you appear on the leaderboard. The higher your tournament credit balance is at the end of the tournament, the better your leaderboard position will be.
While you don’t usually get to keep any of your tournament credit balance for yourself, the prizes in these tournaments tend to be well worth winning in their own right. The size of the prize pool available will depend on the cost of entry and the number of players taking part, and most paid entry tournaments will award prizes to a sizable number of participants.
Race Tournaments
A race tournament can be free or paid, but in both cases, the aim here is for players to reach a stated goal as quickly as possible. For example, a race tournament could require participants to accumulate a certain amount of profit or trigger a certain feature. The amount of time that it takes for players to do that would be used to determine leaderboard rankings.
Slots Tournaments
Slots tournaments are perhaps the most common types of casino tournaments. They can come in
free, paid entry or race formats (to name just three), and they tend to feature one or more specified titles. Where several titles are selected (such as ‘any Red Tiger slot’), you can normally take your pick and focus on your favourites or play them all. Your wagering and performance across the entire range of featured games will count in exactly the same way.
Roulette Tournaments
Roulette tournaments can focus on
all roulette games at the hosting venue, on a certain range of games (such as “any standard American or European Roulette game”) or on something even more specific (such as “French Roulette”). The tournament rules may require you to focus on a specific type of bet (such as “straight-up bets only”), or they could allow you to make whatever kind of bets you prefer.
It is common for roulette tournaments to be paid entry and to have a round structure that requires you to ‘make the cut’ in the first round in order to proceed to the second round, and so on.
The Benefits of Casino Tournaments
Having discussed how casino tournaments work and the various formats and types that are most commonly available, we should highlight the benefits of participating in them. The most notable benefits are:
- Added Excitement
Casino tournaments add an extra element of competition to regular gaming, and for most people, that makes playing even more exciting. Beating the casino is great, but beating 50 other players to the top of a tournament leaderboard can be even better!
- Added Rewards
Enter a free casino tournament, and you will give yourself the chance of winning additional rewards over and above whatever you win from the games themselves. No extra cost is required, so participating is risk-free.
- A Level Playing Field
When you participate in a paid-entry tournament, all players usually start with the same number of tournament credits. That levels the playing field completely, so you will have just as much chance of winning as anyone else.
- Extended Gameplay
A paid-entry tournament might give you $1,000 of tournament credits for a $5 entry fee. That means you get to enjoy $1,000 of gameplay for a fraction of the cost. You won’t get to keep the tournament credits, but you’ll have plenty of fun gaming, and you could also win a prize worth many times your entry fee.