Sticky Bonus EV Calculator

What makes a sticky bonus different?

A sticky bonus is playable but the original promotional amount is not itself withdrawable. That is fundamentally different from a normal cashable deposit bonus. An ending balance that includes the sticky amount cannot simply be treated as cash profit.

The calculator therefore tracks the cash and promotional balance through the offer and removes the original sticky bonus from the amount that can be withdrawn when the relevant finish condition is reached.

Cash stage and bonus-wagering stage

The cash portion can be played under one set of conditions and the sticky bonus under another. You can choose whether cash bets count toward the sticky bonus wagering requirement. If they do not, the wagering requirement starts to reduce only after the cash portion has been exhausted and the bonus stage begins.

A cash target profit can also end the cash path before the bonus-wagering stage. Because that target depends on the sequence of actual outcomes, it makes the offer path-dependent.

Worked sticky-bonus settlement example

Suppose you deposit £100 and receive a £100 sticky bonus. After satisfying the applicable finish condition, imagine the combined balance is £240. The original £100 sticky amount is not withdrawable, so the modelled withdrawable balance is £140.

The common mistake would be to call the whole £140 “profit”. £100 of that is simply the original cash deposit being returned. The expected value is measured relative to the cash invested.

Reproducible sticky-bonus comparison

This comparison uses the current engine with 100,000 simulations per setup, fixed seed 20261010, generated on 10 October 2026. The only setting changed between the two runs is whether cash bets reduce the sticky-bonus wagering requirement.

The toggle changes the path rather than just subtracting a fixed amount. When cash play counts, more wagering is already satisfied before the cash stage ends; when it does not, a cash bust can leave the full bonus requirement still to complete. The EV difference is therefore something to simulate rather than infer from the headline £50 bonus.

These settings deliberately use the simulator's normal 95% / Medium slot assumptions so every input is explicit and reproducible. The payout table is generic, not a specific slot. Normal live runs use fresh random seeds.

Open this calculator Enter the published settings above to compare a fresh live run.

Use a different game for bonus wagering when needed

A sticky promotion may allow the initial cash to be played on one game but require the sticky balance to be wagered on another. The calculator can give the bonus stage its own game, RTP, stake, volatility and time per play.

This is especially important when the cash stage uses a high-RTP table game and the bonus must later be wagered on slots. Applying the cash-game RTP to the bonus stage would overstate the value.

Why Sticky Bonus is mainly a simulation problem

Target-profit stopping, the moment the cash portion is exhausted, whether cash counts toward wagering and any maximum-winnings rule can all make the finishing state depend on the path taken through the offer. The calculator therefore relies heavily on Simulated EV for real sticky-bonus setups.

Read Simulated EV with the cash-bust/reward-bust information, completion, average wagering and average time. The same headline bonus can behave very differently depending on how often the cash stage survives and how expensive the later bonus wagering is.