Referral bonuses are just baits to win people over. In reality, its not what its actually presented as. The conditions are always vague until it gets to withdrawal, thats when you actually know whats at stake.
So they get gamblers in through those ref bonuses and promise them juicy offers and at the end of the day, you have to either commit funds or you are required to hit an almost impossible target to receive the ref bonuses in reality.
Exactly, I saw some of them just now, guy I became tired of the promotional bonus in the sites. I was just asking myself if those bonuses can be withdrawn. 1 BTC to 5 BTC as bonuses. Really as you said, they just traps and nothing more. And now because the referral bonuses are big so for those gamblers that do not want to play in the casino would be attracted to sign up to them and thinking the bonuses will be withdrawn but it is for wagering only and even they think that they would used it to win so they can withdraw the winning and another big irony again. So everything became frustrated to them. Referral bonus is part of the advertisement so we should not blame the casinos but they should use a moderate amount for the bonus and make it reality because those big amount some are using when you register, you will not even see the bonus. And some scam sites use this referral bonus to lure gamblers to sign up and be scammed.
Although apart from being a trap, some gamblers are smart enough to be able to win some good amount out of those bonuses you feels are trap, all that matters is where you position yourself and how best you intend to handle the whole situation and to what advantages you have in your head to arrive at, although sometimes we have to meet some heavy requirements to be able to withdraw such bonus and aside from that, you need to deposits a huge amount for you to qualify for such huge bonuses.
But these welcome bonuses as mentioned is not the same as referral bonuses, because both have different conditions, in fact, welcome bonus have high wager requirements, while referral earnings on the other hand is free from every form of conditions.
You are very right bro, a welcome bonus is completely different from a referral bonus, a welcome bonus is like a gift from the casino for joining the casino, and in other to make sure gambler don't end up abusing this bonus, the casino imposes some heavy or hefty wager requirements to deter gamblers from making multiple accounts in a bid to get as much welcome bonus as possible. this is completely different from referral bonus which involves the gambler working really hard to get other prospective gamblers to sign up on the casino using their referral link.
So yeah, i also will not completely regard welcome bonuses as a trap, for there are some gamblers who through such bonuses have end up making good amount of money they never did expect, all depends on how lucky a gambler is at the end of the day.