One of the fundamental policies of online casino bonuses is that one player can claim a bonus only once. It is easy to imagine what would happen if a player repeatedly claimed the same bonus. Yet there are online players who engage in bonus abuse by trying to claim the bonus a number of times. This forces the casino to take steps that may not be liked by a section of the players. But they have to learn to live with such steps.

When online casinos say that a player can open only one account they mean the following. Not more than one player can give the same address; not more than one player can give the same bank account and not more than one player can give the same credit card number. One way of bonus abuse is that a player also registers as a friend or relative. He supplies the bona fide verification details of that friend or relative and then merrily plays from his computer using both his account and that of his friend. In order to prevent this form of bonus abuse the players have added the one player one computer condition.

In order to enforce this condition the download version of online casino software collects information such as the IP address, MAC address of the network card, the serial number and version of the CPU, the hard drive serial and other factors to identify individual machines as being unique. This information is stored against the players name when he registers. When a new player registers the same information from his computer is matched against the corresponding information stored in the server of the online casino. If that computer is not already listed then the player’s registration is accepted. However if the online casino finds that the computer is already listed, not only will the new registration be disallowed but the existing registration will also be cancelled.

Players who want to commit bonus abuse can find a way out of this condition by using a second computer or laptop. They can register from a friend’s house or their work place or an Internet café. Therefore this check is not the sole check for bonus abuse but only one of many checks that online casinos use.

This collection of the computer’s information does reduce the comfort level of bona fide players. But such players must appreciate that catching bonus abusers is in their interest as well. The lower the bonus frauds the more and the larger the bonuses will be. Bona fide players can gain comfort from reading the privacy policy of the online casinos. Though each online casino has a distinct privacy policy the gist is the same. The online casino will not reveal the information collected or part with it to any third party for any purpose except if required under law. The online casino servers will be secured to the fullest extent against hacking or unauthorized entry. Only the senior most casino personnel will be allowed access to the information and that too only when needed.