A "100% deposit bonus" sounds like free money. In practice it's a marketing hook with conditions attached — and those conditions can lock up your own deposit. Treat a bonus as a reason to read more carefully, not less.
How the catch usually works
The bonus is almost never withdrawable cash. To unlock it — and sometimes to withdraw your own funds — you typically have to:
- Trade a huge volume. A common condition is something like "trade X lots per $1 of bonus." Meeting it often means trading far more than you intended, racking up spread and commission costs that quietly exceed the bonus itself.
- Hit a deadline. Conditions expire. Miss the window and the bonus — and any profit attributed to it — can be removed.
- Keep the deposit in. Some terms void the bonus if you withdraw before clearing the volume requirement, effectively trapping your funds.
The hidden incentive
Volume-based bonuses reward overtrading — the single fastest way for a retail account to lose money. The condition that unlocks the bonus is the same behaviour that empties the account.
This is why the UK and EU restrict or ban trading-incentive bonuses for retail clients altogether. A broker leaning heavily on bonuses is often one operating under a lighter-touch offshore entity.
Before you opt in
- Find the bonus terms (not the promo banner) and read the volume requirement and expiry.
- Work out the trading cost of meeting it. Compare that to the bonus value.
- Check whether accepting it restricts withdrawing your own deposit.
- If any of that is unclear, decline the bonus — you can almost always trade without it.
A good platform doesn't need to bribe you to deposit. Educational content, not financial advice; trading carries risk and most retail accounts lose money.