Pin Up Forbidden Games — Don't Play These While Wagering

Marcus Cole Ex-bookmaker · These are the games that will eat your clearance time

Some games on Pin Up don't count toward bonus wagering at all. Others count but at reduced rates. Still others will actively void your bonus if you play them during clearance. This page catalogs all three categories and explains why each one is excluded. Use it as a pre-session checklist so you don't open a game mid-clearance and burn balance on a 0% contribution title without realizing it.

How I Verify Forbidden vs Allowed Titles

• Open the bonus terms popup before session start and capture the excluded-category section.
• Run a 5-10 spin micro-test to confirm whether the wagering counter moves.
• Log provider, game variant, and whether the exclusion is category-wide or mode-specific.

Why Some Games Are Excluded

Low-Edge Games

Games where the house edge is unusually low can't be subsidized by bonus money. Blackjack with perfect strategy has a 0.5% house edge. Video poker with optimal play can approach 99.5% RTP. If Pin Up let players clear wagering on these games, the expected cost to the house would exceed the expected bonus-offsetting value and the bonus system would lose money per player. That's why low-edge games are either 5% contribution or entirely excluded.

Bonus Buy Features

Bonus buy slots let you pay 50–100× the base bet to directly trigger the bonus round. This skips the variance of actually spinning down to the scatter alignment and gives players direct access to the high-payout section of the math model. From a wagering perspective, it breaks the assumption that wagering volume roughly equals variance exposure — a single bonus buy generates the same volume as 100 normal spins but with one-time variance. Pin Up excludes bonus buys from counting toward wagering to prevent this edge-case value extraction.

Provably Predictable Games

Some game types (scratch cards, certain lottery-style games, some instant-win titles) have rigid probability distributions that can be exploited if wagered through a bonus. Pin Up excludes these by category rather than trying to identify individual edge cases.

Live Dealer Games — All Excluded

Every live dealer title on Pin Up is 0% contribution. Evolution Gaming's entire catalog (including Crazy Time, Monopoly Live, Dream Catcher, Lightning Roulette, Immersive Roulette, Blackjack Party, Lightning Baccarat, every Mega Ball variant). Pragmatic Play Live. Ezugi. Playtech Live. Authentic Gaming. All of it. Zero contribution to bonus wagering.

This is the most common mistake I see. Players clearing the casino welcome bonus take a break to spin Crazy Time "for fun" thinking it'll at least contribute something, and then check the wagering counter and realize nothing moved. An hour of Crazy Time at €5 bets is €300 of burn on your balance with zero wagering progress. Don't do it.

If you want to play live dealer, wait until you've finished bonus clearance, withdraw the cleared bonus, then play live dealer with fresh deposit money. Don't mix the two sessions.

Jackpot Slots — Mostly Excluded

Progressive jackpot slots (Mega Moolah, Mega Fortune, Hall of Gods, Arabian Nights, Divine Fortune progressive mode) are 0% contribution. The reasoning: progressive jackpots fund themselves from a percentage of every bet on the network, and that percentage comes out of the slot's RTP. Letting bonus money flow into the jackpot pool would let players effectively subsidize their own jackpot tickets from house money.

Non-progressive "jackpot"-themed slots (Mega Joker without the progressive, Jackpot 6000, various Pragmatic "Jackpot" branded titles) are usually 100% contribution because they don't fund a real progressive pool. Check the specific title on the contribution table before assuming.

Bonus Buy Slots — Excluded

Any slot with a "buy the bonus" feature triggers the exclusion when that feature is used. Sweet Bonanza has a Bonus Buy variant which is 0% contribution. Wanted Dead or a Wild has its own bonus buy which is also 0%. Most Hacksaw Gaming titles have bonus buys that are excluded from wagering.

The regular (non-bonus-buy) version of the same slot is usually 100% contribution. Sweet Bonanza regular = 100%, Sweet Bonanza Bonus Buy = 0%. Make sure you're opening the right version. The bonus buy variants usually have "Bonus Buy" or "Buy Feature" in their title, which is a quick visual check.

Sportsbook During Casino Wagering — Doesn't Count

When you're clearing a casino welcome bonus, sportsbook bets don't count toward your casino wagering. The two bonus systems are separate — casino wagering counter doesn't accept sport bets, sport wagering counter doesn't accept casino slot spins. Each bonus has its own wagering context.

This means you can't dual-clear. If you want to clear both the casino and sport welcome bonuses, you'd have to claim them separately (different deposit transactions usually, or whatever Pin Up's current promo rules allow) and run each clearance on its own timeline. Most players pick one or the other rather than doing both.

Specific Excluded Slot Titles

A partial list of specific slot titles I've verified as excluded or reduced-contribution on Pin Up. Not exhaustive — Pin Up's game library updates often — but covers the most common ones players stumble into.

What Happens If You Play an Excluded Game

Wagers Don't Count

Default outcome: your wagers don't contribute to the wagering counter. You burn your balance on a game that produces no progress. This is annoying but not catastrophic — it's just wasted time and money. The bonus itself is still valid, you just didn't make progress on it.

Sometimes Wagers Are Voided Entirely

In rare cases (specific excluded-list violations, or when Pin Up detects a pattern of concentrated play on excluded games during wagering), the platform can void the bonus entirely. This is separate from the max-bet rule but has the same outcome — bonus balance zeroed, winnings zeroed, clearance reset. The pattern that triggers this is usually "tried to clear wagering primarily via a 0% game while also touching qualifying games briefly for cover" — a bonus-abuse pattern rather than an honest mistake.

Honest mistakes (you played 10 spins of Crazy Time during a casino clearance) are almost never treated as voiding violations. But don't rely on that — just avoid the forbidden category entirely to be safe.

Cross-Reference with Contribution Table

For the full 150+ game contribution list, see the contribution table page. That page has every slot, table game, and live dealer title I've verified, grouped by contribution rate. Use it as your master reference.

Related: contribution table, calculator, strategy guide, max bet rule, worked examples.

Marcus Cole

Ex-bookmaker. "I get it — if you let players bonus-buy their way through wagering on a 99% RTP slot, they'd extract free money. The casino has to put the line somewhere."

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