Online casinos of all stripes have been involved in the bonus industry for sometime now. It is perhaps not that surprising that this would be the case since bonuses and other promotions tend to be a very successful in getting new players to websites, but in the beginning the bonuses were actually quite a bit better than they are right now.
Back in the late 90's and early 21stt century, sign-up bonuses, were a lot more generous than today, being a relatively young industry with far fewer players and less competition around. However,where things were really different was in the actual bonus release requirements, many of which were quite a bit smaller than they are today. As you'd expect, it soon become fairly obvious that the bonuses meant a new player could go to a casino and stand a very good chance of walking away with a profit.