question Are the sign-up freebies even worth chasing anymore?

Bit of a rant, but I swear the whole free-on-sign-up thing has gone downhill hard. Used to be you could find a decent little poke around on the pokies without chucking your own cash in straight away, now half of them feel like a stitch-up. Tiny bonus, crazy wagering, half the games blocked, then a max cashout so low you almost wonder why they bothered.

What really does my head in is when they splash "free spins" or a small chip up front, then you hit the fine print and it's like... alright mate, 60x this, only on 3 dusty games, and if you actually fluke a win you've gotta send your whole life story in before you see a cent. KYC is fair enough, not whinging about that part by itself, but some of these offers are clearly built so barely anyone gets real value out of them.

I still reckon they can be handy if you're just testing a site, seeing how the lobby feels, whether the pokies selection is any good, how annoying the verification is, stuff like that. But if the bonus is being sold like some ripper deal, most of the time it isn't. Feels more like bait than a proper little welcome.

Curious what everyone else reckons — have you found any no-first-deposit offers lately that were actually decent for Aussie players, or is the whole thing pretty much dead now? Keen to hear the good, the dodgy, and the ones people should avoid.

My little rule now, don't even hit claim till you've opened the promo terms and the withdrawal page first. If the cap, blocked pokies or ID stuff is buried three clicks deep, I just give it a miss. Saves heaps of messing around.

Been around these long enough that I pretty much use them as a site test now, not a real shot at pulling money out. I go straight to verification, poke around the cashier, see how support answers, then have a few spins and watch for anything weird. If the whole place feels clunky before I've even deposited, that's still useful info.