One is bought, one is granted

A dual-currency product looks like a product with a loyalty scheme. It is not. Only one of the two balances is ever sold, and only the other one is ever bought back, and the arrangement exists because that is the combination that keeps the prize element out of the transaction.

Open the partner account Start with the six clauses

Bought: priced, spendable, not redeemableGranted: unpriced, the only route outNo route: no sale price exists

Direct answerThe bought currency is sold by the bundle as a virtual good. Its price is published, its quantity is exact, and when it is spent it is gone; it has no redemption route and no resale value. The granted currency is attached to the purchase or to a free entry route, and it is the only balance with a route to a bank - a route governed by the promotion's own rules, with a minimum, an eligibility test, a verification step and a list of things that void it. Treating the two as one balance is the single most expensive misreading of these products.

Why two currencies instead of one

Consider a product that simply sold a balance and paid it out. That is a real-money gambling product, and it brings with it a licensing regime, an age gate that is enforced, statutory controls on how it is marketed, duties on how customer money is held, a complaint route that ends somewhere independent, and a regulator with the power to end the business. The whole regulatory apparatus attaches to the arrangement between the money and the prize.

Now split the arrangement in two. The purchase becomes a sale of a virtual good: a quantity of a non-redeemable currency, which is a consumer transaction like buying anything else in an app. The prize-bearing balance becomes a promotional award that arrives with that purchase, or through a route that does not require a purchase at all. If the award is genuinely free and separate from the money, then the money bought a good and not an entry, and the arrangement can sit outside gambling law in markets where that distinction is the test. That is the architecture, and it is deliberate rather than decorative.

The four things each balance is and is not

Bought coin Is: a licence to use virtual items inside one product, priced per bundle, spent on games and on shop items. Is not: property you keep, a deposit, a stake, or anything with a sale price.
Granted coin Is: a promotional award carrying the product's only route to a bank, subject to its own rules. Is not: something you bought, something you can buy directly in most cases, or something that survives a breach of its conditions.
No route Applies to: every value held in the bought currency, every second-hand transfer, every resale, and any balance left in the account when the product or your access to it ends.
The rules Decide: the grant rate, the redemption minimum, the expiry clock, the eligibility test and the definition of prohibited play. None of them is set by the arithmetic of the games.

Worked example - the asymmetry, in numbers (illustrative) Illustrative grant: 1 granted coin per GBP 5 of coins purchased, with 1 granted coin worth GBP 1 when redeemed.
You spend GBP 20.00 on the bought currency: 20,000 coins at 1,000 coins per GBP 1.
With it comes 4 granted coins: GBP 20.00 ÷ GBP 5.00 per coin.
Nominal value of the granted balance: GBP 4.00 - 4 × GBP 1.00, which is 20% of the money you spent.
Value of the bought balance on the way out: GBP 0.00, because no sale price is published for it.
So one GBP 20.00 transaction produced two balances: 20,000 coins with an exit value of nothing, and 4 granted coins with a nominal GBP 4.00 attached to conditions you have not read yet. Change the grant rate to 1 coin per GBP 10 and the same purchase produces 2 coins, or GBP 2.00: the size of the exit is set by the grant rate, not by how much you spend and not by how well you play.

What this means when you look at a balance

Two numbers on one screen invite one number in the reader's head, and the products do not discourage it. The practical rule is to keep them apart at the moment of purchase: the bought balance is the money you have chosen to spend, in full, the moment you spend it, and the granted balance is a conditional award whose size you did not choose and whose redemption has conditions you have not read yet. A player who budgets in the bought currency is budgeting their own money correctly. A player who budgets in the granted currency is budgeting a figure that the promotion can change at the next purchase.

Why this is not the bonus desk

There is a desk in this network about bonus terms and wagering, and it is not this page. A bonus is money the operator gave you instead of paying out your own - it is already money, already on the real-money side, and the question about it is how much turnover it costs to release. The question here is one step earlier and harder: whether the balance in front of you is exchangeable for money at all. Wagering requirements are conditions on a payout; coin terms decide whether there is a payout to condition. If a product can answer the first question and not the second, that is the answer.