Well I certainly am trying my best not to take any of this personal but it feels like I’m defending the term or bonus that I created but certainly did not invent. I just want some other AMs to chime in here with their experience. Some people seem mad at some of the terms but all I can say is don’t hate the player, hate the game!
But since you did point it out I think were finally opening up the discussion a little better and feel I can breathe. Without a doubt I agree that some players who get the $15 free might be inclined to think what else can they get for free without having to deposit. By no means do I feel it’s the terms and conditions that can turn a player into a freebie hunter, rather it’s having the free sample available at so many places. The online casino biz is very competitive and while everyone is swimming I’m just trying to not create any waves in my motor boat 
I think the better analogy there would be having a free food sample at the super market every day provided by a different supplier, you might get some players who come in only to take the free samples and leave but not all players will do this and sales will still be up. Eventually those freebies will be up and if they want to eat then got to pay and they know where to go.
So where is the happy medium? I don’t know, I only know things from my experience and I would prefer to not have these bonuses there in the first place but I’m competing with land based casinos and with other online casinos. I think for any new casino they need traffic and most will want as much as they can get. I do know of a few casinos that give out hardly anything but they prefer to reward players after the fact rather than having to provide the incentives up front. I could have emulated say Bodog’s model but they already had a large player database so no need to offer a no deposit chip (yet I just went onto their site and it says get $25 FREE* of course you have to deposit $50). From my experience I have had to offer a little more to be competitive and to get attention from the players.
That being said I have a bit of homework to do. I think growing thisisvegas to what it is now, my no deposit signup bonuses helped a lot. The before and after stats were not a huge difference but I will save this discussion as an experiment for the near future and will report back what I find.