Many people do not understand why a poker room or poker site would give away money to poker players. It does seem a bit odd if you are not familiar with how online poker works.
Poker rooms make their profit by taking a small amount of each pot from their poker tables. This is called the rake. It is usually quite a small percentage and poker players are happy to pay this. It is in reality a fee for using the software and facilities of an online poker room, and if you didn’t pay it then the poker rooms would have to close down.
If the poker rooms can get you to the tables and get you playing then they will be taking the rake from each pot that you play. So if they give you the cash to start playing then should you play for long enough they will get their money back from the rake off your games.
So it can be a win-win situation where both the player and the poker room is happy.
Of course, if you sit down with the free money and lose it all in your first hand then the poker room hasn’t made much of their cash back, as you have only played one hand.
So some sites make you take a poker quiz before they will give you the free money. This makes sense too, becasue if you don’t know how to play poker then there is a good chance that you will lose all your money very quickly.
These sites are called poker schools, and they really will try their best to help you to become a good poker player. After all, it is in their own interest to have you play as well as possible; the more you play, the more they will rake from you.
Very many of the free bankrolls available at the moment are from third party sites and not directly from the poker room itself. These third party sites are like advertising agencies – they get paid by the poker room for bringing in new players.
In order to bring in new players they offer the free cash bonuses.
Some of the no deposit bonuses are available directly from the poker room concerned, but these are few in number and usually the amount of free cash is smaller than that available from the other type of sites.
If you take advantage of as many of the available free bonuses as possible, you could get as much as $500 in no deposit cash, and you will also have the chance to earn over $500 more in extra no deposit bonuses.
Of course you will end up having a lot of accounts at online poker rooms!
Most of the these free bonuses come in two parts – the initial amount that you get to play with instantly, and a further bonus that will only be released to you when you have earned enough player points from playing at the poker sites cash tables.
Again this is a good incentive to get the player to play properly with their initial bankroll and not lose it all in a few hands.
Another point to note is that you will not be allowed to withdraw from you poker account until you have earned a specified number of player points – if you could then it would be the same as if the poker room just gave you free cash to go and do what ever you please with it. That might be nice, but there wouldn’t be much of a future in it for the poker rooms!
Some sites will actually require you to make a deposit to your poker account before you can withdraw from it. This is a security measure and helps the poker site to prove that you are actually who you say you are. Some players will try to claim the bonus over and over again by using different names of fake details. These players just ruin things for everyone, and now the security and identity verification procedures are a lot more vigorous than they once were.
To prove your identity you may be required to email a copy of a photo ID to the poker site, and/or receive a phone call.
If you follow the instructions carefully, and are genuinely entitled to the free bonus, then there shouldn’t be any problem in making some nice free cash from these free bonus offers.