Every poker site wants your business, so even the most cursory look will show you more information than you could possibly process about online poker bonuses. This online poker guide will help you make sense of all the offers out there. Online poker bonuses usually come in packages that consist of the following: matching bonuses, where an online poker site will match your initial deposit up to a certain amount, and at a certain percentage rate, referral bonuses, where you get extra money deposited into your account every time you bring a friend to the site, and free tournament entry tickets.
Matching bonuses all sound like great deals. After all, they’re free money! The percent that sites are willing to match can vary between 100 and 200 percent, and the amount that they’re willing to match can be up to anywhere from 500 to 1200 dollars. The trick with matching bonuses is that it’s important not to be impressed simply by the large amount that the sites are offering, because the percentage that they’re willing to match is potentially far more important. A site that offers a 100% matching bonus to 1200 dollars is actually offering you the same online poker bonus as a site that offers a 200% matching bonus to 600 dollars, except that you only have to make half the amount in initial deposit with the latter site. In order to figure out which site offers the most “free money,” multiply the percentage by the maximum amount to determine what you’ll actually be getting. Take that amount and compare it to the amount of money that you’ll initially have to deposit in order to get that “free money,” and you can get a good analysis of what kind of bonus you’re actually getting.
Referral bonuses are another kind of online poker bonus, and most sites have them. The typical referral bonus offers a certain amount of money whenever you bring a friend to the site and they become a member and make a deposit. This amount can range from 50 dollars to around 500 dollars, though the vast majority of sites offer 100 dollar bonuses per friend.
Another online poker bonus that is not to be overlooked is the free tournament entry tickets. Any good online poker guide will list out all the different tournaments that are available on poker sites; there are so many, it would be impossible to list them all! Some sites offer free tickets to daily tournaments (usually tournaments smaller in both number of players and stakes), while others offer a set number of free tournament entries per month that can be used in any of their tournaments. The true value of these tickets depends on your skill as a player, certainly, but also on how much you plan to play.
Finding the best online poker bonuses doesn’t have to be difficult. It takes a little time and effort to look at the different options, but the right deal is out there, waiting for you.