What is a Deposit Bonus? Post: 1 of 6

I intend to write a series of 6 posts focusing mainly on deposit bonuses. In this first post I'm going to take a look at what a deposit bonus is.

A deposit bonus is an incentive to get you to join a new online poker room. For example: a 100% up to $500 deposit bonus is a common offer by many of the top online poker rooms. What this means is that however much you first deposit, up to and including $500, you will get the same amount as a bonus.

Let’s assume you deposit $500 (and I always recommend you deposit the maximum for reasons I’ll explain later) you will then have a $500 deposit bonus. It won’t be awarded to you straight away (so don’t spend it yet); you’re actually going to have to earn it. This entire deposit bonus is in fact simply just a promise to pay you back $500 of your own money. However, don’t be put off by that, it’s still great news for you.

The rate at which you play poker and the stakes you play for will determine how quickly your deposit bonus is released. The bonus is, in most cases, paid to you in increments (often $10 or $20 at a time). How much you have to play to release your deposit bonus will depend on the online poker room in question.

For example at Full Tilt Poker you’ll earn $4.20 of your bonus for every $10 in rake you pay. So $47.60 in rake will unlock $20 of your bonus. What this means is that you’re getting 42% of your rake back. That is a massive discount!

In the next post I'm going to explain exactly why you need a deposit bonus.