When previously unknown poker player Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP in 2003, he sparked an interest in online poker that has been growing ever since. Moneymaker had earned his place at the World Series by winning a qualifying event on Pokerstars which had cost him just $39 and walked off with first prize of $2.5 million dollars.

His victory proved that you didn’t need to be a big name to win some of the fantastic prizes available in the poker world which led to huge numbers of people started to play the game online.

With the explosion of poker players, came the sudden increase in the number of online poker rooms available. Players started having much more of a choice about where they wanted to spend their money and therefore competition between the various rooms became fierce and has remained that way since.

What is a poker bonus?

A poker bonus is a particular poker room’s way of trying to attract you to their site.

Generally the bonus will consist of free cash, but recently we’ve also seen sites like Aced and Titan also offering tickets to exclusive freerolls as part of their welcome bonus.

Free cash?? How much?

The amount of cash you’ll get given is normally calculated as a percentage of your first deposit, and will be limited to a certain.

Let’s have a look at the Full Tilt bonus for example.

They offer a 100% bonus up to $600.

This means that they will give you 100% of your first deposit up to a maximum of $600. So:

• Deposit $50, get a $50 bonus
• Deposit $600, get a $600 bonus
• Deposit $1,000, you will STILL get a $600 bonus

How do I sign up for it?

If you have a look through our Poker Bonus Listings page, you’ll notice that we provide instructions for each of the poker rooms we have listed on our site.

Some poker rooms require you to put in a bonus code when you sign up with them or make your first deposit. For those rooms, we have listed the code you will need to get your bonus.

Other rooms simply require you to click through to them and register your details. For these rooms, you will not see a bonus code. In it’s place will be the words “USE LINK”.

You can confidently click thorugh to the site and download their software, safe in the knowledge that you will get your bonus when you deposit.

So when do I see the money then?

Those of you planning on depositing $600 with Full Tilt and then withdrawing $1,200 five minutes later can put your scheming on hold. It’s precisely for that reason that poker rooms don’t give you your bonus as a lump sum up front.

Instead you earn it by playing poker.

All poker rooms now give out loyalty points to their members, and your bonus is paid when a certain amount of loyalty points have been reached. The number of loyalty points that you need depend on the room that you’re playing at.

While most rooms, will pay your bonus in one lump sum (once you’ve reached the required number of loyalty points), there are sites like Aced, Full Tilt and Titan Poker who pay out their bonuses in increments.

What this means is that for every ‘x’ number of loyalty points you earn, you’ll get $10 of your bonus paid to you. That’s basically great news, because you don’t have to wait for ages to see your bankroll increase. It also means that if you don’t complete your bonus (see below), then you’re still left with some cash in your back pocket.

Anything else I need to know?

Probably a couple of things:

• The poker room you sign up to will give you a time period to earn your loyalty points in. This varies from room to room so check out bonus listings to find one that’s right for you.
• There is likely to be a minimum deposit required for you to take part in a poker room’s bonus scheme. Don’t worry, it isn’t a huge amount. Again, it will vary from site to site, but generally speaking $20 will be enough to qualify you for a bonus