A poker bonus is an amount of cash that a online poker site is offering you when you sign up to the site (sign up poker bonus), or when you deposit cash at the site (deposit bonus). Even the best poker bonus sites do this to attract more players. They give up some of their margins in order to increase their market shares, so to speak. For most poker bonuses, to earn them you are usually required to play a certain number of hands at the site. For example, for each dollar in poker bonus, you may need to play 10 raked hands. A raked hand is simply a hand where a rake is taken off the pot.

At some sites, the rule is that you yourself must contribute to the raked pot in order to earn your credits towards the poker bonus. Now, the thing is, as long as you play to clear a pending poker bonus, the actual rake you pay will often be reduced to zero, or close to zero. This effect alone may turn you into a winner with poker bonus. The most crucial time in a poker player's career is when he makes his first deposit, and then tries to play poker without going bust. Becoming a winning player right from the start is not easily accomplished.

You usually make a small first deposit and then participate in low-limit games where many of the players are willing to push in their chips with a wide range of holdings. And to be able to keep your bankroll, and hopefully see it grow, you have to dodge a few bullets along the way and manage to win a quite a few important key-pots. Your focus is on keeping your bankroll alive, which usually is very tough. The poker room's rake also has a big impact on your bankroll when you are playing with small stakes.

The house usually deducts around 3 % from every pot that reaches a certain size. The rake is capped at $3, a number that very rarely is reached at the lowest limits. Therefore, when you make your initial deposit and try to build yourself a bankroll, you play in games where you always have to pay the full 3 % in rake. So to be able to see a growth in your poker account you need to beat, not only your opponents, but also the rake as well as have some luck along the way. However, there is a way to make this journey much more pleasant. The answer is poker bonus.

If you play with the best bonuses the poker rooms have to offer, your chance of staying alive will grow dramatically. When you play with a poker bonus the poker rooms will give you money for every raked hand you participate in, or in some poker rooms, every hand you are dealt. Obviously, that increases your chance of becoming a winning Player and gives you an opportunity to build a sizable bankroll.