Every online poker room offers some kind of bonus on players’ first deposits. This is to  encourage people to get real money into their accounts and play at real money tables. Almost  every poker room offers a different type of bonus. Some focus on quantity, some focus on  quality. Generally speaking though, all poker bonuses offer players some sort of value. In  order to make the best of your poker bonus, you need to learn to evaluate the offers.

    First thing’s first: make sure the % match is high enough and that the maximum amount of  the bonus is also reasonably high. Keep in mind however that these quantities do not  accurately depict the quality of your bonus.

   Regardless of what you believe, sign up bonuses are seldom transferred directly into your real money account. Some sign up bonuses are, but they too need to be unlocked before the player can request a cash-out.

The usual MO is to transfer the bonus money into player’s bonus accounts where it sits awaiting redemption. As players generate poker points (which are directly proportional with the rake they contribute) they unlock their bonus. At the end of the day, the bonus money will make up a % of the rake they generate, which means that bonus redemption is in fact a sort of a rakeback deal. (real reakeback deals do not expire like bonuses do though).

The redemption requirements determine the true value of your bonus. If these requirements are freakishly steep, you’ll have a hard time unlocking your bonus, and this is where a subtle yet significant factor comes into play: the validity of your bonus. Poker rooms can manipulate the value of your bonus through a shrewd correlation between your redemption requirements and your bonus validity.

If they stick you with relatively difficult to fulfill bonus requirements and they give you a short bonus validity, they can pretty much kill the value in it. Some bonuses are transferred gradually to your real money account, in set batches. Others are only unlocked in one lump sum, which means that if you’re unable to unlock them completely by the time they expire, you’re going to lose them. In such cases, the size of your bonus can actually work against you.

It is important that you choose the bonus which you know you’ll find it within your means to unlock. Bonus redemption, together with rakeback is an excellent way to generate value, especially in poker rooms which do not deduct your bonuses from your rakeback. Bonus hunting alone can keep your bankroll going, even if you’re only a break-even or a slightly losing player otherwise.

Poker prop deals represent another great way to generate excellent value. What you should know about poker propping though is that if you sign up as a poker prop, you will probably not receive a sign-up bonus. There shall be other restrictions as well, but the one about your sign up bonus is a particularly sensitive one.

In order to maximize your bonus redemption rates, you should brush up on the old multi-tabling skills. Some bonuses are quite inaccessible without multi-tabling, and given that your objective is to have your bonus redeemed as fast as possible, you should definitely multi-table, even if you could unlock it by playing at a single table too.

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