Years back I managed a health club which regularly gave away sample items ranging from protein bars to facial cleansers. The one thing I took away from this was; people love free stuff! You’re probably wondering what this story has to do with poker. Well, poker sites, as well as their affiliates, are offering you free things all of the time. You just have to know where to look for them. The freebies they offer come in 3 varieties: deposit bonuses, rakeback, and promotional deals.

Deposit bonuses are the most commonly utilized freebie, because of this they also tend to be the most lucrative. Deposit bonuses are offered directly through the poker sites (occasionally affiliates of a site will offer a slightly better bonus than the site itself) to entice new players to deposit and play on their site and also to keep current players from packing up and moving onto a competitor’s site.

The best bonuses are offered to new players for obvious reasons. I do not know of any poker site that does not offer an initial bonus and ‘usually’ the best bonuses come from the smaller sites, although the big boys have some very nice bonuses as well. Most sites also offer monthly ‘reload bonuses’. A reload bonus allows current players to make another deposit and receive a bonus on that money each month.

The best way to take advantage of bonuses is to have accounts on multiple sites. This allows you to not only take advantage of the initial deposit and reload bonuses but will also keep the sites in competition with one another. The more competition there is the better the bonuses they will offer to you. At the moment I have 15 poker sites on my computer and do what I call “The merry-go-round”.

The merry-go-round is where I deposit into one site, clear the bonus for the month, and cash out the money. Then I just move onto the next site and the next site. Depending on the current bonuses offered a full time player could clear hundreds of dollars a month in bonuses alone.

Unlike bonuses, rakeback is rarely taken advantage of. You can receive rakeback by signing up at a poker site through an affiliate. An affiliate is a person or a website that advertises for a poker site and in return can offer its members a percentage of their rake back each month.

If you are a serious player it is foolish to not receive rakeback. Rakeback is absolutely free money. If you were going to play anyway, you might as well get the extra money every month. Before you sign up at any poker site check around to see if affiliates can get you rakeback.

You’re probably curious as to how rakeback works, so here is a simple explanation. If you play 5,000 hands a month where the average rake per pot is $1 you are personally paying $.10 a hand to the rake, assuming 10 players at the table. Now if you have a 25% rakeback deal you would be returned $.025 x 5,000 hands, or $125 a month.

When you sign up through an affiliate for rakeback make sure the affiliate is a reputable one. If you are interested in rakeback I recommend you direct your query to an internet poker forum community who can direct you to the reputable ones.

Promotional deals come in many shapes and sizes. Some promotions are simply points you accumulate when playing at a site that can then be used to purchase products or for tournament entries. However, just as some affiliates offer rakeback others offer promotional deals, ranging from poker chip sets to apparel to gift certificates. If you cannot get a rakeback deal to a certain site it is good to look for one of these promotional deals (I recommend rakeback first since it will continue forever where a promotion will get you the free gift just the one time. Rakeback is the gift that keeps on giving).

Remember to make sure the affiliate offering the promotion is reputable, again check with a poker forum community before signing up.

The best way to take advantage of both rakeback and promotional deals is to use them in conjunction with deposit bonuses! At some sites I clear bonuses, get rakeback, and accumulate poker points while I make money playing poker. That’s a lot better than just making money playing poker.

If you have any further questions, need further clarification, or would like information on reputable affiliates feel free to contact me at Steve-O_Poker@hotmail.com (Please reference the article in the heading) or PM Steve-O at http://www.pokerforums.org/member.php?u=381