Stop throwing your money away at the poker tables

A small leak can sink a great ship

~Benjamin Franklin~

One of the most egregious mistakes you can make is to overlook seemingly small edges when you begin playing poker. There is nothing worse than discovering you missed out on a $500 bonus, because you didn’t do a little investigative work up front.

For the most part these edges are forfeit if you do not take advantage of them immediately. So, once they are gone, you can forget about them. The poker industry is highly competitive, especially in the online world where players are one mouse click away from a competitor’s site. Because of this, you will find an abundance of deals if you know where to look.

Years ago, 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 these giveaways was; people love free stuff! Poker sites, as well as their affiliates, know this too, and are always offering you free stuff.

Bonuses

I am unaware of any poker site that does not offer an initial bonus for new depositors. Deposit bonuses are the most common freebie, and they tend to be the most lucrative as well. 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. Many sites also offer reload bonuses to keep current players from packing up and moving onto a competitor’s site.

The best way to take advantage of bonuses is to have accounts on multiple sites: This is known as bonus whoring. This allows you to take advantage of the initial deposit and reload bonuses of multiple sites, but also keeps the sites in competition with one another. The more competition there is, the better the bonuses they will offer to you. In the past, I have had as many as 15 poker sites on my computer, and would take part in what I called, “The merry-go-round” each month.

The merry-go-round is where you make a deposit on one site, clear the bonus for the month as quickly as possible, and cash out the money. Once the bonus is cleared you simply move to the next site; and the next site. Depending on the current bonuses offered, a full time player could clear upwards of a thousand dollars a month in bonuses alone.