Bonus hitting for fun and profit (small stakes)

UPDATED: January 29th, 2006

• Added Martin's Poker, for a 800€ (1000$) easy bonus. Hit it while it's still alive...

UPDATED: January 11th, 2006

• The useful information should be faster to get.
  
• Updated Boss Media sites, after a lot of changes in January.

As a bunch of you here, I took Meat's $75 Party offer and played happily on that. The time came though that PP decided I was no longer a beginner and should not play on the beginner tables anymore. With a bankroll of about $220, I didn't want to play NL$25 for which I was still underbankrolled so I had to leave for greener pastures. But where, that was the question. I thought about going to PokerStars for a while, for the nice software, or Battlefield for the nice rakeback from LP.net but eventually I walked another path.

I went to hit some juicy bonus to build my bankroll faster. Don't be mistaken here, I had no plan to go bonus whoring a dozen of sites every month just to grab the bonus, then rinse and repeat. I'm still here to play poker, but since I have to move to another site, why not make the expectation of this move as high as possible.

I went through a couple of bonuswhoring tutorials, dozens of threads on different forums, reading fine print in the offers of various poker rooms, trying to find what would fit my very specific needs. A lot of bonus take way too long to clear if you play NL10, or are plain undoable. I have made a selection of the best, and the order in which you should hit them. I was planning on posting this a little bit later, when I actually went through the whole path myself, but since some of these offers are limited in time, I might as well post it immediately and update later. So, there we go.

Bonus hitting for fun and profit : the NL10 guide

The Boss Media network
This was a goldmine, with 3 $100 bonus you could get very easily, less so now, but still worth a shot. A lot of them still offer the $100 bonus, but it's a bit longer to get than before. You can grab the bonus on several rooms of that network without a problem. It is supposed to be limited to 3 or 4 I think, but I couldn't be bothered to continue after the 3rd one. Here is a handy link to have the list of all the rooms running on this network : http://www.ipn247.com/

My first impression of the software was that it sucked horribly. But it's ok when you've gotten used to it. The worst things are that you can't get your hand histories (except the last 3-4 or so, and even then it doesn't show anything of the hand after you folded) and you can't take notes on your opponents. The waiting lists are pretty annoying too, as soon as you join one table you're kicked of the other waiting lists. The live help from the poker software completely sucks, but some of the rooms have their own on their website.

But don't let all of this discourage you, because all of this doesn't discourage the worst casual gamers, and that's exactly what you'll find here : the worst. The competition is extremely soft. Seriously, the NL$10 are even softer than party's NL$5 (no kidding, you'll always find 5-max games with 95+% players on the flop and 10-max with 70-75+% !).

You'll find a lot of NL$10 tables to play (much more than on PartyPoker), either 10-handed or 5-handed for faster action. I prefer to play full ring (mainly because I suck at 5-max), but if you want to clear the bonus really fast, 5-tabling 5-max should be the way to go. I didn't do it, because I was there to play poker as usual but you're free. On the other hand, you'll find only 5-6 NL25 tables and they're not always as juicy as the NL10.

The requirement to get those $100 varies from one room to another. Most of them work on a contributed raked hands basis : you have to play a certain amout of hands that were raked (even 1c rake is enough) AND where you put money in the pot. If you're going to play NL, as soon as the pot reaches $1 it's raked, and let me tell you this happens often. If you want to find out how many raked hands you have, just try live help or ask support by mail.

$100 for 500 hands
The best ones, doable extremely quickly. There were more before, but I guess they're getting tired of giving away so much money.

Casino.net

• Click on Poker at the top right
  
• $100 bonus ($30 after the first 100 hands, $70 after the 400 next)
  
• 500 contributed raked hands
  
• Cashout time : 1-4 days they say, mine took 2 days
  
• Uses WebDollar as cashier system, you may need to have an email exchange with them if you want to deposit on 2 sites that use WebDollar. I had no problem at all.
  
• You can withdraw up to $500 easily. For more, you'll need a PIN code that they send you by snail mail, it can take a couple of weeks depending on where you live (took 4-5 days for me in France).

Sporting Bet

• The bonus doesn't appear on their website anymore, but I've read people who signed up and still got it, so I'll leave the info here.
  
• $100 bonus ($30 after the first 100 hands, $70 after the 400 next)
  
• 500 contributed raked hands
  
• Cashout time : 1-4 days they say, mine took 2 days
  
• It seems their local sites in other countries still advertise the bonus. You could maybe even grab the bonus at different sportingbet's (not tested by myself). Check the other sporting bet sites for a list. I haven't tried myself since the promotion has been over at the main site, if you try and it works, please tell me
  
• Live support : they answer immediately and were always helpful for me.
  
• Cashout : < 24 hours they say, mine took 5 days (ok it was during christmas)
  
• Minor website glitch : your balance won't appear as long as you have the software open. Sometimes you will still see $0 in your account even with the software closed, clicking on the Games tab instead of Poker always worked for me.

Sporting Odds

• $100 bonus ($30 after the first 100 hands, $70 after the 400 next)
  
• 500 contribute raked hands
  
• $100 / month for 3000 raked hands
  
• Warning : Neteller NOT accepted, they take only credit cards and Western Union I think.

$100 for 1000 hands
Then, there's a bunch of rooms that need 1000 raked hands. I'll just list them for the sake of exhaustivity but they are not as interesting, but now that the $100 for 500 hands bonus is harder to get, you might want to play these too. You can find the address yourself on the list of all Boss Media sites.

Pokerhour : $100, 1000 hands, and $100 every month for playing 2000 hands
King Solomon : $100, 1000 hands (+ a deck of cards on signup, as if it mattered...)
Total Poker : $100, 1000 hands
TGF : $100, 1000 hands
Poker Heaven : $100, 1000 hands
Casino-club : $100, 1000 hands
Juega Poker : $100, 1000 hands, not in English
Bet Direct : £25 (roughly $50), 500 hands

Equivalent to rakeback
Some need you to pay a certain amount of rake to clear the bonus, which accounts to a time-limited rakeback system.

Trio Poker : $100, need to contribute $200 rake = 50% rakeback, good
Everton : $500 on $500 deposit, $20 per $50 rake = 40% rakeback, not bad
Virgin poker : $200 on $200 deposit, $10 per $35 rake = 28%
Bet Royal: $100 on $500 deposit, $10 per $40 rake = 25%
Landora : $500 on $500 deposit, $5 per $25 rake = 20%
Celeb poker : $300 on $150 deposit, $5 per $25 rake = 20%


When you are planning to hit several rooms, be careful never to have all your money flying away in a cash out at the same time, else you'll experience "poker downtime", which we don't want. The cashout from Casino.net for example isn't particularly fast (they say 1-4 days on their site, took about 2 days for me), and you will need a PIN code they send you by snail mail if it exceeds $500, so be sure you don't have that much to withdraw unless you want to leave some money there.

Now that our bankroll is a bit bigger, there's a world of opportunity opening before us. Before going up in stakes thanks to the bonus, be sure you're ready for it. Currently, I feel like I crush the NL10 games so I'm very confident in moving up. If you're not, don't be afraid of playing overbankrolled, it's better than being underbankrolled. The next site is actually the first site I was planning to do, but I changed to the boss media network when I saw how fast it was there.

Bet365
This room is part of the prima network (like Battlefield, Royal Vegas, etc.). I first thought their software was ok, but I don't like it much now. The support is pretty good though. Something I really liked when I first started, is that prima probably has one of the lower rakes for micro limits NL players, it's absolutely awesome just for that (plus you can even have rakeback if you play on battlefield) : the pot is raked a little bit earlier, but the max the rake can reach is $0.07 for NL5 and $0.30 for NL10 and NL20, which is way less than on party. It gets normal for the higher stakes. The competition is pretty soft at these levels. Btw, if you already have an account on another of the prima rooms, it's not a problem, just don't lie about it when the software asks you and it's alright.

• $100 bonus on a $50 deposit
  
• 500 raked hands : you must have been dealt cards and the raked needs to reach $0.25
  
• Email support@customerservices365.com to release the bonus. If you're in a hurry, you can get the support on phone (no need to call them, they have a callback feature on the website to get them to call you) and it should be a matter of minutes.
  
• Since the rake is very low, so it can take quite some time to clear the bonus. I would say about 15% of hands at NL10 qualify and about 33% at NL20, so that makes 3000 hands played for NL10 or 1500 hands for NL20, which is very fast.
  
• 250 raked hands per month qualify you for a monthly $30,000 freeroll, which is pretty cool. It had about 3500 players in December. They also have weekly $5000 freeroll on saturdays if you're bored.
  
• Cashout : it's done directly from your Neteller account. You need to transfer your money from your poker account to your sports account (you do that in the Bank section in the software. Then, directly in your Neteller account :
  Transfer -> To/From Merchants -> Merchant code : BET34725 -> Transfer from -> choose the amount and put your bet365 username as Merchant Account ID. Only one cashout per month, or you'll pay a fee.

If you have 800€ (roughly 1000$), hit Martin's Poker next.

Martin's Poker

• 600€ bonus on a 600€ deposit. Bonus code : novdeposit
  
• 200€ bonus on a 200€ reload. Bonus code : novreload
  Total : 800€ on a 800€ deposit
  
• 50€ bonus for accumulating 3000 VIP in a month
  
• 25€ more if you're referred by a friend (and 25€ for the friend) for some very low VIP requirement. I can't confirm you can get it as well as the deposit bonus code. I've read you can (enter the friend's name on the signup page, then the deposit bonus when you deposit) and it works fine. If you're willing to test, you can enter that Catyoul referred you
  
• Depost bonus requires 3000 VIP points. Reload bonus requires 600 VIP points. You get 1 VIP point for each hand where the rake is > €0.30 (in NL, that makes €0.35 rake thus €7 pot). From my personal experience, you'll have roughly 20% of the hands over that at NL25. A wild extrapolation tells me 30% at NL50. So, count a total of 15k hands at NL25 or 10k hands at NL50.
  
• The cool thing is that both bonus clear concurrently, so while you're clearing your 3000 VIP points for the deposit bonus, you will clear the 600 VIP for the reload in the mean time. In clear, you need 3000 raked hands total, not 3000+600.
  
• The deposit bonus will be credited in your account 90 days after your deposit. You don't have to keep your money there that long though, when you have cleared the bonus, you can cash out and just wait for the bonus to come 3 months later.
  
• Game softness : said to be very soft during European evenings, much less during American ones.
  
• If your Neteller account is in $ (as it should be), you will have a 1.9% exchange fee when depositing and cashing out. It's trifling compared to the 100% bonus though.

Now, for the next sites, I haven't personnally tried them and I don't plan to, but I'll give you the information I could get anyway. I'm not even sure it's gonna be worth your time to get more bonus, compared to your bankroll by then.

Bodog
They offer a $100 upfront bonus on a $100 deposit, meaning that as soon as you deposit, you'll find the $100 in your account and you can play with them. You can't cash them out before having met the requirements though. You need 3 Bodog points for every $1, and you earn them based on the rake on the hands you've contributed to.

Rake Points $1.00 - $3.00 1.00 $0.50 - $0.95 0.50 $0.25 - $0.45 0.25 $0.05 - $0.20 0.10

The thing is that the rake is ultra low for NL10 on this site, and is capped at $0.10 for 6+ and even lower for 5- players. It's capped much higher at $1.50 for NL25 and $2.00 for NL50 then it gets normal. So if you're thinking of clearing this bonus, it's probably gonna take a long long time, but at least if you play there on NL10, you pay almost no rake. But if you enter tournaments there, you earn 3 point per $1 paid in fees, so it's basically a 100% rakeback for tournament players.

They don't seem to advertise that $100 promo, so you need a special link for it. I found one that doesn't seem affiliated to anyone : Bodog bonus.

They also offer a 10% bonus on any deposit (same 3 Bodog points per $1 bonus), uncapped, which could be interesting for high stakes players. If you want to hit it multiple times (deposit, earn bonus, withdraw, rinse and repeat), wait at least 4-7 days between withdrawal and deposit.

Paradise Poker
$50 bonus on $200 deposit. You need to play 500 hands over $0.25, can be relased every $10.

Aztec Riches (prima)
$50 bonus on $200 deposit. You need to pay $50 rake = 100% rakeback.

Poker Metro (prima)
$50 bonus on $200 deposit. You need to pay $50 rake = 100% rakeback.

Royal Vegas Poker (prima)
$10 upfront and $40 on a $100 deposit, you need to play 1400 raked hands for these.

I've also found a couple of there sites, completely unknown to me, that seem interesting :

Superior Poker (Action Poker network)
100% bonus, with no limit except the deposit limit (which is $3000 for neteller for example). You need 16 POP points per $1, which basically means $1 bonus for $1.6 rake thus 62.5% rakeback. The bonus is not incremental though, so you have to earn it all, or you earn nothing and there is a 45 days time limit. They also advertise up to 25% rakeback for big players.

Nine Poker (Action Poker network)
$150 on $100 deposit. The conversion rate is 12 POP points per $1, thus 80% rakeback, 60 days to clear the bonus.
It seems possible to get 25% rakeback here though

And the classics :

PartyPoker
Ah, good old party poker. I'm pretty sure you can get $100 bonus on a $500 reload, though I'm not quite sure how.

Empire Poker
$100 on $500 deposit, 500 raked hands too.

Doyles' Room
Lots of different possibilities here, you can vary the bonus depending on the clearance rate. Best I think is $135 on $400 deposit, for $135 rake paid.

That's about it, enjoy !


PS : Some of these offers may become outdated or may change (nine poker changed from 100% rakeback to 80% rakeback while I was editing the post !). I may have missed very interesting promotions too. If you have any suggestions or comments, don't hesitate to answer here or pm me.

Good post. Have you seen interpoker? They do the +90/month and you can get $300 using some codes or 30% rakeback.

Interpoker doesn't seem viable for small stakes I think :

The wagering required to clear your bonus to play in poker is 5 (five) times the bonus in raked hands. For example a $90 bonus will require only 450 raked hands to clear. A raked hand at InterPoker is defined as any hand where at least $1 (or £/€, depending on the table) is taken as rake. This is equivalent to a $20 pot (InterPoker takes 5% rake). Every hand you are dealt cards and the total pot is $20 or more, a raked hand will be counted towards your bonus. You do not have to contribute to the pot for the hand to be counted as raked. Further to this, every hand you play where between $0.25 and $0.99 (or £/€, depending on the table) rake is taken will count as 1/4 (one quarter) of a raked hand.

Reaching $1 rake doesn't happen very often at small stakes, so you'd need 20x the bonus in hands raked $0.25 and higher, that's very slow.

Hey Catyoul - that was a great post. Good work. Thanks for your efforts (though i don't have neteller or much of a BR at the moment) - but from the look of some of the threads around this site - quite a few people will be very interested to read this. It's very well written. Good on you mate.

On December 22 2005 04:27 Catyoul wrote: Interpoker doesn't seem viable for small stakes I think : Show nested quote + The wagering required to clear your bonus to play in poker is 5 (five) times the bonus in raked hands. For example a $90 bonus will require only 450 raked hands to clear. A raked hand at InterPoker is defined as any hand where at least $1 (or £/€, depending on the table) is taken as rake. This is equivalent to a $20 pot (InterPoker takes 5% rake). Every hand you are dealt cards and the total pot is $20 or more, a raked hand will be counted towards your bonus. You do not have to contribute to the pot for the hand to be counted as raked. Further to this, every hand you play where between $0.25 and $0.99 (or £/€, depending on the table) rake is taken will count as 1/4 (one quarter) of a raked hand. Reaching $1 rake doesn't happen very often at small stakes, so you'd need 20x the bonus in hands raked $0.25 and higher, that's very slow.

Ya so its gonna take 1800 raked hands for me to clear = as I play small stakes. I wish you woulda made this post before I deposited there =)

They send you a PIN in the mail that, without it, you can't withdraw any $$

Very good post. Great effort!

I'll look into it.

great effort, i am not into bonus whoring, but this makes it a lot clearer for some other people!

good work!

I am wondering about the whole PP saying you aren't a beginner anymore. I did the $75 too but they have yet to say I am not a beginner....anyone know what the factors are? i've been playing with the promotion for 19 days and I enjoy from time to time hoping onto the $10nl and raping.

Catyoul France. Today 04:27. Posts 140 PM Profile Buddy Quote
Interpoker doesn't seem viable for small stakes I think :

The wagering required to clear your bonus to play in poker is 5 (five) times the bonus in raked hands. For example a $90 bonus will require only 450 raked hands to clear.

A raked hand at InterPoker is defined as any hand where at least $1 (or £/€, depending on the table) is taken as rake. This is equivalent to a $20 pot (InterPoker takes 5% rake). Every hand you are dealt cards and the total pot is $20 or more, a raked hand will be counted towards your bonus. You do not have to contribute to the pot for the hand to be counted as raked.

Further to this, every hand you play where between $0.25 and $0.99 (or £/€, depending on the table) rake is taken will count as 1/4 (one quarter) of a raked hand.


Reaching $1 rake doesn't happen very often at small stakes, so you'd need 20x the bonus in hands raked $0.25 and higher, that's very slow.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i guess u can clear this bonus quite easily by sitting down to play some higher stakes (say NL100) and just keep sitting there and watching, not playing at all, only posting blinds and maybe making some money with the most premium hands (AA,KK,QQ). if u "multitable" like that, u should be able to clear the bonus in day or two. but of course, its quite boring to keep sitting and not playing anything but AA,KK,QQ for several hours

On December 22 2005 19:40 Joe wrote: Catyoul France. Today 04:27. Posts 140 PM Profile Buddy Quote Interpoker doesn't seem viable for small stakes I think : The wagering required to clear your bonus to play in poker is 5 (five) times the bonus in raked hands. For example a $90 bonus will require only 450 raked hands to clear. A raked hand at InterPoker is defined as any hand where at least $1 (or £/€, depending on the table) is taken as rake. This is equivalent to a $20 pot (InterPoker takes 5% rake). Every hand you are dealt cards and the total pot is $20 or more, a raked hand will be counted towards your bonus. You do not have to contribute to the pot for the hand to be counted as raked. Further to this, every hand you play where between $0.25 and $0.99 (or £/€, depending on the table) rake is taken will count as 1/4 (one quarter) of a raked hand. Reaching $1 rake doesn't happen very often at small stakes, so you'd need 20x the bonus in hands raked $0.25 and higher, that's very slow. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- i guess u can clear this bonus quite easily by sitting down to play some higher stakes (say NL100) and just keep sitting there and watching, not playing at all, only posting blinds and maybe making some money with the most premium hands (AA,KK,QQ). if u "multitable" like that, u should be able to clear the bonus in day or two. but of course, its quite boring to keep sitting and not playing anything but AA,KK,QQ for several hours

I would be interested in seeing the result of someone trying that. I know that I have lost like $10 on interpoker on .25/.5 without playing a single hand. Those blinds go around and around...

On December 22 2005 18:28 Highcard wrote: I am wondering about the whole PP saying you aren't a beginner anymore. I did the $75 too but they have yet to say I am not a beginner....anyone know what the factors are? i've been playing with the promotion for 19 days and I enjoy from time to time hoping onto the $10nl and raping.

Its because you suck so much at poker^^ nah just kidding

Catyoul thank you for the great post. But how much money total you earned on this guide?

On December 22 2005 18:28 Highcard wrote: I am wondering about the whole PP saying you aren't a beginner anymore. I did the $75 too but they have yet to say I am not a beginner....anyone know what the factors are? i've been playing with the promotion for 19 days and I enjoy from time to time hoping onto the $10nl and raping.

It's 45 days since the day you have a real money account.

On December 22 2005 19:40 Joe wrote: i guess u can clear this bonus quite easily by sitting down to play some higher stakes (say NL100) and just keep sitting there and watching, not playing at all, only posting blinds and maybe making some money with the most premium hands (AA,KK,QQ). if u "multitable" like that, u should be able to clear the bonus in day or two. but of course, its quite boring to keep sitting and not playing anything but AA,KK,QQ for several hours

I guess you can, it doesn't interest me at all to do that though

On December 22 2005 20:25 Music86 wrote: Catyoul thank you for the great post. But how much money total you earned on this guide?

As I said, I'm still at the beginning. I received the cashout from casino.net yesterday, so at least I know that works. You should be able to get :

- in one week : 3x $100 bonus from the boss media sites, plus all the money you'll win on the tables. Let's say you'll earn around $500 including the bonus (assuming you don't catch a very bad run of cards). Maybe add $100 or so if I find how to play a 4th boss media site.
- in a few more days, let's say one week to be sure : $100 from bet365, plus the earnings, let's say $50 if it really doesn't go well.

So, in 2 weeks, that would be $650 profit, and a bankroll good for NL50 already. I'm not yet halfway through this and I'm at $350 profit.

does the bet365poker room require any kind of security code or whatever if you want to cashout? this has often been an unpleasant surprise for me when i've tried bonus whoring a site in the past


how about casino.net? free to cashout there?

I'll add a small section about whithdrawals :

For casino.net, under $500 you're fine :

The cashout from Casino.net for example isn't particularly fast (they say 1-4 days on their site, took about 2 days for me), and you will need a PIN code they send you by snail mail if it exceeds $500, so be sure you don't have that much to withdraw unless you want to leave some money there.

Sportingbet seems ok too, withdrawals should be < 24h according to them.

For bet365, you are allowed only one free cashout every 28 days ($15 for each additional cashout). In order to make a withdrawal with Neteller, you must transfer from the poker section to the sportsbook and then make a transfer request through your Neteller account : "transfer" tab -> "transfer to/from merchant" -> "transfer from". Enter these infos :

Merchant ID : BET34725 Amount Merchant account ID : your screen name at bet365

It should be pretty fast. Note that you have to claim the bonus, it won't get automatically in your account :

When you have cleared the bonus, you should email support, and I've read it can take a couple of days to have the bonus credited in your account. If you're in a hurry, you can get the support on phone (no need to call them, they have a callback feature on the website to get them to call you) and it should be a matter of minutes.

SportingOdds : I just checked with their live support, they don't accept Neteller as deposit or cash out method...

ty very much Catyoul

general question about bonus whoring. Whats the point? if cash in 100$, and are able to play 500-1k raked hands... and if u do this often on many sites, arent u making more money simpy by playing?

I don't really understand higher stakes bonus whoring, but for small stakes it can be a very significant income. In my case, I had to move to another site. Now I have two choices, for example moving to PokerStars or playing on sites with bonus. My choice of bonus sites and how I manage cashing out allows me to play exactly as much on them as if I was playing on Pokerstars, which also means I can't really make more money without the bonus.

Now after, let's say 10k hands, I'll have cashed $400-500 in bonus, and if I get a good run somewhere around the same amount through simply playing NL10. For a starting bankroll of about $200, it makes a huge difference. The bonus are always around $100 or so, which is very signifcant when it means 10 buyins to you, but gets silly when it's just 1 or 2 buyins. When you go up in stakes, I don't see much point in doing this though, I'd rather stick with a site I like or with a good rakeback deal than chase a trifling bonus.

i guess it would be too much work for me -.-

Catyoul for admin!

(seriously)

yes, thx catyoul for ur info, its kinda handy.
i will be in the same situation as u were on PP in about 10-14 days (dunno exactly), the only difference is that i already managed to make my BR to almost $300 and if i will keep being lucky i can make it to $400 before my beginner status expires.
i dont know yet how i will decide, but ur article is really usefull for me. now it seems to me that i will take about $100 off my BR to hunt some smaller and easy-to-clear (=no more than 3 days normal gaming) while i will keepin playing on PP NL25 with ~300$ BR, which seems quite ok to me now...
and if i go for the bonuses, i will probably try sportingbet.com, because its in my native language and it offers a direct bank-account transfer to accounts in my country so if u can give me any additional info about sportingbet.com, the software, the level of players, the difficultness of the bonus-clearence, etc it would be very welcome