Bankroll Options in an Uncertain Online Poker Environment

With so much uncertainty in the online poker industry, many players are strongly considering moving their action to new betting sites, if not offline altogether. That caution is certainly justified if you’re reliant on the funds in your online bankroll for real-life expenses, but if your bankroll is made up of primarily discretionary income you have more flexibility.

In that case, you’re better off simply spreading your bankroll across several sites. This will not only hedge you against loss of your bankroll via site shutdown, but will also give you access to a broad range of promotions and bonuses that online poker rooms reserve exclusively for new players.

The primary value available to new players comes via the workhorse of the online poker industry: The deposit bonus. The deposit bonus is a simple concept, one that most online gamblers are familiar with. For the uninitiated, a quick example should suffice.

A player that we’ll call Brett is signing up at a poker room for the first time. Brett looked around and choose bet365 because he liked their deposit bonus (200% up to $1000). Brett found a bet365 referrer code, created a new account and deposited $500. Since the bonus matches his deposit by 200%, Brett received a sign up bonus of $1000.

New players are also often provided additional incentives by poker rooms. Freerolls and guaranteed tournaments exclusive to new players are common features of many major rooms; you may also receive opportunities to earn VIP rewards at an inflated rate, merchandise bonuses and so on. These incentives are generally more generous than the rewards rooms offer to existing players, and that makes sense. Rooms are in heated competition for new players, while existing players are often viewed as “locked in” by the room.

Being careful with your bankroll is a sound approach, but being so careful that you miss out on opportunities takes that approach too far. Hopefully this brief article has articulated the reasons why spreading around your bankroll is a superior option to pulling it offline.