Easiest Poker Bonuses
Which poker bonuses are the "easiest"? In other words, which bonuses clear the fastest?
Below is a table with my rankings of the fastest/easiest deposit bonuses currently on offer. The table highlights essential information such as; clearing requirements, bonus time periods and bonus increments.
Easiest poker bonuses rankings.
| Rank | Room | Bonus | Match | Time | Inc. | Bonusback | Get Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1  |
Ignition Poker | $1,000 | 100% | 30 days | $1 | 50% | Get Bonus |
2  |
Americas Cardroom | $1,000 | 100% | 60 days | $1 | 20% | Get Bonus |
3  |
Betsafe Poker | €2,000 | 100% | 60 days | €5 | 20% | Get Bonus |
Fastest clearing poker room bonus overall: Ignition Poker
100% up to $1,000 Bonus
Fastest clearing US friendly room bonus: Ignition Poker
100% up to $1,000 Bonus
The most important number: the bonusback %.
When looking for the easiest poker bonuses to clear, the "bonusback" percentage is what you want to be looking at.
The bonusback % tells you how much bonus money you get back compared to the amount of rake you had to pay to redeem it. The higher this number, the better.
For example, let's say you make a $100 deposit at a poker room that offers a 100% up to $600 bonus, which means that you're ready to redeem a $100 bonus. Let's also say that the bonusback % at this imaginary room is 50%. So:
- You will need to generate around $200 in rake to redeem the full $100 bonus.
- Or, to put it another way, you're getting 50c back for every $1 paid in rake. That's a good return.
So as you can see, the higher the bonusback % the better.
Are bonuses still profitable then if I'm paying more to redeem them?
Yes, definitely.
If you are playing without a bonus, you're getting 0% of the rake you pay back to your account. If you're redeeming a bonus on the other hand, you're getting some percentage of the rake you're paying back to your account in the form of bonus money.
The poker rooms don't want to make a loss with these bonus offers, which is why they set certain requirements for redeeming them. Just because they're not dishing out completely free money it doesn't make them any less beneficial, so take advantage of them while they're on offer.
What makes a bonus "easy"?
Three things:
- The redeem requirements.
- The redeem time period.
- The bonus increments.
1) The redeem requirements.
As already mentioned, no deposit bonus is completely free. You can't just deposit $100, take the 100% match deposit bonus and run away with a total of $200 without playing a hand of poker. Instead, you have to earn X amount of points for each dollar of bonus money, or something along those lines.
To work out how easy a poker bonus really is, I've compared the two vital components of the clearance requirements:
- How many points you need to earn for ever $1 of bonus money.
- How many points you earn for every $1 paid in rake.
Basically, the more points you get for every $1 paid in rake and the less points you need for every $1 of bonus money, the better. The closer these two numbers are, the "easier" the bonus is and the faster it will be to redeem. The bonusback percentage (yep, I made that term up) is just another way of displaying the ratio of these two numbers.
If that confuses you a little, don't worry -- you don't need to know the math behind the bonus offers to find the best possible bonuses. That's the reason why I put this clearance rate table together in the first place.
2) The redeem time period.
The longer you have to redeem the bonus money, the better. The average time period for poker bonuses seems to be around the 60 day mark. Here's how I categorise good, average and bad time restrictions for bonuses.
- Bad: 30 days or less
- Average: 31 days to 89 days
- Good: 90 days or more
If you're a regular, mid/high stakes player, the time periods for redeeming bonuses are hardly going to be an issue. However, if you're a small stakes and/or infrequent online poker player, it's worth taking these time periods in to consideration.
As a lower stakes player it's hard to say what kind of time frames you should aim for, as it greatly varies from player to player. If you're unsure of what a good bonus time frame is for you, I'd recommend testing out a 60+ day bonus and see how it turns out. After that, you should be able to gauge what sort of time frames fit your range and adjust accordingly.
3) The bonus increments.
The majority of bonuses are paid out in increments. These are either:
- A fixed size. (e.g. $10)
- A percentage of the total bonus waiting to be cleared. (e.g. 10%, which would be equal to $20 if you were clearing a $200 for example).
It's worth checking out these bonus payment increments because if they are high, you may miss out on an extra bit of bonus money if the bonus expires and you haven't earned enough points to release the next increment in time.
Just as with the bonus clearing time, higher stakes players generally won't have much to worry about. However, if you're a micro stakes player and confident that you're probably not going to be able to clear the entire bonus, go for the bonuses that are released in manageable chunks.
Note: As a general rule, the bigger the bonus, the bigger the bonus increment payments. So be careful when taking advantage of a particularly large bonus offer.
What else makes a good bonus, a good bonus?
Two things:
- The match percentage.
- The bonus size.
1) The match percentage.
You should know how these work by now. If the match percentage is 100%, the bonus you get is equal to the size of your deposit. If it's 200%, the bonus is twice the size of your initial deposit (e.g. you deposit $75, you get a $150 bonus).
In general, the higher the match % the better. You'll get the opportunity to redeem more bonus money in relation to the size of your first deposit with a bigger match percentage.
Just be wary of poker sites offering ridiculously high match percentages of 300% or more though, as they'll probably have some awkward time period, clearing requirements or bonus increments to make up for it. If not, awesome.
2) The bonus size.
After taking everything else in to consideration (how easy the bonus is to clear, the time you have to clear it, the match % etc.), take a look at the maximum possible bonus amount.
In all honesty, it's rare to find a deposit bonus of $100 or less these days. Furthermore, there are so many bonuses out there to take advantage of that the maximum possible bonus size isn't really a big deal. You're better off shifting your bankroll between rooms with the faster bonus clearing rates rather than slugging it out over one big bonus.
Nonetheless, if everything else is the same, a $600 bonus is better than a $500 bonus.
Tip: If you know you're not going to be able to redeem the full bonus amount at a certain room and the clearing requirements are very friendly, it might be worth waiting until you build up your bankroll so that you can take full advantage of it in the future. You only get first deposit bonuses once.
Anything else you should know?
- Poker rooms on the same network usually share similar bonus requirements. They may have minor differences, but for the most part they're the same.
- Be aware of the player traffic at different poker rooms. If you're a SNG player and a room has a lot less traffic than you're used to, the tables may not fill up as fast. Therefore, it may take longer than you expect to redeem the bonus.
And that's about it. All the most important stuff about clearing bonuses has already been mentioned above.
Most players just look at the size of the bonus when evaluating bonus offers, but hopefully you can see that there are far more important factors to take in to consideration. This should help you when it comes to getting the most from your time spent hunting and redeeming bonuses.
If you're a little unsure about something or would just like some advice on which bonus to go for, get in touch and I'll see if I can recommend something.
Go back to the Texas Hold'em rooms.