There are many different types of promotions that online poker sites have from time to time, but the most common promotion, and one of the easiest to benefit from as an online draw poker player, is the deposit bonus. Deposit bonuses are basically free money from the online poker sites in exchange for making a deposit to your online poker account with them. From the poker site’s perspective, they are giving up a small amount of profit in exchange for bringing in new players, or players that have stopped playing and decide to start playing again because of the bonus. From the player’s perspective, it’s free money that they wouldn’t have gotten normally, so it’s a win-win situation for both the player and the poker site.
Generally deposit bonuses for online draw poker are based off of a percentage of your deposit, up to a certain amount. A common deposit bonus for someone’s first deposit on a popular online poker site is 100% up to $600. That means for up to the first $600 you put in your poker account, you will receive a bonus of the same size as your deposit. You don’t get this bonus money right away, but it will be released in increments, usually of $10 or $20, for the amount of play that you put in on the site. This prevents people from depositing just for the bonus and then cashing out their deposit bonus and the bonus money, which is obviously a losing scenario for the online poker site.
Something that is great about clearing deposit bonuses with draw games is that the rake is low in proportion to the other games. A lot of draw games only have two streets of betting, which means the pots are smaller and thus the rake is smaller. Since most poker sites base clearing the deposit bonuses off of the number of raked hands you play, this is a nice way to get in raked hands without having to pay a whole lot of rake in the process.
