There are many online poker sites out there on the Internet and they all want your business. Online poker sites can use many methods to get you to keep playing on their site, such as offering high tech graphics, special features like multitable and note taking capability, and tournaments offering big prizes. However, these online poker sites know that the only way they can get you to keep playing on their site is to get you to start playing on their site, and that’s where ideas like online poker bonuses and rakeback come into play.

How Does Online Poker Bonus Work?

An online poker bonus is designed to get you playing and keep you playing. Online poker rooms do this by offering you extra money to start playing (sign-up bonus) or to keep playing (loyalty bonus). Generally, the amount of the online poker bonus is figured as a percentage of the amount you deposit into your account, and you must play a number of raked hands to release the bonus. The number of hands you must play is also usually a function of how big your bonus is.

How Does Rakeback Work?

Rakeback is a program where part of the rake you pay to the online casino is returned to you. In most online casino games, the casino makes money through the house edge, the built in edge that guarantees the casino will win a certain percentage of each dollar you play over time. Online poker has no such edge, since you play against other players, not the house. Therefore, the online casino makes money by charging a rake, a percentage of each pot that the casino keeps for itself. Although it may seem that only the winner of said pot is penalized by the rake, in truth, all players contribute to the rake, since you contribute to pots you don’t win with the idea that the pots you do win will more than make up for those contributions and the rake makes that more difficult, reducing your win rate or increasing your loss rate.

Bonus or Rakeback – What is best?

So which should you choose? In some ways, the answer is both. Being part of a rakeback program does not preclude you from accepting bonuses from your online poker site, although the rakeback program may subtract your bonus amount before applying rakeback. Sign-up bonuses are a bit of a different story, since you will usually be signed up with a site as part of a rakeback program and therefore not eligible for a sign-up bonus. In this case, the one you choose depends on how long you expect to play on the site. Remember that a sign-up bonus is a one-time offer, whereas rakeback lasts forever. Therefore, if you play long enough, rakeback will definitely have greater value that a sign-up bonus. However, if you are planning to play on a particular site for only a short amount of time before jumping to a new site, you may prefer a large sign-up bonus.