If you’re anything like me, the first time you ran across an online poke bonus offer, you instantly wondered what the catch was. The first thing that popped into my mind was the old saying “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.” Well, after years of playing online poker, I can tell you exactly how poker bonuses work and why they actually are a good deal.

When you sign up for an account at any poker site, you’ll almost always have a chance to type in some sort of bonus code or referral code. That code will then get you some sort of match bonus added to your first deposit at that poker site. The Absolute Poker referral code, for example, offers players a 150% match bonus for up to $500 extra.

Here’s how it works: you sign up with that bonus code and then the poker site deposits an extra $500 or whatever into a pending bonus account. You can then release that bonus money in increments by playing real money poker games at that poker site. That’s the only catch - you have to play poker. No big deal since you were probably planning on playing poker anyways.

The best thing about it all is that poker bonuses are released in increments. This means that as you play poker, the money is released straight to your real money account. There’s no clause that says “if you don’t play enough poker in 60 days, your entire bonus is forfeit.” Any money you clear within the time frame (usually 60 days) is yours to keep. The vast majority of players clear the entire bonus well within that time frame.

Poker sites are able to offer such generous bonuses because they require you to play poker. Poker sites make their money by taking a small percentage out of every pot as the “rake.” By requiring you to play poker, the poker site is able to make sure that you and the other players generate enough rake to pay for the bonus.

That almost sounds like a bad deal but it’s not. The rake is only way the poker site makes money. Even if you don’t have a bonus, you still have to pay the rake. The rake in live poker rooms is even higher than in online poker rooms. Anyways, the point is that you’re going to pay the rake whether or not you have a bonus. You might as well get the bonus.