Clearing Requirements and the Deposit Bonus

Six hundred dollars free! 100% deposit match! Put in $50 and get $150! So go the deposit bonus announcements of countless poker rooms, enticing you to put your money into their accounts with the reward of gaining a ten, twenty, even a hundred percent or more on your deposit with little to no effort. Sound too good to be true? This time there is a whole lot of truth to it, but, as with many "good deals" out there, what you don't know can hurt you, so read on to learn the ins and outs of Clearing Requirements and the Deposit Bonus.

On the surface a deposit bonus, such as $600 from Full Tilt Poker, is a fine thing; you put money into a poker room account, money which you can take out at any time and reclaim, and the poker room will match that money up to a certain percent—if only banks worked the same way. So, what is the catch? The catch is that there are certain clearing requirements in order to get your hands on the bonus money.

Typically a poker room requires you to wager X amount of dollars to "release" $X of the bonus money. Yes, release; in most cases the money a poker room puts in your account for the match is not accessible to you right away.  In order to get the free money you have to put some of your money at risk—this is how the poker room can afford to offer so much money in the first place, as not all players will end up clearing their entire bonus amount.

So what is the best way to get your hands on that money? Play break-even poker at cash games. If you can play poker and win as much as you lose, then you can clear your bonus money in little to no time, which means you aren't really playing break-even poker after all, as you will end up ahead. And isn't that the entire idea?

(Editor's Note: Full Tilt Poker really does offer a $600 deposit bonus! Sign up today and start breaking even to get ahead.)