♠ Poker room bonuses usually favor the Cash Game players over the Tournment players

There's a simple reason for this. Tournament players pay an "entry fee" to the room to pay for the table time of the entire tournament. Cash game players are constantly paying a "rake" out of the pot. Raked pots generate more revenue for the house than tournament fees, so rooms can afford to offer more rewards to their cash (or 'ring') game players.

When looking at a bonus, realize that if you're playing at the cash tables, you can work off a bonus much more quickly than you could by participating in tournaments alone.

♠ Bonuses are usually held in a "Bonus Account"

So, if you sign up and depsit $100, and receive $100 bonus, it won't all be in your "player account". You'll have your $100 that you can take with you to the tables, and $100 sitting in a "Bonus Account" (with your name on it) waiting to be "released".

You release your bonus by playing at the room, and either paying tournament fees, or playing raked hands at the cash tables.

As always, there are exceptions, and a few rooms do offer what they call "Up Front" bonuses where the money goes right into your chip stack. Bodog Poker had been (still is?) running one of those offers. Well, part of your bonus is up front, the greater part is "played off" at the tables. Double-check their site for deatils.

♠ The term "Raked Hand" means a lot

First off, a raked hand is a poker hand where the pot grows large enough that the house takes some chips out of it for themselves. That's the way they make money hosting games. Not every pot grows large enough to be raked. And, online poker rooms take out about half the rake that brick and mortar casinos do.

The value of a raked hand changes from room to room, bonus to bonus. For instance, one poker room may give players credit towards their bonus if the hand they played produces $.50 in rake. Other rooms may require the hand to produce $1 in rake. Depending on the stakes you play, that may be a significant difference.

♠ Most Bonuses Are Released in Increments

Usually, after you play a set number of hands the poker room will release a portion of your bonus into your player account. This is NOT always the case.

Some offers (usually the ones that look too good to be true) will have a condition that the entire bonus must be released in one lump sum.

♠ Bonus Money Has an Expiration Date

Well, usually it does. I think that Ultimate Bet might have bonus money that never expires. Other rooms usually put a time limit on how long you have to play off the bonus.

For the most part, I don't find the time restrictions to be bothersome. A reputable room will give you more than enough of an opportunity to play off your bonus money. But, I wanted to mention that bonus monies don't generally last forever because that's a fact that you need to be aware of.

♠ BONUS CODES

At some rooms, you won't receive the bonus automatically. You will have to enter a bonus code at the cashier when making your deposit. This is worth noting because you don't want to be expecting an advertised bonus, and then find that you didn't "Claim" it at the cashier.

Some rooms have several bonuses that they offer, and players choose the one that interests them most, claiming it by entering the appropriate bonus code. So, there's a reason behind the concept although it may prove bothersome to those who don't know about it.