The bonus you receive when you deposit and the rewards for playing
poker and earning your bonus differ from poker site to poker site and are all "different" in the way that they are written but at the end of the day, are they all the same?
To earn your bonus you must play poker - well that was your plan because you deposited but the way to earn your bonus is by paying rake and it is the rake element that determines how many points you have earned which in turn release your bonus to your real money account.
First of all, I should explain what "the rake" is just in case you are not sure. When you buy into a tournament or a sitngo, you will see for example, an entry fee of $5 + 50c. The $5 goes into the tournament or sitngo pot and that money can be won by the entrants into the tournament or sitngo. The 50c goes to the poker site and that is called the rake.
If you like to play the ring games (individual games where you can join and leave at your leisure), each hand will have a fee taken from the pot before it is awarded to the winner. You will likely see a few cents or dollars being taken depending on the level of the betting. That, again, is called the rake.
Lets look at a couple of examples:
Blackchip Poker (USA ok) offer 75 points for $1 rake, released in $5 increments. You have to gather 375 points therefore to release $5 which means you spend $5 (in rake) to get $5
Doylesroom say their bonus will be paid out in increments of $1 for every 500 Frequent Player Points Earned and you can earn one point for every $0.01 of rake so for every $1 rake that would be 100 points x 5 (to get 500 FPP). You have spent $5 in rake to earn $1.
Looking at these two examples gives you an idea of how different the bonus rewards programs are but how similar (at first glance) they seem to be.
In this thread, which will take some time to compile, I'll be listing each bonus program and breaking it down as above to show you how much you need to spend to get your bonus dollars released. I'll also add in any added offers you can expect when you deposit (i.e. access to first depositors freerolls) but the main point of the thread is to see which sites bonus rewards programs are the best.
I think it is important to mention that some sites also have VIP programs and this can affect the points requirement to release your bonus.
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