REVIEW – Poker Points Stores

The next few articles will be a review of poker points programs. This is basically the method that many online poker players use to get free things. These can range from Ipod’s and PSP’s to Cash, poker chips or even a Red Lobster Gift Certificate.

These programs work on a player – middle man – Poker room marketing strategy. Basically the poker room pays a middle man (the sites listed below) a fee. The middle-man directs new customers to the poker room. Finally the middle-man returns a portion of their proceeds to the player. A symbiotic relationship.
The general principle of these sites is you join a poker room, play a certain amount of raked hands and get this free bonus. The three major sites that I have use are

• Pokersourceonline
• Pokersavvy
• Boogster

The next few articles will be reviews of the sites listed above.
To be fair with the other authors of pokahblog links will not be provided for a referral. If you are interested in joining any of these programs it’s as simple as doing a quick search.

Some Glimmers of Hope on the Online Poker Horizon

It’s been pretty doom and gloom for US poker players since last October when the UIGEA was passed, but the last few weeks have brought at least a few glimmers of hope.

• Alfonse D’Amato has stepped up to serve as chair of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA). While the PPA hasn’t been able to effectively wield much political clout so far in its relatively brief history, it can’t hurt to have D’Amato on our side.
• The Department of Justice has requested and received yet another continuance in its trial against the co-founders of Neteller. While this isn’t good news to players with money still frozen in Neteller, one has to believe that either the DoJ’s case isn’t that strong to begin with or that a settlement deal is close to being finalized.
• Perhaps most hopefully, Congressman Barney Frank is reportedly working to appeal the ban of poker in the UIGEA. As chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank definitely carries influence and isn’t afraid to take stands on all sorts of positions. Better yet, he’s not only called the ban “preposterous” but has also raised the possibility of taxing online poker instead, something both site operators and players have been begging for for years, as far as legislating and legitimizing online poker in the US.

Absolute Poker going away from the Bonus site?

During the past three years Absolute Poker has been the online site which gave away the most cash through bonuses. Looking at the Bonuswhores website it can be seen that since January 2004 Absolute Poker has offered $77,170 in possible bonuses! This amounts to approximately $450 in bonus per week!
However, they have been slowly changing they’re operations to increase revenue. These changes have been for the most part negative to the player and included changing the bonus requirements, rakeback structure and modifying the points store.

Through all of this many of the players that are bonus hungry (or commonly know as bonus whores) who capitalized on the generous bonuses have since left do to the changing requirements. Therefore, one could assume that Absolute Poker would have a decreasing number of players. However, this has not been the case due to the introduction of new skins on the Absolute Poker network.

The new sites on the Absolute Network include Big Chip Poker and Vegas 24/7 poker. With the introduction of these sites and the loss of bonus whores (who are typically tighter) the games at Absolute Poker are now easier. This is in large part due to the ratio of bonus hunters to fish and has thus created easier play.

This weekend is the first bonus that Absolute Poker has released in March a long stretch from when three bonuses were released per week. If you are interested in using the reload this weekend you must deposit on March 10th. Use promo-code MARCH10 (or if you’re VIP MARCH10VIP).

Sunpoker Monthly Bonus

This bonus/information is for those of you who can still play on the Cryptologic sites, ie: non-us poker players.

If you had uncleared Monthly bonus from last month or the last three months now is a great time to  clear that bonus.  Sunpoker has recently changed the format of the monthly bonus from ‘Bonus’ to ‘Reward’.  This change left the uncleared monthly bonus (under the ‘bonus’ category) while adding the ‘reward’ bonus.

Now when you’re clearing the bonus you actually clear both bonuses at the same time.  Therefore, instead of getting $1 for every 5 MPP’s it’s actually $2 for every 5 MPP’s.  A very very good clearance rate!

Neteller Irony

Since my last post on Neteller and Titan Poker something very ironic (or lucky) happened.   I received an email from Neteller saying that I won the “Win the World” draw.

$100 cash, applied directly to my account today.  I thought it was a huge scam at first and was freaked that my money in Neteller was gone or something.   I logged on,  boom,  100 hundred richer!       Funny thing is I don’t even remember entering the contest.     I guess it was some sort of automatic promotion or something.

Cashout.

Party Poker Bonus & No Neteller

For all those of you who are still able to play at Party Poker.  Check your email or partypoker account because they released a reload bonus on Monday.  Typically these are a free $100 for very limited play so definitely worth placing some money in party poker to take advantage of it.

Second of all, as I logged into Titan Poker last night I notice that Neteller wasn’t an option anymore.   You can’t deposit or withdrawl using Neteller and must choose a different option.  Not exactly a huge problem but a headache nonetheless.  Not exactly sure about this move by Titan Poker but i’m wondering if they know something that we don’t.

Is our money still safe in Neteller?   I’d say venture to say yes as they’re a fairly reputable company.  However, stranger things have happened.   Either way, I don’t keep large sums of money anywhere just to be safe.  Just a word of warning.