Instant Bankroll?

Hi all,
I have been looking around at which room to deposit (because I usually have a good bit of time off during the holidays and like to give it a go for a month or so).

Anyway, I came across this site called Pokersource where they claim you can get an "instant bankroll" of $50 without depositing any money to the site. Apparently all you have to do is prove you're of age and download the poker software for that particular site through pokersource and create an account and you're done.

Does anyone have any experience with this? It sounds a bit sketchy to me and I was just wondering if it's legit or not? I'd like to try it if it is....

I think they are pretty legit, however make sure you read the fine print. Alot of those sites have some high requirements for points you have to clear in order to keep any winnings you might get.

Yeah, I think it said you needed a good 2500 raked hands before you can withdraw or something like that. Which, for me is fine...because I'm not very good anyway and if I keep a large enough bankroll for a long enough time to have played 2500 raked hands then I must be doing pretty good.

If anyone else has had any kind of experience with this I'd love to hear what's it likes before I give it a go. It's just nice to hear from someone in a 3rd party poker setting what it was like...

I used a different site, I think it was called something like yourpokercash, and got $50/$50 bankrolls on FullTilt and Absolute. The bonuses were somewhat difficult to clear given the amount you start with and trying to practice good BRM. I had already been playing for a while on Pokerstars, so fortunately I did not have to learn from scratch and try to clear a bonus at the same time. You could not get a bankroll on a second site unless you had sucessfully cleared your first.

So yes, they're legit (at least the one I used was), but I really regret not being able to get rakeback on Full Tilt, so that's something to consider before you go this route. Good luck!

how exactly do they make money doing this? by getting paid by full tilt to refer players to their site and then collect a portion of their rake?

They take 100% of players would be rakeback. EZ mannies.

If I understand the concept of a 'rakeback' correctly, why would a poker site give you your rake back? Isn't this the only way they make their money, by taking a rake? It seems counter-intuitive to me that they would basically be giving away any money they would have made off of you and give it to a 3rd party poker website....

Also, if you do one of these promotions for a website, you are not eligible later sign up for a rakeback?

Right. So, my personal opinion is get rakeback instead of the $50 upfront. I get 27% rakeback and have had way more then $50 of rakeback even playing micro stakes..

I agree pony up the money and take rakeback you'll get way more. I get 40% rakeback at Raiseandfold and there's no way I'd take any kind of free $ up front and have to play 2500 raked hands before I cashed.

If you think about it 2500 raked hands at even 10 cents rake is $250 if you're getting 40% of that $250 you're making $100 of it back and putting it back out into the games and your going to make more rake along the way. Even at 20% rake it's $62.50 and that's at an average of 10 cents rake which is just an easy example.

Only way for you to take free $50 is if you're a broke player and at that point you should just quit anyway until you can reestablish a real bankroll and take advantage of the rake.

These sites give $50 away to you for a reason, they aren't stupid and make lifetime of your rake from your play. Why let them get it cheap when you can make the mint yourself.

Food for thought and yes I love my 40% rake, wouldn't play without it.

You better try some of the 888 network rooms, they give you 25% instant cash or your first deposit up to $100. Better than playing high requirements for sponsor sites.

When I already had the account on Fulltilt I noticed even a site offering the 50$ and the standard 27%rakeback there both at the same time, so they obviously are not keeping it all. More likely they are getting all the rake upto some time or money limit or something like that.

Ive tried to do it a couple of times. But whether you delete your cookies or not you can have never downloaded the software before to your computer otherwise they will know so dont even bothering trying to beat the system been there done it and lost.

Rakeback is an easy way to reward the higher level players. Its almost self selecting. Players don't sign up to FTP without RB if they've been around for a while and if they have been its a great acquisition method for FTP (or it was).

Nowadays everybody is a lot more savvy and RB is a lot more common.

I guess the main reason its so common is because the rake is essentially overpriced. $3 for a $100 pot might have been fair when online poker first came about - servers, design etc were all a lot more expensive. Nowadays its probably a step too far which is why we see such high levels of RB.

If a poker room changed its rake structure they would lose the surplus rake being paid by the people who don't have a clue basically - So RB is a good way to acquire high rakers.

A couple things to note about these sites that offer what amounts to basically a $50 starting stake:

* It's a better idea to use the $50 bonus on sites that don't offer rakeback -- such as Pokerstars, Bodog, or others like this that are utilizing a VIP or bonus point system instead of rakeback.

Also, if you play enough at some sites, you can sometimes ask them to give you a rakeback discount even if you didn't sign up through a sponsor site. If you are playing high enough stakes or enough volume, the poker site would rather give you a rake discount than lose you altogether.