multiple accounts on poker sites

A possibly a dumb questions from a semi-newbie to online poker....

All the major poker sites seems to have a strict policy about NOT having more than one account per player and in the case of two+ person households who each have different people playing, requiring that they each have separate sources for funding those accounts (bank accounts, credit cards, ewallets, etc.).

I guess I can understand how that would help prevent collusion. But it's clear from a bunch of threads here that people in fact do have multiple accounts at the site they play.

So the perhaps stupid questions is ... WHY? Why would someone want more than one account? (...that is, outside of collusion or running multiple pokerbots, which obviously is against their policy.) What would the benefit be otherwise? Thanks.

your guess is as good as mine i fail to see a legit reason why anyone would wont more then one account theres really no reason except i would say ive noticed a few people seem to post about getting new accounts for rake back since when they signed up they didnt sign up for rakeback but thats the reason i could see

What Shannon says is true, a lot of people do it to take advantage of rakeback deals. It's still against the sites' TOS, and they risk getting their accounts closed and funds confiscated.

at a site that serves also as a sports bookie; i could see someone wanting more than one account in a case where poker/sports cash is shared for the purpose of running two bankrolls. i know there's some sites out there where your money is not separate between poker/sports. though, i can work around that with one account, i would assume no sites would want to grant you another account for that reason if you asked

*edit* i left out...the easiest way to work around it that i do is just bet on sports on another site where i don't play poker, which is what i do, haha.

Another reason would be "Bonus Whoring"; Also, due to the extreme popularity of online poker staking, many people open 2nd or 3rd accounts once they have stole from online stakers. Of course, there are many scammers that open many accounts to set up trades between sites with others and steal the traders money.

the only semi legit reason i can think of is tracking software. what i mean is if i have HEM say and have thousands of hand on people. if i were to switch screen names they would have no hands on me and i thousands on them. this would give me quite an edge on them for quite sometime.

I opened a 2nd account after pokerstars suggested it to me, the reason being was that I still had not gotten my Visa debit card and My wife had one that I was using to fund my account, when they noticed this they informed me that it was a No No to use a card that was not in your name and the suggested to open one in her name and the deposit into the account in her name and then transfer to my account, so just because someone has 2 accounts there is no need to label them colluders, or ppl that run bots, or bonus whores, as I don't do any of these things.

I'm thinking the rackback & deposit bonus motivation makes sense -- but the risk of getting your account close down (& funds withheld, etc., for going against the T&C) kinda makes it not worth it for me.

I suppose trying to avoid dataminers who might have a lot info on your before switching screenames also makes sense.... But the days of datamining at Full Tilt seem over now (& at Stars too), so I guess there's not as much of a reason to switch.

that was exactly what i was going to say. people generally take advantage of bonus's and or rakeback. another legitimate reason for having two accounts is one for play, and one for real money, if that makes sense, sometimes they ban 1 account and leave the other. Other than that collusion like others were saying