Poker Minimum Deposits – Do’s and Don’ts

Many players like to make a minimum deposit when they open an account at a new online poker room. This makes good sense. There are lots of reasons why you wouldn’t want to put a lot of money into a new room.

The room could be a scam, and you might never see your money again. In reality though, there are very few ‘scam’ poker rooms in operation. And you should really do your homework before depositing any money at all.

But there are other reasons; you might not like the room, for whatever reason, and you don’t want your whole poker bankroll tied up in a withdrawal for a few days. There are many reasons for not liking a poker room; the rake might be too high, the competition too stiff, the colors too bright, the support too slow, or you just don’t like it.

Fair enough, you can’t like them all. So you find a room you want to try and you deposit the minimum amount necessary to open an account, say $20. You try it and you like it. Great. Now you can deposit more money and have a proper bankroll.

The thing is, you have probably done yourself out of a big Poker Bonus amount by doing all this. You deposited $20, so at most poker rooms you will probably get a 100% matching bonus of - $20. Then you go on to deposit another $200 and you get a bonus of – nothing.

If you had deposited the full $200 in the first place you would have got a bonus of up to $200. Bummer. But as we know if you had deposited the $200 first and didn’t like the room then you would have to wait while the withdrawal was processed. Or worst case, you got scammed!

So what can you do? The short answer is ‘nothing’. The reasoning behind making the minimum deposit is sound. It’s good to be cautious where money is concerned. This is especially true online. However, there are some things you can do to help with this situation though.

First, you can find those rooms that offer a deposit bonus that isn’t based on the amount of your first deposit. There are some that do this, but not many. Or you can look for rooms that will give a ‘re-deposit’ bonus, so you don’t lose out totally if you want to increase your bankroll there.

Another thing you could do is look for rooms in the same network, using the same software. If you like one room in this network, you will probably like all the others. So you open an account for the minimum amount at the first room, then if you like it you find another room in this network and make the maximum deposit thereby getting the full bonus. Clever, eh?

Basically, it’s good to be clever when it comes to putting your money into an online poker room, but it’s better to be even more clever.