Bonus Value & Clearing Approximations

Regardless of the Bonus amount you choose to activate, the cashback value of the Bonus will be a uniform 20% across the board, whether it is $50 or $1,000. This can be calculated using the following method. Since Comp Points are always earned at a constant rate of 1 Comp Point for every 1 cent in rake, you can calculate that you will need to contribute $250 in rake to clear a $50 Bonus.

25,000 / 100 = $250;         $50 * 100 / $250 = 20%

You can apply this calculation to any other Bonus amount and the result will always be same.

Regardless of the Bonus amount you choose to activate, the cashback value of the Bonus will be a uniform 20% across the board, whether it is $50 or $1,000. This can be calculated using the following method. Since Comp Points are always earned at a constant rate of 1 Comp Point for every 1 cent in rake, you can calculate that you will need to contribute $250 in rake to clear a $50 Bonus.

25,000 / 100 = $250;         $50 * 100 / $250 = 20%

You can apply this calculation to any other Bonus amount and the result will always be same.

Now let’s take a look at how long it will take to clear certain amounts of the Bonus based of what games and stakes you are going to be playing. As you can see, the three charts on the right show the breakdown by numbers for tournaments, cash games and windfall games. You can read more about Windfall Sit & Go’s in our BetOnline Download review.

When it comes to tournaments and windfall sit & go’s, the fee structure is rigidly defined, so calculating how many games it will take to clear you Bonus is easy, however, when it comes to cash games, calculations are not that simply and only approximations can be made. Let’s start with tournaments.

The tournament chart features 3 buy-in levels – $11, $55 and $109 with fees of $1, $5 and $9 respectively. So if we take a $50 Bonus amount, we know that you will need to earn 25,000 Comp Points to clear this amount. Since we also know that Comp Points are awarded at a rate of 1 Point per every 1 cent in fees (100 Comp Points for every $1 in fees), we can easily calculate how many tournaments it will take to clear the entire Bonus.

$50 Bonus:                          25,000 / 100 = 250

$200 Bonus:                        100,000 / 100 = 1,000

$1,000 Bonus:                    500,000 / 100 = 5,000

When it comes to windfall sit & go’s, the process is very much the same, except the rake for them is lower than normal tournament rake and stands at only 7%. This means that for example, an $7 windfall sit & go will have a $0.49 fee. Now we can just apply the same formula as before.

$50 Bonus:                          25,000 / 49 = ~511

$200 Bonus:                        100,000 / 49 = ~2,040

$1,000 Bonus:                    500,000 / 49 = ~10,205

As we’ve mentioned earlier, cash games are a different beast. The amount of rake that can be paid over a certain number of hands can vary from player to player, so the best we can do is make an approximation. A safe approximation to make is that players an stakes of NL100 and below will pay rake at a rate of 12 big blinds per 100 hands. This means that if you are playing NL25, you are paying ~$3/100 in rake and earning ~300 Comp Points. Based on this approximation we can use the following calculation to get an approximate number of hands you will need to play to clear the entire Bonus amount.

NL25

$50 Bonus:                          25,000 / 300 * 100 = ~8,333

$200 Bonus:                        100,000 / 300 * 100 = ~33,333

$1,000 Bonus:                    500,000 / 300 * 100 = ~166,666

For NL200 and above, it’s usually safe to assume that the amount of rake paid per 100 hands goes down, so let’s a assume an 8 big blinds / 100 hands rake. In this case, for NL500, you will be paying $40 / 100 hands in rake and earning 4,000 Comp Points. Then we can just apply the same formula as we did earlier.

NL500

$50 Bonus:                          25,000 / 400 * 100 = ~625

$200 Bonus:                        100,000 / 400 * 100 = ~2,500

$1,000 Bonus:                    500,000 / 400 * 100 = ~12,500

$10,000 New Player Freeroll

When you make your first deposit, not only do you get the awesome Welcome Bonus, but also an entry in the monthly $10,000 New Player Freeroll, potentially worth almost as much as the Bonus itself!

The freeroll runs on the 2nd Sunday of each Month at 17:00 ET. If you made a deposit in June for example, you will be awarded a ticket to July’s freeroll. Tickets will be awarded within 72 hours of making your deposit.

Freerolls like these represent enormous value because of all the casual players playing in them. The skill level of such a tournament cannot be compared to any regular tournament. Another huge advantage is that many people register for the freeroll, but never show up, so at the beginning you can easily find yourself at a 9 person table with only 4-5 players actually playing. And of course the real cherry on top of the cake here is the $10,000 prize pool, quite a bit more than other poker rooms offer for their depositor freerolls.

Once you have received the ticket, make sure you don’t miss the freeroll yourself, since the ticket is only valid for the freeroll you have qualified for. This means that if you make your deposit in June and then miss the July freeroll, your ticket will no longer be valid.

Comp Points

BetOnline doesn’t have a tiered VIP program some other online poker rooms. Instead, players earn Comp Points for playing at any real money games, including cash games, tournaments, Windfall sit & go’s, etc. These points can later be exchanged for freeroll and tournament tickets.

Players earn comp points for every cent they pay in rake, literally! For every cent that you pay in in rake at a cash game table or contribute in the form of a tournament fee, you will get 1 Comp Point. This means that if you register for a tournament with a $109 buy-in, you will get 900 Comp Points ($9 fee * 100).

Don’t worry if you don’t see your earned Comp Points reflected in your account balance immediately. It can take up to 24 hours to process all the Comp Points earned and for that to be reflected in your account balance.

Comp Points are accrued over the course of the year, which at BetOnline starts on April 1^st and ends on March 31^st. Comp Points do have an expiration date. All points earned in this period of time have to be spent until June 30^th of the next Comp Points year, otherwise they will expire and you will no longer be able to redeem them.

You can view your Comp Point balance by opening the cashier in the BetOnline desktop client or by logging in on their website. There you can also redeem your Comp Points for freeroll and tournament tickets.

BetOnline’s software has been developed quite recently in association with Connective Games. It boasts a number of unique and popular features and games formats, including:

• Lottery Sit & Go’s (Windfall Poker)
• Bad Beat Jackpot
• Royal Flush Jackpot
• 2 Unique Game Formats (Americana & 32 Card Draw)
• 2 Weekly Leaderboard Races
• Dedicated Mobile Clients For iOS and Android

Read more about BetOnline’s software, including a detailed review of all the features in our BetOnline Download review.