PokerStars Bonus Clearing Details

PokerStars Bonus Clearing Requirements

In the world of online poker, there are many sites devoted to bringing people together from around the world and placing them around the felt. That being said, none are quite so generous as Poker Stars, which is now awarding up to $600 as a signing bonus when you join up with them. That’s right – they pay you to play poker! It’s just a matter of typing in the PokerStars bonus code ‘STARS600′ when you deposit real money for the first time.

What’s the catch, you may be wondering? It’s an understandable concern. After all, no one these days just gives money away – there’s always a catch, always a reason they try so hard to get your money.

PokerStars is counting on your enjoyment of the game to keep you going. See, they don’t offer $600 in an immediate, lump sum amount. every time you play at Poker Stars, you receive something called FPPs, or Frequent Player Points. For every 170 FPPs you acquire, $10 of your bonus will be given to you. You can pocket this into your bankroll or use it to keep playing at PokerStars.com, no strings attached.

It’s not quite as easy as this, either. You must deposit $600 into your real-money account at Poker Stars.com before you’re qualified for the $600 bonus. If you only deposit $300 into your account, you are only eligible for $300 in bonus funds. However, if you then deposit an extra $500, your bonus eligibility will be at $600, which is the maximum per account you’re allowed to receive.

Finally, there is the issue of a timeframe. You have a span of 90 days after your first cash deposit to deposit a total of $600. You have a total of six months from your first deposit to collect the FPPs you need to get your money’s worth and earn the total bonus.  Added up that’s 17 * 600 = 10200 FPPs within six months in order to earn your free $600.

Poker Stars has a FAQ for how they award FPPs – read it here: http://www.pokerstars.com/vip/earn/ . It’s not easy to understand, but for the inexperienced, this should break it down for you:

* For tournaments, you acquire 5.5 FPPs per dollar of entry fee or 8 FPPs for each euro in entry fees.

* For cash games of 8 seats or more, your table earns 6 FPPs per dollar or 8.5 FPPs for every euro of “rake” fee per hand (the amount of money PokerStars.com receives from the pot as compensation), divided evenly among the players dealt into the hand. As an example, if nine players are are dealt cards and the rake paid is $3.00, the table collects 18 FPPs; split among nine people means each person receives 2 FPPs.

* For cash games of 7 or less seats, you acquire 5.5 FPPs per dollar or 8 FPPs for every euro of rake paid, split among the players playing.

* If you log a lot of hours at the tables, you can collect FPPs at double (after getting 3000 FPPs in a month), triple (100,000 in a year), or up to quintuple (1,000,000 in a year) these rates.

As you can see, it’s not as good as PokerStars.com initially makes it seem. If you collect 2 FPPs for every hand, you still need to play 5100 poker hands if you want to acquire the entire $600, and you have to gamble even more than that and hope you come out ahead in the process. However, if you enjoy online poker, it’s an excellent way to get paid for doing something you love.

The PokerStars bonus is actually one of the better online poker bonuses out there because they give you plenty of time to earn the full $600.  And be sure to check out this PokerStars marketing code when registering your new account to get extra perks such as private access to exclusive freerolls and tournaments!