Once you’ve got your online wallet(s) set up you’ll want to maximize its usage. It’s fairly straightforward and there are a few good reasons for doing this.
(See our previous Strategy article for tips on setting up e-wallets and using payment processors.)
Your first rule of thumb should be: Never leave any money on a poker site that is not working for you.
In other words, unless you are clearing an active bonus or playing regularly on a particular site, you should not leave any money in your poker account. In fact, if you can manage it you should try and make sure you don’t leave a penny lying around. In addition to making good sense (it’s just logical to try and pool all your money into a single e-wallet rather than have it scattered amongst several poker sites) there is a very compelling reason for having $0 or almost zero balance poker accounts… those sites will want you to come back (i.e., deposit more money), and they’ll usually offer you some pretty decent incentives to do so.
There is probably all kinds of research being done on online poker player habits, but it’s safe to assume that once someone cleans out their account, there’s a decent chance they will not be coming back. Poker rooms are well aware of this, and they want to make sure you do not become one of those statistics. Shortly after they realize that you’ve emptied your account, they are likely going to send you a “we want you back email” which will either offer you a reload (e.g. 100% up to $200 for a new deposit) or an incentive (e.g., deposit at least $50 this week and you’ll receive a free entry to X tournament).
If you are playing on more than one site, and preferably a have accounts at a half-dozen or so, you’ll soon be receiving ‘competing’ offers, and you get to choose the one(s) you want to take advantage of. It’s a no-lose situation. Your money is ready to deposit immediately if you so choose.
So once you’ve completed your sign-up bonus or reload offer, be sure move your money back to your e-wallet asap and wait for the offers to come in.
And be sure you check out our poker bonus offers for the best sites to join. You can open accounts at every site we promote simultaneously and can therefore take advantage of every single sign-up offer.
Note: The above strategy will not work on PokerStars… they are the biggest site by far and frankly they simply don’t need to offer players many incentives to stay on their site. The smaller sites (which is just about everybody else these days) are much more concerned with keeping individual players happy and active, and will routinely check for recent withdrawals and encourage players to return with incentives.