Free Roll Your Way into the Money
Many online poker sites offer “Free-rolls” as a promotion to sign up. A free-roll lets a player join a tournament without having to pay an entry fee. The online poker room itself puts up the prize money and the players get to compete at no cost.
Free-rolls can vary depending on how much “overlay” the management makes. The overlay is the amount of money the poker online room puts up per player. If the prize pool is 1,000 and there are 100 players, then the overlay is 10 per players and the expected value of the prizes for those who make it to the money is 10+.
Some sites only offer free-rolls to their established customers who have played lots of raked hands at the site. The card room wants to keep their business, so the free-roll offer is an incentive to continue using the site.
A free-roll offer that requires a player to reach a large amount of raked hands is not necessarily such a great deal. Sometimes it is more advantageous to look for sites that offer bonuses up front which is free money added to your bank roll.
In comparing two competing offers - a free roll qualification or a free bonus - consider how much time and how many hands you must play in order to qualify for the incentive.
