Get A Real Job!

Mirage Poker Showdown

2007-01-21T06:54:00.000-08:00

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10

WPT

2007-01-21T05:54:00.000-08:00

2004: Season 2

Grand Prix de Paris

2005: Season 3

Mirage Poker Showdown

Grand Prix de Paris

2007-01-21T05:41:00.000-08:00

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9

Tournament of Champions

2007-01-20T20:51:00.000-08:00

Final Table

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10

WSOP

2007-01-20T20:22:00.000-08:00

2006

Main Event
Tournament of Champions

2005

Main Event

WSOP 2006 Main Event

2007-01-20T19:56:00.000-08:00

WPT: Bad Boys of Poker

2007-01-20T19:48:00.000-08:00

WPT: Bad Boys of Poker 2

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9

Australian Poker

2007-01-16T01:03:00.000-08:00

Aussie Millions

Aussie Millions 2007 Promo

Phil Ivey Knockout

Erick Lindgren Interview- 100K event winner

Joseph Hachem

2005 WSOP Main Event Final Table

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10

Tony G

2007-01-15T23:23:00.000-08:00

Intercontinental Poker Championship- Tony G Eliminates Ralph Perry and releases a stream of insults and taunting

Intercontinental Poker Championships 2- More Great play by Tony G

Highlights Part 1

Highlights Part 2

Tony G Rips Apart Paris

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Tony G v Mike "The Mouth"

Tony G v Men Nguyen

Bad Boys of Poker 2

Poker Vids Directory

2007-01-15T22:38:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been discovering the joys of youtube and watching many a poker vid. However, I find that its often hard to navigate through the crap and find the good stuff, so I've decided to create this directory to make life easier for myself and others. Feel free to bookmark this page if you want, as I will be updating it regularly. You can also browse the rest of the blog from the links below:

Helpful Site Links

Home

Building Poker Bankroll

Vids Directory

High Stakes Poker- Very interesting and a welcome change from watching tournaments. NL Hldm cash games with min buy in of 100K, featuring all the best players in the world.

Tony G- Lithuanian Born Australian Tony G, known as the biggest trash talker in poker is a fantastic player and one of my favourites to watch. Some people may thing that his table talk is 'not poker' and unsportsman like, but I think that it is a valuable weapon at the table and comedy gold. Enjoy!

Australian Poker- Since I'm an Australian, I like to see some Australian poker vids. Heres some of the Aussie Millions and famous Aussie Poker Players.

WSOP- A series of poker tournaments that poker players world wide look forward to as the biggest poker event of the year. Continuously setting records for the largest fields and biggest payouts year after year, and featuring the pinnacle of tournament poker, the NL Holdem WSOP Main Event.

WPT- The show that has revolutionised poker, a series of tournaments around america and the world. Featuring pro's and online qualifers alike, its anyone's game.

High Stakes Poker

2007-01-15T20:41:00.000-08:00

Swingidy Swing

2007-01-15T15:46:00.000-08:00

I thought I had got my anger and frustration and mental toughness to deal with swings under control, but now I realise that was totally wrong. Due to the fact that I'm now playing higher stakes, the swings are twice as big as they were previously and I think this is the problem. I have strived to think of my poker play in terms of units but I can't seem to ignore the dollar figures.

Usually it seems that when I go on a losing streak it doesn't really affect my play, but affects my anger and I started smashing my fist on the table or throwing things against the wall because I feel so frustrated... I can't seem to help it. However, last night, not only was I angry on the outside, but I also let it greatly affect my play. I managed to donk off about $40 (10 BB) from just making stupid plays like calling down with AK high. When I'm losing it always feels like everyone is trying to bluff me.

I think the best solution would be to set lower stop loss limits, as I generally play worse when I'm losing anyway so its probably a good move. Currenlty I have a stop loss limit of 30 BB, but I'm going to lower that to 20 BB. Also I'll try much harder to externally monitor myself, and if I feel myself tilting, I need to just walk away.

The Year That Was: 2006 Progress Report

2007-01-15T01:12:00.000-08:00

Period: July 05- Dec 31

Its been about six months since I began this blog and began taking poker seriously. A lot has happened to further my poker knowledge during that time, and a lot hasn't happened that I thought would. All in all its been six months of very high ups, very low downs and lots of inbetweenies.

In the Beginning

I went back and read my first ever post today and it was funny to see what all my expectations were back then. For example, in my first post I beleived that I could play 10,000 hands in my first week, when in actual fact it took about 3 months to reach the 10,000 hand mark. In the beggining, I was to make poker and bonus swindling my "sole source of income" as it says in the blog description, but a month or so after the start of the blog I got a regular job which brings in about twice as much in a day than I make in a whole month from my gambling pursuits.

Ring Games

I finished the year up by $481.80 for ring games, which included 1/2 and 2/4 full table, and 50c/1 shorthanded. The biggest thing I learnt, or experienced in ring games was to do with variance. I wasn't prepared for the mental aspects of dealing with the swings that come with any form of poker. I'd like to think that I've improved my control of my feelings and emotions when I'm on a downswing, but I know I still have a long way to go here. To this point I've played 19,000 hands in ring games.

Tournies

For some reason, Poker Tracker doesn't track my tourny stats properly, so I no doubt missed some results from tournies played pre 20/09. After realising the problem I've started keeping track of all my tourny stats in excel. I started off playing mainly large MTT's and 180 person SNG's on Poker stars and full tilt at the $10 buy in level, but I quickly lost 10 in a row and was down $110. I decided to drop down to games at the $5 buy in level and played tournies with less ppl on full tilt, ie. 9 and 90 plyr sng's and smaller MTT's and I've seen my results greatly improve. Recently I managed to completely wipe out my negative balance and make into the black.

Strategy

My original poker strategy was to only play "Nines or better wired, Jacks or better split, three high cards to the flush,"- Rounders. The 'True-grinder' strategy where I would play very tight but about 4 tables at once. I'm not sure whether this strategy is wrong, or if I didn't implement it correctly, or if I was just on a downswing, but I quickly fell down to -$200 and decided to change my strategy. I purchased a book on small stakes holdem and applied their strategies to my game, and from this point saw my results improve and playing also became more fun. Since then I've purchased many more poker books on limit, no-limit, both and some others, but none were as informing as the first.

Stats

Early on I decided to fork out and buy Poker Tracker and download Poker Patterns to track and analyse my stats. These two peices of software are well worth the money and I strongly recomend that every new poker player has them. I had intended to learn how to use them to their maximum potential but didn't really get into it... yet. More recently I've been playing poker on my mac laptop which isn't supported by pokertracker so I haven't been able to use it. Instead I've been tracking my basic result stats in excel, which is good because results never go missing as hand histories often seem to.

Targets

I set myself many targets and goals over the course of the past 6 months but was dissapointed that many of them weren't acheived or weren't acheived as quickly as I'd hoped. The main target that I did reach was that I got to the point of being up by $400 (double the my results low point of -200), and was able to move up in limits from 1/2 to 2/4. I had hoped to have my bankroll up at the 8000 mark by the end of the year, this soon dropped to 7000 then 5000 but I was unable to even make it to that. Many unforceen difficulties contributed to my not reaching the target, so I'm not particularly disspointed, and I'm not going to give up or anything.

My key targets for the months to come are to move up from 2/4 to 3/6 by winning $1000 at 2/4, as well as get my entire bankroll up to $7000 so I can withdraw $3000 which will become my live bankroll.

Casino Bonuses

I'm very happy that I started doing Casino bonuses all those months ago because that is one of the major reasons that I'm where I am today. Over two thirds of my total bankroll are profits from Casino Bonus Swindling and doing bonuses taught me valuable lessons about variance and patience. Unfortunately, as already mentioned, I have been unable to finish of the last of the casino bonuses lately, but I should get back onto them soon.

Affiliate Program

The other reason that I'm glad that I did the casino bonuses is because it has allowed me to develope my affiliate program which I have almost finished now and will hopefully be very successful.

Above and Beyond

I've already discussed my targets for the next few months, but I have some ideas of where I'd like to be by this time next year. I would like to be playing full ring game stakes of at least 5/10 and short handed stakes of 2/4. I would like to have progressed up to the 10-25 buyin tounry level as well as started playing NL holdem cash games. In terms of live play, I hope to build my AU$4000 bankroll up to $13000 then use $1000 to do a course for blackjack-masters and start playing blackjack in the casino for money.

If I can acheie all of the above... I'm considering taking a year after I finish my uni course, which will be in 2 yrs time and become a profesional gambler for a year...

Monthly Report: Dec 06

2007-01-14T23:51:00.000-08:00

Stats:

Tournies: +$103
MTT: (1): +$75.60
SNG: (21): +$27.40
90 plyr: (4): -$22
9 plyr: (17): +$49.40

Ring Games: +$15.50
$1/$2 Full: +$100
$2/$4 Full: -$46
50c/$1 Short: -$38.50

All Poker: +$118.50

FTP Bonus Unlocked: +$80

Overall the month wasn't too bad. As mentioned in my previous post, I reached my first target of being up by $400 at $1/$2 Full Ring, and as a result moved up to $2/$4 Full Ring. I had a number of good winning sessions at 2/4 before hitting my first down swing and having to deal with session losses double the size of any I'd seen before.

I've been playing more and more tournies and sng's of late and starting to see some promising results, however It should be noted that to get a true picture in terms of tournaments you need a sample size of around the 800- 1000 games at least, so it will be some time before I know my true winrate. The highlate for the month would have to be coming 3rd in a $5.50 MTT with 128 ppl in it and making a profit of $75.

I'm still unable to do Casino Bonuses due to the lack of internet on the PC, however that shouldn't be the case for too much longer as I know how to fix it.

Target Reached

2006-12-16T02:47:00.000-08:00

Today I managed to reach my first target, reaching the point of being up by $400 in $1/$2 limit full ring games. Next time i sit down to play limit I'll be playing $2/$4 which will be very exciting stuff. Unfortunately we haven't got the internet connected on the desktop computer yet so I haven't been able to do any casino bonuses, so my target of finishing all the sticky bonuses before the end of the year looks all but impossible to acheive. It also means that I can't transfer my hand histories from my laptop to the desktop in order to analyse my play in pokertracker. However, I have started recording each of my session's results in a little book and also on excel, so I do have a solid record of my basic win/loss stats.

My next goal is to try and make it to $3/$6 by the end of the year, which is only about 2 weeks away. It looks to be a difficult task as I need to win $1000 at $2/$4 in order to move up. In light of the internet problems and my inability to do casino bonuses, my bankroll target of at least $5000 by the end of the year is looking more and more unlikely, let alone my optimistic target of $8000. My short handed game is going very swingily at the moment, but that was to be expected as its the nature of the beast.

I've been thinking more and more about playing live poker at the casino on a regular basis and longing for the time when I will be able to do it. This is still a long way off however, because I need to reach a bankroll target of $7000, so I can withdraw US$3000 to form my offline bankroll of AU$4000. If I can keep at it, then hopefully I'll get there before the end of the holidays, which gives my about 10 weeks.

Lately, and during my exam period, I have been finding what a good resourse youtube is for poker videos. I have spent many hours watching poker clips on youtube, mostly High Stakes Poker which was created by GSN. Its different, and in my opinion, much more interesting than televised tournaments, because of the range of hands that are played and how they are played, along with the fact that its REAL MONEY and all the table talk and antics that go on in a cash game but not so much in a tournament. I'm going to put together a youtube poker movies directory soon, because one thing I found was navigating all the movies to find the right ones I was looking for.

In other news, I've finally started to sign up to the rest of the affiliate accounts that I need to for my affiliate program. Its a big job, because theres something like 50 different accounts I have to sign up for, but at least the ball is rolling now. Once all the affiliate links are in place I'll start promoting the guides etc on various forums to get some traffic. I think I'll try and focus mainly on the Australian market, because its a relativly young and untapped market and its one that I know more about than any other because I am an Australian.

In non poker/ website circles, I got my Uni results the other day and although I got my first two distinctions so far for my course, I also got my first fail, which I was expecting but was still quite dissapointing. I did well with that particular subject throughout the semester without trying particularly hard and missing a lot of tutorials and most lectures which meant that I was way behind when it came to the exam. I just simply didn't put in the required time for my revision and with the exam paper being quite hard this semester, I had almost no hope. Hopefully I'll learn something from this and it will ensure that I don't slack off and fail any more subjects. On the good side of things, Christmas is right around the corner. I've just about finished all my x-mas shopping and I think everyone will like the gifts I have got this year, probably becasue I was able to splash around a bit more this year than other years as I now have an ongoing job. I get good satisfaction from seeing my family enjoy seeing what I've given them, its great.

Just in case you're wondering, I'm aware that the description of this blog says "marking poker and casino bonus swindling my SOLE source of income" and quite soon after I've openly told how I got a real job and I'm making far more from it than I am from poker, however having no where near as much fun.

Monthly Report: November

2006-12-15T03:40:00.000-08:00

Stats:

Limit Poker: +$35

Short: -$62
Full: +$97

Tourny's: +$39.25

MTT: -$16.50
SNG: +$55.75

90 Player DS: +$51
9 Player: +$4.75

All Poker Total: +$74
FTP Bonus: +$80

Grand Total: +$154

November was a hectic month because I had uni exams PLUS we were moving house. My exam period was from the 12th to the 22nd, and for a week or so before that I was in SWOT VAC studying so it left much less time for poker, but I managed to squeeze some in here and there when I needed a break from study. As can be seen from the stats summary above, the most rewarding aspect of poker for Nov was my tournament sucess. I've just started getting back into tournaments and I played a lot of 90 player Deep Stack SNG's, which seem to be my prefered structure and size, throughout November. I managed to make it to the money a number of times including a 2nd, 5th and 8th. Ironically, of those three final table finishes, I thought I'd played my best poker in the one where I came in 8th, I just couldn't catch any cards at the final table there.

As can also be seen, I lost a fair bit playing short handed which I'm not too fazed about because thats simple that nature of short handed play, high variance. The fact that I made back the money and more in full ring games also blunted the impact of my short handed loss.

These stats are really only from the first half of Nov because from the 15th to the 22nd, it was getting into the meat of my exams so I had less time to play as I was studying so much. Also, from the 22nd till the end of the month, I had planned to cram lots of poker in and try and get my targets into range, however, we moved house on the 23rd and the internet wasn't connected until Dec 2nd so I ended up missing the whole 2nd half of November.

Due to the loss of the Internet and exams etc, I didn't play ANY casino bonuses for the whole of Nov, infact, if you remember, I only played one bonus, Intercasino, in October, so hopefully I'll be able to get onto them soon. In terms of my goals, the next one in my sights is to reach the mark of being up by $400 at $1/$2 full ring games so I can move up in stakes to $2/$4. I've only got to win about $70 more to do this.

Monthly Report: October

2006-11-06T04:41:00.000-08:00

(This is acutally a report for the last part of September also, specifically Sep 26- 31 Oct)

Stats:

Poker:

$1/$2: Full Ring Games: +$210.75
50c/$1: 6 Max Ring Games: +$145.95

Casino Bonuses:

Total: +$356.70

It was very difficult to determine the above figures for my poker stats for the month due to my change over from playing on the home PC to playing on my laptop. Some hand histories were not recorded, but I think that I've got it pretty much correct now. The obvious thing to notice about the stats is that my earnings from short handed play is massive at 2/3's of my full ring game play already, and the short handed play is from half the stakes and many less hands. As I mentioned in a previous post, I think I was running EXTREMELY well to make that much in such a short time, and theres no way that level of success will continue, but it does appear that I'm a profitable player at short handed.

If you take a look around the blog you will notice that I have added Bonus Swindling guides and lists for my casino affiliate program, I still have some stuff to do like adding all the hyperlinks and signing up for more affiliate account, but I'm well on my way.

Both that and poker are going to have to wait for a coupe of weeks because I've got exams coming up and I'm starting studying tomorrow, then right after I finish we are moving house, so its a jam pack few weeks ahead. Once we are settled in at the new house I'll have about 40 days till the end of the year to reach my target of $5000 which I'm still a long way off. There are also a number of mini goals to achieve before then which include finishing all the sticky bonuses, moving up to 2/4 stakes (i need to win another 100 or so to do this) and then moving from 2/4 to 3/6 (i'll need to win 1000 at 2/4 to do this) but I think if I can buckle down after exams and all, I think I can do it.

Casino Bonuses List

2006-11-05T18:32:00.000-08:00

Below is a list of Casino Bonuses which you can do to make money. If you haven't already, you might want to read the Bonus Swindling Guide to learn how to take advantage of these bonuses to make a profit, turning "Gambling" into investing and a safe bet.

Here is the key for the list:
"Online Casino" : Bonus: (WR): (# to refer to in Casino Bonuses Played to see how I went with that bonus): Notes

Solid Bonuses

"Starluck" : $100: ($1600): (#4)

"Planetluck" : $100: ($1600): (#5)

"Private Casino " : 75Euro: (1500Euro): (#18)

"Will Hill " : $80: ($2000): (#6) + Monthly $40 Bonus

"Intercasino" : $100: ($2500): (#7) + Monthly $100 Bonus

"VIP casino " : $100: ($2500): (#17)

"Littlewoods" : 50GBP: (1250GBP): (#8) + Monthly 25GBP Bonus

"UK Betting " : 25GBP: (500GBP): (#13) + Monthly 25GBP Bonus

"Bet365" : $200: ($4000): (#1)

"Golden Palace " : $300: ($8000): (#3)

"Ladbrokes" : 50GBP: (200GBP): (#): Minimum bets of 5GBP

The next group are still very profitable bonuses, they simply carry slightly more risk, however you should have a much healthier bankroll now after completing the 'solid bonuses' above, and be ready to tackle this next group.

Good Bonuses

"Players Only Sportsbook and Casino" : $50 + $5: ($600): (#19)

"Sportingbet USA " : $50+ $5: ($600): (#15)

"Sports book" : $50+ $5: ($600)

"Casino Euro " : 111Euro: (3330Euro): (#16)

"Cherry Casino " : $111: ($6660): (#14): Large WR, still +EV

"Omni Casino" : $100: ($5000): (#): Large WR, still +EV

"Aceclub" : $100: ($6000): (#9): Large WR, still +EV

The next group are Fortune Lounge Video Poker Bonuses, that is they don't allow you to play blackjack to complete all of the WR and you must do Video Poker for the rest. Most of them allow you to play blackjack to complete 20% of the WR, and the best video poker game to clear the rest is Aces and Faces. The good thing with these bonuses is that they use microgaming software which has an auto play function. All you need to do is calculate the number of bets you need to make and enter that into the auto play tab and it will play perfect strategy for you to complete the WR.

Beware the Video Poker is VERY high variance by nature because a lot of the payouts are tied up in big hands like the royal flush that don't come round very often. You should bet the minimum amount possible for the amount of the bet, however the number of coins you wish to play is up to you. If you want the greatest opportunity of making a profit you should choose to play only one coin, but if you want to gamble a bit then you should play 5 coins because if you get a royal flush at 5 coins you will get an extra large payout. You'll need to check the Terms and Conditions of the particular casino's to determine the WR's.

"Fortune Room Online Casino" : $50: (check T&C): (#25)

"Vegas Palms" : $200: (check T&C): (#31)

"Platinum Play Casino" : 100GBP: (check T&C): (#30)

"Vegas Towers Casino" : $50: (check T&C): (#29)

"Desert Dollar Casino" : $100: (check T&C): (#28)

"7 Sultans Online Casino" : $100: (check T&C): (#27)

"Royal Vegas" : $100: (check T&C): (#26)

"Vegas Villa" : $300: (check T&C): (#)

This next group is what I like to call 'Semi Stickies,' which you won't understand until you know what a Sticky Bonus is, and that comes later, so just bear with me. By now you would have realised that you can make quite an impressive hourly rate by doing these bonuses. The next group of bonuses however, have rather high WR's which will result in a much lowever hourly rate, although they are still EV. To combat this, I like to play them as Semi Stickies where you make a gamble and bet big, around 1/4 of the combined total of the bonus and deposit, and try and hit an aggressive target, then drop back to smaller bets to clear the WR. That way, you will either bust out of the bonus entirely or hit your target and hence make a higher than expected profit. In the long run, it will lead to you making the EV and having a better Hourly rate as well.

The target that you set for yourself is up to you. It should be large enough that when you make smaller bets to clear it, you will still maintain a solid hourly rate. To determine this you need to know how many bets you can make per hour (info that you should easily be able to calculate if you've been keeping good records in excel). The target shouldn't be so large it will be unlikely that you will hit it even with your large bets. By now you should know enough about Bonus Swindling to gauge what a good target might be, if you are still a bit unsure, aim lower rather than higher. Your bet size to reach your target is again up to you, it shouldn't be higher than 1/2 of the combined total of your bonus + deposit, and more ideally no bigger than 1/4.

The other way you can play these bonuses to to simply make larger than normal bets, but still not huge. You still set a large target to stop at if you reach it, but you don't aim to hit it. If your normal bet size is 2- 5 dollars, you might make 10-20 dollar bets to clear a high WR, where as if you were using the method above you might make 25-50 dollar bets.

You may also want to use some variant of the two above methods, or another strategy of your own, or simply play them like normal cashable bonuses which will simply mean a lower hourly rate, its all up to you. At this point in your Bonus Swindling career you should have enough knowledge and experience to make these decisions for yourself.

"Casino on Net" : $200: ($10 000): (#)

"Sports Interaction" : $125: ($4500): (#)

"Sands of the Caribbean" : $50: ($1250): (#)

"Pharohs Casino" : $30: ($1500): (#)

"Window's Casino " : $150: ($10500): (#10)

"Gold Key" : $100: (check T&C): (#)

"Betsson" : $30: ($750): (#)

"Bet Royal" : $200: ($14000): (#): Doesn't allow Australian Players

"32 Red" : $50: ($1500): (#): Monthly bonus, must get an email from support offering the bonus

The next group, below, are known as Sticky bonuses. This means that the casino will give you a bonus but they won't let you withdraw it, they will simply subtract the amount of the bonus from your balance when you withdraw. However you can still win money using the bonus, and you can withdraw those winnings, which means Sticky bonuses can still be profitable. The way we play sticky bonuses is similar to how we play the Semi Stickies from above. First you set yourself a target, then make large bets around 1/4 of your table bankroll (bonus + deposit) to try and reach a bonus a target of approximately 2 * (bonus + Deposit)- this can also vary with the size of the WR and the desired profit you wish to make.

Sticky Bonuses, like semi stickes but even more so, will attract greater variance that the cashable bonuses we first tried, due to the large bets we must make to reach the targets, however your bankroll's should be much healthier now and able to absorb that variance. Remember to always check the terms and conditions before attempting bonuses.

"USA Casino" : $100: (check T&C): (#)

"Joyland Casino" : $100: (check T&C): (#)

"Carnival Casino" : $200: (check T&C): (#): Video Poker only to clear WR

"Swiss Casino" : $100: (check T&C): (#)

"Casino King" : $100: (check T&C): (#)

"Casino Las Vegas" : $100: (check T&C): (#)

"Magic Box Casino" : $115: (check T&amp;C): (#)

"Palace of Chance" : Unlimited: (check T&C): (#)

"Playgate" : $200: (check T&C): (#): Video Poker only to clear WR

"Acropolis" : $100: (check T&C): (#): +$50 Monthly Sticky Bonus

"Europa" : $100: (check T&C): (#): +$100 Montly Sticky Bonus

"Casino del Rio" : $50: (check T&C): (#): +$50 Monthly Sticky Bonus

The following are also sticky bonuses but they are of a special kind, where after you withdraw your winnings the bonus remains in your account for you to continue playing (and possibly winning) with. Therefore with a bit of luck, you can make a lot of money with these stickies.

"Casino Fortune" : $200: (check T&C): (#)

"GoldGate Casino" : $200: (check T&C): (#)

"Mapau Casino" : $200: (check T&C): (#)

"Miami Beach Casino" : $100: (check T&C): (#)

These next few bonuses could also come under the 'Good Bonus,' or 'Semi Stickies' categories, but they require a bigger bankroll so I've decided to put them down here for when you have a bigger bankroll.

"Nine Casino" : $300: ($12000): (#): Bonus added AFTER WR completed

"Bet Direct" : 100GBP: (5000GBP): (#): Bonus added AFTER WR completed

"Club On the Park" : 100GBP: (4000GBP): (#): Bonus added AFTER WR completed

The following is another group of Video Poker Bonuses, however the software of these has no autoplay function, therefore they must be cleared manually. Remember again from the last lot of Vid Poker Bonuses, that they are very high variance, and it will also take longer to clear the WR than blackjack because the playing of the hands will take longer. You may want to play them like Semi stickies to increase your hourly rate. You can find the strategy charts for Video Poker at the Wizard of Odds website. As always, remember to check the bonus Terms and Conditions before doing the bonus.

"Sterling House Online Casino" : $100: (Check T&C): (#24)

"Grand Banks Casino" : $275: (Check T&C): (#)

"Black Widow Casino" : $200: (Check T&C): (#)

"Casino Onliner" : Unlimited: (Check T&C): (#)

"Monacco Gold" : $200: ($12000): (#)

The next few bonuses are those that are still +EV but the WR are so atronomically high that they are almost not worth it, however they would be great for an all out gamble.

"Cowboy Casino" : $200: ($30000): (#): Requires large deposit of $1000

"Casino Room" : $100: ($14000): (#)

Other Bonuses

The following group are from the same Casino Group as Golden Palace Casino which was in the 'Solid Bonus' category. This Casino group claims that you can only get one the bonus at one of their casino and that was true for me, but some people mentioned on the Blackjack Info forums that they were able to get the bonus for multiple casino's in the group. So hey, theres no harm in trying, If they won't give you the bonus just withdraw your deposit again.

"Online casino" : $300: (check T&C): (#)

"Grand Online Casino" : $200: (check T&C): (#)

"Flamingo Club" : $200: (check T&C): (#)

"24Kt Gold Casino" : $200: (check T&C): (#)

"Aspinalls" : $200: (check T&C): (#)

"Triple Win" : $200: (check T&C): (#)

"Topcard Casino" : $200: (check T&C): (#)

"SixShooter Casino" : $200: (check T&C): (#)

"StarOnline Casino" : $200: (check T&C): (#)

"Grand Riviera Casino" : $200: (check T&C): (#)

"Online Vegas Casino" : $200: (check T&C): (#)

"Merlin's Magic Casino" : $200: (check T&C): (#)

"Go Casino" : $200: (check T&C): (#)

Bonus Swindling Guide: Summary

2006-11-05T17:40:00.000-08:00

This is just a short summary of The Bonus Swindling Guide, which can be found here. I suggest that you read the full guide before attempting any bonus swindling, but use this summary as a refresher. Also look to the bottom where I have listed many profitable bonuses for you to do.

In order to attract new customers to their sites, many online casino's offer cash bonuses often in the form of sign up and monthly bonuses. The casino's specify a WR (wagering requirement) which must be met before the bonuses and winnings can be withdrawn. The casino's beleive that these WR will result in them still making a profit from people playing with the bonus. However we can get around this by playing low risk games such as roulette, baccarat and blackjack and only giving up a small part of the bonuses to the House Edge. The casino's realise this and most don't allow you to play roulette and baccarat, but many still allow blackjack because its one of the most popular casino games, and only has a small house edge if you play the correct strategy. By playing blackjack to complete the WR we only give up a small amount (equal to the house edge * WR), and the rest is profit.

Hopefully that refreshes your memory, however if you are still hazy, go back to the guide and re-read through.

The following bonuses are my personal pick of the most profitable, and lowest risk bonuses, which I call 'Solid Bonuses.' The EV for these bonus is around the $1100 mark, and if you feel that you only want to dip your toes into the world of Bonus Swindling, these are the group of bonuses to do. I also recommend you do them in the following order, as they are listed from least risky to most. As mentioned in the guide, you can start with as little as $100, but I recommend starting with between 300 and 500 (or more of course if you have it).

Here is the key for the list: "Online Casino" : Bonus: (WR): (# to refer to in Casino Bonuses Played to see how I went with that bonus): Notes

"Starluck" : $100: ($1600): (#4)

"Planetluck" : $100: ($1600): (#5)

"Private Casino" : 75Euro: (1500Euro): (#18)

"Will Hill" : $80: ($2000): (#6) + Monthly $40 Bonus

"Intercasino" : $100: ($2500): (#7) + Monthly $100 Bonus

"VIP Casino" : $100: ($2500): (#17)

"Littlewoods" : 50GBP: (1250GBP): (#8) + Monthly 25GBP Bonus

"UK Betting" : 25GBP: (500GBP): (#13) + Monthly 25GBP Bonus

"Bet 365" : $200: ($4000): (#1)

"Golden Palace" : $300: ($8000): (#3)

"Ladbrokes" : 50GBP: (200GBP): (#): Minimum bets of 5GBP

I strongly recommend you look at the # next to each bonus and refer to that number in my Casino Bonuses Played thread to see how I went with that particular bonus. What I think I did right, did wrong, what do avoid, what to look out for etc. it should be a valuable resource.

Things to remember:

1) Always bet the mimimum (while starting out anyway)
2) ALWAYS check the terms and conditions before downloading the software, and depositing. Even the ones above may have changed since I last looked.
3) NEVER NEVER increase your bets to chase losses, keep to the same bet, if you go on a losing streak, thats just bad luck, you'll win it back next time
4) Always deposit for the maximum bonus, this shouldn't be a problem if you stick to the bonuses above in that order and start out with the appropriate bankroll, but will become more relevant as you move on to bigger and better bonuses
5) Always stick to Basic Strategy, remember the relevant guides can be found at blackjack info here.
6) Keep accurate records, both of how much of the WR you have completed of a particular bonus (i prefer pen and paper for this), but also of your entire Bonus Swindling career, I use excel, which allows me to do graphs and calculations to show my progress
7) It will be a grind for the most part, but it's great money. Do things to entertain yourself, I like listening to music while I do bonuses
8) Enjoy your money!

Bonus Swindling Guide

2006-10-25T05:34:00.000-07:00

The following is a guide on how to take advantage of the bonuses that online casino's offer in such a way that it becomes profitable. I have personally made over US$2500 by using this simple strategy. You can check out a bonus by bonus account in this thread. You should read through this entire guide, then if you need a refresher simply check out my summary page. I've been doing Bonus Swindling to build my poker bankroll and eventually to form a live blackjack bankroll, but you can use it just for some extra cash.

First things First, you'll need a method of getting your money into the casino's. You can use credit cards or a bank transfer (if you don't live in the US), but the best method is to set up a Neteller account, which you can do here. Neteller allows you to make deposits and withdrawals easily and instantly with online casino's and poker rooms. You fund your Neteller account through a transfer from your bank. Beware that it cost me an extra 10% to transfer from my bank account to Neteller because I live in Australia, although this may have changed now.

There are over 2000 online casino's, and in order to attract new customers to THEIR sites rather their competitors', some casino's offer cash bonuses often in the form of a deposit bonus, e.g. '100% bonus up to $100 on your first deposit.' Obviously these casino's won't allow you to simply withdraw the bonus and walk away... that would be too easy. Hence, in order to withdraw the bonus and any winnings you must first satisfy the 'Wagering Requirement' specified in that casino's terms and conditions, e.g. 'you must wager 25 x the bonus before withdrawing it and any winnings.' The online casino's specifity a wagering requirement which they believe will lead to them still having a profit from your play. However if you play low risk games, then you are only expected to lose a small amount of the bonus and be left with a considerable profit. Most casino's don't allow you to play the lowest risk games such as roulette or baccarat, but do allow you to play blackjack, which, when you use the correct strategy, only has a house edge of approximatly 0.5%.

So lets explain this again with an example. Intercasino offer a monthly bonus of 100% up to $100 on your first deposit for the month. The wagering requirement for his bonus is 25 x bonus= $2500. This is what you do to make a profit from this:

Step 1: Check the casino website to make sure they still offer the bonus and check the promotion terms and conditions to make sure that blackjack is still allowed and to determine the wagering requirement. You MUST ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS make sure you check the terms and conditions.

Step2: Download the casino software to your computer and sign up for a real money account. This is easy, beware that some casino's require you to enter your phone number and they will call you to ensure security with your account, mobile numbers are fine for this.

Step 3: Get the bonus code from the Intercasino website (it changes each month) and enter it into the space provided in the 'deposit tab' of the cashier section of the Intercasino software on your computer. Not all casino's have bonus codes, it will tell you in the terms and conditions if you need one.

Step 4: Make a deposit of US$100 into your Intercasino account from your Neteller account. You should always deposit for the maximum bonus as you don't want to miss out on any EV (expected value).

Step 5: Go back into the gaming section of the software and check that your balance now reads $200 ($100 bonus + $100 deposit). This may take a minute to appear, or you can just press refresh.

Step 6: Go to a blackjack table with the lowest allowable limits and check what the blackjack rules are. Now go to Blackjack Info and find the relevant basic strategy tables for that particular set of rules (or as close as you can get) from the basic strategy engine tab. Basic strategy is a set of rules that state the course of action resulting in the best value over the long run for every possible blackjack decision, it has been derrived by computers doing a simulation of billions of hands and it differs from game to game depending on the particular rules. When you play by the basic strategy sheet the house edge is reduced to only around 0.5%.

Step 6: Now that you have your basic strategy sheet you're able to start playing, sit down at the lowest limit blackjack table you can find and make the smallest bets you can hand after hand, without changing your bet and following the basic strategy sheet. You need to make enough bets to meet the wagering requirement. If your making $1 bets, thats 2500/1= 2500 bets, which could take a while, but hey your making money, and you can easily listen to music or something while you do it.

You'll need a method to keep track of your bets so you know how many you've done and how many you still have to do to complete the wagering requirement. I prefer to use the old pen and paper and keep tally. Other people use little clickers or more complicated software, but the pen and paper works just fine.

Step 7: Once you've completed the wagering requirement, you are free to cash the money left in your account, your deposit + profit.

Now lets talk about that profit. I will hence forth discuss profit in terms of Expected Value or EV. To calculate your expected value (EV) you simply subtract the amount your expected to lose while clearing the WR (due to the house edge), from the bonus amount. The following equation gives you the EV of a bonus:

EV= B – (WR*HE)

Where: EV= Expected Value
B= Bonus
WR= Wagering requirement
HE= House Edge (as a decimal, ie. .5%= 0.005)

Using the Intercasino example:

EV= 100- (2500*0.005)= 100- 12.5= $87.50

Now keep in mind that this is your expected value not definate value. Over the course of clearing a WR you will experience many random streaks of wins and losses that you can’t control, this means that although you know your EV, you actual value (AV) will almost definitely be different for each independent trial, but as you increase the number of trials and approach the long run, your average AV per bonus will get closer and closer to your average EV.

Think about it this way, if you flip an unbiased coin you know that its 50/50 that it will be heads or tails. If you were to make a bet of $1 a flip with someone where heads= you win a dollar, and tails= you lose a dollar, you would expect that you would break even, that is your EV= 0. If you flip the coin twice, your EV would be 1 head and 1 tail, and hence break even, but it could easily be 2 heads or two tails. If you do 10, throws, then 100, then 1000, the number of heads and tails will get closer and closer to 50/50 as you increase the number of independent throws/flips.

The variation around the EV and the random streaks of wins and losses, of random lengths are known as variance, and theres nothing you can do to stop it, its just part of the package. However, there are steps you can take to minimise the amount of variance you experience, and that is lowering your bets for clearing the WR. The smaller the bets you make the more bets it will take to clear the WR and hence the closer to the long run and your EV you will be.

Think of it this way, you could deposit $2400 into Intercasino and receive the $100 bonus giving you a total of $2500, then make just one bet to clear the WR of 2500, however this would lead to a VERY HIGH amount of variance in your results, and you would need a huge bankroll to withstand that variance without going broke.

To determine the amount to bet you need to consider, the size of your total bankroll, how much risk your willing to take, and your desired hourly rate. The more bets you make (ie. Smaller bets) the less risk you take, the smaller bankroll you require, but the smaller your earnings per hour will be.

I would recommend starting off doing the safest bonuses (Solid Bonuses), and making the smallest bets possible, in order to get used to the bonus swindling method and everything discussed above, as well as safely building your bankroll for the bigger bonuses further down the track. Starting off small also allows you to start with a small bankroll, even as low as $100 (although around 300-500 would be ideal, I started with 460).

Things to remember:

1) Always bet the mimimum (while starting out anyway)
2) ALWAYS check the terms and conditions before downloading the software, and depositing. Even the ones above may have changed since I last looked.
3) NEVER NEVER increase your bets to chase losses, keep to the same bet, if you go on a losing streak, thats just bad luck, you'll win it back next time
4) Always deposit for the maximum bonus, this shouldn't be a problem if you stick to the bonuses above in that order and start out with the appropriate bankroll, but will become more relevant as you move on to bigger and better bonuses
5) Always stick to Basic Strategy, remember the relevant guides can be found at blackjack info here.
6) Keep accurate records, both of how much of the WR you have completed of a particular bonus (i prefer pen and paper for this), but also of your entire Bonus Swindling career, I use excel, which allows me to do graphs and calculations to show my progress
7) It will be a grind for the most part, but it's great money. Do things to entertain yourself, I like listening to music while I do bonuses
8) Enjoy your money!

Well, that’s everything you should need to start off your Bonus Swindling career, however if you have any questions don’t hesitate to leave a comment below and I’ll help you out as best I can. This guide is very long, so I’ve created a summary along with the list of bonuses, which you can find here.

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I'M BACK!!!

2006-10-24T19:49:00.000-07:00

Did you miss me? Hopefully so, but unlikely due to the extremely low readership this blog has... if any. But anyway, the reason why I haven't been posting my weekly reports for like the last four weeks is because I've decided to expand on my line of thinking that says that short term results don't matter... its the long term that really matters. Since I only play like 300- 1000 at most hands in a week, each week would be considered only very short term results, so I've decided to only make my reports monthly to try and iron out some of the variation that we see from week to week. Also in an attempt to make the blog content more interesting than just boring weekly reports, I will try and make at least one post a week, and they won't involve statistics... all that much. Hope that makes sense.

A lot has happened since my last post, so heres a quick update. I know I promised to post a graph of my poker results once I got back in the black, but recently when I opened Poker Patterns it said that it had expired, and I haven't got around to determining exactly what that means, perhaps I havet to 'buy' something now before I get it back, or download the new version, I'll have to see. I've also started playing short handed limit earlier than planned, I originally said that I'd start playing 1/2 short handed once I moved up to 2/4 rull ring games, but one day when there were no 1/2 full ring games available I started playing 50c/$1 short handed and found that not only did I do REALLY WELL but I enjoyed it too. Just to give you an example of what I mean by REALLY WELL, heres a rough breakdown of my poker stats to date: $1/$2 full ring games: + $234 (over the period that I have kept this blog), 50c/$1 Short handed games: + $154 (over the past week). I have been running absolutely insanely well, so well that I even got into the mind set that I couldn't lose playing this game. Out of about 15 session over the past week I had had only 2 losing ones, one I lost $10 the other 15c, and I had had multiple winning sessions over $50. However this mindset was rudely awoken last night when I lost $30 playing in that game... nothing was going right... I lost with QQ, KK, and AA and was being beaten by slightly higher kickers. In conclusion I think I could say that I was obviously running extremly well before, and couldn't expect to keep it up for a long period of time, however I do feel that I play the game very well (i play a very aggressive style, and try to play position hyper aggressively), and that I have an opportunity to make a lot of money at short handed.

On the poker tournament frond its been pretty terrible. Somehow I've lost all skills that I previously possessed when I first started playing online poker back in march (long before the time of this blog), or perhaps I was just very lucky then... who knows. The point it I've entered about ten Multi Table Tournaments (MTT's) in the past 2 weeks and placed in none of them. I was playing $10+$1 but now I've reverted to $5+ 50c until I can show some results, then I might move back up in stakes.

In terms of casino bonuses, I haven't been travelling all that crash hot. I recently launched myself into the semi stickies and I've now done almost all of the doable ones (theres some that i've leaving for when I have a bigger bankroll, and others wouldn't allow my to play or had become unprofitable) and I'm only up by like $200- which was a bit disapointing. The plan now is to do the stickies, then come back and hit the last few semi stickies then finish off the video poker bonuses of earlier. I will then probably do the most profitable looking slots bonuses, like the no deposit bonuses... but I'll leave the rest as they are too high variance for me... and probably time would be better spent on poker.

If you remember back to my goal for the year, I had a very ambitious goal of $8000 bankroll by the end of this year. I have know all along that this was unlikely and only set it so that I'd have something to work towards which might make me push myself a bit harder. Every time I look at possible forecast of my play, a realise that I probably won't get anywhere near it. Infact, I think I'll be struggling to get to $6000, let alone $8000. 5K I think I can manage, and if I don't make it there I WILL be disappointed. I have also been really looking forward to playing at the casino live for $4/$8, but for that I need a bankroll... which was going to come out of the 8K... which I probably won't get to. I've decided that the least I'd settle for is 7K, so then I'd take out 3K for my live bankroll ($4000 Australian), and have 4K left online... enough to be conservative playing $3/$6 which is also my aim by the end of the year.

In other news, I have over 1200 bucks in my bank account from my "real job" as well as bday money and tax back from last year. My parents still don't suspect a thing about my online gaming pursuits, they just think I play a lot for play money, but I think my brother suspects something. I'm also feeling somewhat bad and guilty as I had a big conversation will mum the other day about how Real Estate Agents are so untruthful (we are trying to sell our house at the moment), and mum went on to say how she hates liars... hmmm well you could say that I'm not lying, but just not telling the whole truth... couldn't you. Don't know, I will eventually tell them, just not sure when, and not really sure about their reactions.

Week 11 & 12 Report

2006-09-25T04:09:00.000-07:00

Stats:

Poker Play: +$24.50
Poker Bonuses: +$95
Casino Bonuses: -$39

Total: +$80.50

As I mentioned in my last post, I forgot to do a report at teh end of week 11, so i'm including it in this week's report.

Its been a pretty good two weeks where I've continued make more money at 1/2 limit. I'm now up by a total of $130, which is a pretty big turn around from a couple of months ago when I was down by $220. I still have $270 to win to reach my target though, in order to move up the stakes to 2/4. I've also started playing some NL tournaments again. I played a bunch of $5+50c sit'n go's and 1 multi table tournament. I have yet to find my form again though. For some reason Poker Tracker doesn't/ wasn't keeping track of by tournament play, so I don't actually have the exact stats available. Here are my poker stats anyway:

Poker:

No Limit:
MTT: -$11
SNG: -$28
1 x 1st : +$17
1 x 3rd: +$4.50
9 x 4th-9th: -$49.50

Limit:
Poker Stars: +$35.50
Will Hill: +$28

Poker Bonuses:
Will Hill: +$95

I played at Will Hill for a while to clear the poker bonus there that was double this month, 10 pounds for every table hour up to 50 pounds... sweet. However earlier I dropped $39 at the Will Hill monthly bonus. Somehow I managed to jump my bets from 2/ hand to 5/ hand without realising, which compounded the loss, I detailed it in the casino bonuses thread. For some reason I haven't played many casino bonuses in ages, but I've going to have to get onto them this week becasue i've only got five more days to do the Intercasino, Littlewoods and UK betting monthly's.

Casino Bonuses:

Will Hill: -$39

I've been working one day a week for a while now, making around 150- 160 a week, and since I'm on holidays i'm working three days this week, including a whopping 9 hour day today. So I'm going to have over a grand in the bank at the end of the holidays which means I'll definately be financially capable of living how I want and not having to scrounge money from mum and dad when I want to go out or to get a bus ticket or something. It also means that theres no pressure on my poker play/ casino bonus business in order to get funds... so I can take it easy. However I'd still like to make my 8000 by the end of the year, my short term goal at the moment is to make it to 2/4 stakes, but that could take a little time. My even shorter term goal is to do this months monthly's then start hitting the semi stickies... finally. Hopefull then I'll see my bankroll increase in leaps and bounds.

Between the semi stickies, stickies, and monthlies, I should be able to put on another 1200 to get my bankroll up to 4000. Then if I make it to 3/6 stakes I would've had to have won about 1270, so my bankroll will be up to 5270.... then its just a matter of making up the last 1730 through play at 3/6 and further bonus swindling. All in all its a pretty ambitious goal, as I mentioned in the beggining, but even if I don't make it, at least it will provide me motivation to work at building my bankroll.

Video Poker Bonuses- The Final Punch

2006-09-22T20:35:00.000-07:00

In a cruel twist of fate... not even a week after I'd finished with the Fortune Group of Video Poker Bonuses and booked a loss of 200 bucks, I received an email telling me that the Fortune Group of casino's are lowering the WR on all of their bonuses. The WR were pretty much all 20 x deposit and bonus, now they've been reduced to only 20 x bonus. If this had been enforce while I was doing the bonuses, it could have made many of the bonuses profitable... BUGGER!!!

In other news, for some reason I forgot to do the weekly report at the end of week 11, so I'm just doing to do a joint report at the end of this week (week 12). I'm also working at getting my affiliate program up and running... more on that soon.

Week 10 Report (Back in Black)

2006-09-07T07:18:00.000-07:00

Stats:

Poker Play: +$163

Total: +$163

Its not the end of the week yet, however, I'm going on a four day bushwalk so I won't be playing any more poker or casino bonuses anyway.

All I've played this week is poker, and I've had a really good week at it. I seemed to be hitting every hand I played, and won some nice pots. It was a combination of getting good cards and playing well. It also led to me being back in the black... i.e. back in the positive overall which is wicked. I'm now up by $38 at 1/2 limit stakes. I'll be sure to post a graph as promised when I get back from my bushwalking trip. In order to move up in stakes, I just need to win another $362 and I'm there.

With this poker win and hopefully some profit from the monthly crypto's and maybe casino euro/ and cherry casino monthly's, my bankroll will hopefully get up to the $2800 mark which will be good for hitting the semi stickies.

The Uni Holidays are looming up again soon, so I'll be able to play a lot more poker and bonuses and also make some blog improvements and set up my affiliate program.

My job that I've been doing once a week for a day is also going great. I'm making 19.50 an hour, so about 150-160 a week, which is enough to keep me happy. It also means I won't need to transfer some poker winnings back to my bank account as soon as I had previously planned. Still got my eyes on the 8000 bankroll by the end of the year.

We'll see how i go.

Week 9 Report

2006-09-04T01:19:00.000-07:00

Stats:

Poker Play: +$16
Casino Bonuses: -$94

Total: -$78

I played about 500 odd hands for the week at poker. I only made 16 bucks, which I was a bit dissapointed with because i was up by 80 at one point but then lost it all in one session on sunday, oh well, thats poker!

Read more about how my casino bonuses went this week by looking in the thread, the curse of the casino bonuses.

Casino Bonsues:

Seven Sultans Casino: +$42
Desert Dollar Casino: -$60
Vegas Towers Casino: -$50
Pltinum Play Casino: +$33
Begas Palms Casino: -$8.75
Fortune Room Casino: -$50

Total: -$93.75

So now obviously I'm not up to where I wanted to be to start the semi sticky bonuses (aournd 3000-35000), but It won't be too much of a problem, my bankroll it still big enoguh. I'm going to do the monthly crypto's for september and try to get my balance back up to 2800 odd before tackling the semi stickies.

I'm also got a new set of goals worked out. I no longer need to take out a thousand when i get to 5 grand, becuase I've got a job one day a week, making 150 a day, so i'm surviving from that. my gals no are:

win 400 at 1/2 poker stakes and more up to 2/4.
win 1000 at 2/4 stakes and have a total bankroll of at least 4000 and move up to 3/6 stakes
make 8000 total by the end of the year, so i can withdraw 3000 to by bank account, which will be 4000 AUS, and use that to play 4/8 at the casino, and keep the other 5g in my online account and continue to move up stakes from there

You may notice that i've included a time goal. Something I haven't done before. eight grand by the end of the year. It is a very ambitious and optimistic goal, but will hopefully give me some good motivation, and if I don't make it it won't be the end of the world.

The Curse of the Video Poker Bonuses

2006-09-04T01:02:00.001-07:00

I played only Video Poker bonuses this week as far as bonus swindling goes. My hope was to bring my bankroll from around 2750 to 3500, or at least $3000, before I went on to hit the semi stickies. But I came up a little short.

All the video poker bonuses I played were of similar casino's that use microgaming software. The bonuses were mostly 100% on first deposit up to $50-$100 with some other more creative bonuses thrown in there. The WR were pretty much all 20 x bonus and deposit, of which 20% could be cleared at blackjack and the other 80% had to be cleared at some video poker games. The bonusbug forum guides suggested that Aces and Faces was the best allowable game for the clearing the bonuses. The good thing was that the microgaming software has autoplay so I didn't have to play any of the blackjack or vid poker myself, just set the number of hands to play and press start. The guide warned me to expect swings, and it was right.

I'm not sure of the exact casino edge for Aces and Faces on these bonuses because it wasn't listed in the guides or at wizard of odds.com. The thing with video poker is that most of the money is tied up in the bigger hands like straight and royal flushes. In the long run, you will hit enough of these hands, but in the short run you can expect some pretty big swings. The odds of hitting the royal, which would have payed out at $4000 if i'd hit it, were about 40 000 to 1.

I made a little bit of money on some of the bonuses, but lost on most and ultimately came out down about $300 for all video poker bonuses this week and last. I was betting 25c a spin and 5 coins a spin, so $1.25 per spin. I did this because there was a bonus amount for hitting the royal if you were playing maximum coins. Upon reflection, I probably should have played only one coin at 25c to get less fluctuations and hence make a better profit.

There are some more vid poker bonuses to hit up, but i'm gonna wait will i'm better bankrolled to it them. I'll detail all the bonus win/losses in the weekly report.

Week 8 Report

2006-08-27T09:28:00.000-07:00

Stats:

Poker Play: -$34
Poker bonus: +$43
BJ Bonus: +$63
Video Poker Bonus: -$196

Total: -$124

Its late so I'm just going to make this a short report. I didn't play a lot of poker this week as I had a lot of uni work to do. I just played the for about 3 hours on saturday morning to clear the monthly poker bonus at Will Hill. I played about 300 hands and finished down 34 on poker play, but up 43 from the poker bonus, so a small profit.

The only BJ bonus I played this week was the Will Hill monthly, and I finished with a profit of 63 bucks. I also took the first steps into playing video poker bonuses this weekend. I didn't start too well however. I played two bonuses, and lost my bonus and deposits at both:

Royal Vegas: -$100
Sterling House: -$96

Total loss: -$196

I've got a number of video poker bonuses to hit up this week, so hopefully I'll do better with those.

Week 7 Report

2006-08-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

Stats:

Poker Play: -$85
Casino Bonuses: +$155*

Total: +$60*

*Edit 28/8: casino bonus profit turned out to be less than reported above due to lower exchange rate applied to cashout than deposit.

It's late so I'll try and keep this post short. I had a pretty terrible poker week this week. I played on three days in the week and was a considerable loser on two and a small winner on the other one. I'm glad that I was able to get so many hands in this week, about 1100, largely due to the fact that I've been playing two tables at once but helped by the fact that I played a lot of hours also.

I racked up a loss of about $75 on wednesday, added a further $45 loss on saturday, to be in the hole by $120. Sunday morning I won $20, then I had a nice run Sunday arvo, and brought the total loss for the week down to only about $50, however I ran into 3 big hands in a row and dropped most of my profits unfortunately. Oh well, swings are all part of poker. Poker patterns shows my at losing 3.8 BB/100 for the week.

Casino Bonuses:

Intercasino Monthly: +$79
Littlewoods Monthly: +$4.50
UK Betting Monthly: +$83

Total: $166.50

I had a pretty good week with the montly crypto's, I'll detail my play better in the casino bonuses thread when I finally get round to updating it. I've just got the Will Hill montly casino and poker bonus to play, then a new bonus I just learnt about which is pretty juicy... then finally It'll be time to hit the video poker bonuses which will make a nice change.

Week 6 Report (and week 5)

2006-08-13T06:58:00.000-07:00

Stats:

Poker Play: +$72
Casino Bonuses: +$38

Total: +$110

I've got a headache so I'll only make this a short report. I ran pretty well this week with poker. I played about 630 hands total for the week, which included 3hrs on wednesday and 4hrs on Saturday. I won about 10 bucks on wednesday and the rest on Saturday. I played two tables simultaneously on Sat like a used to which seems like a good step in the right direction. I went really well and I was actually up over all at one point on saturday, but I fell back down a bit near the end of the day. Poker patterns shows me running at 5.8 BB/100 which is great. I'm only down by about $30 over all now, so the zero line is near.

Pretty slow week in terms of casino bonuses. Just finished off the players only bonus, for a profit of $38. Also started the Intercasino monthly bonus for August. Check out this graph below showing my casino bonus winnings over total hours played, Enjoy!

SUNDAY AUG 6 2006
Week 5 Report

Stats:

Poker Play: +$30

Casino Bonuses: +$130

Total: +$160

This week started off really well for poker, I was digging myself out of my hole well and it looked like it was going to be a good week. Then came saturday morning... I exploded into poker and was hitting heaps of hands... by about lunch I was up 70 bucks for the day, and 120 for the week. In hope of continuing my good form I played saturday afternoon and experienced one of the worst losing streaks i've ever experienced. I detailed the carnage in my previous post, all in all I finished the day even. I then proceeded to lose another 20 bucks today, and finished up 30 for the week. Although I'm happy that I was able to finish with a profit which was cool. Looking at my pokerpatterns graphs for the week, I made 1.6 BB/ 100- so thats something to be happy with. My casino bonuses week was much more solid. I played only one bonus, private casino and finished up with a profit of 130 bucks. I also started another sportbet.com bonus. I compiled a graph of my casino bonus winnings per hour which I promised to post here but I don't know how to post graphs so I'll dot it another time. I was pretty pleased to find that I'm running at an average of $36 per hour over a period of about 60 hours play. I've also now played over 15000 hands of blackjack for bonuses. In other news, I'm thinking of starting a bit of an affiliate bonus on the side with this blog. I'll look into it soon.

Bonus Swindling

2006-08-06T07:06:00.000-07:00

Bonus Swinding, also known as: Bonus Whoring, Bonus Hustling and Bonus Hunting

I've had many people ask me how on earth I can MAKE money from online casinos, so I decided to write it all down. You can navigate through the guides and lists from this page as a sort of base page, and feel free to check out the rest of the blog through the links in the sidebar. The relatively low risk money to be made is good for building up a poker bankroll, which is what I'm doing.

Bonus Swindling Guide

Bonus Swindling Guide: Summary

Casino Bonus List

Casino Bonuses I've Played

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Summary

2006-08-05T08:43:00.000-07:00

I just thought that I'd post a summary of how my day of poker went. I played around 5-6 hours of poker, got through about 300 hands, and finished up with a result of.... even. Thats right, my high point of the day was up by over $90 and I managed to finish up back EVEN!!! the first half of the day went really well, and the 2nd half went really badly. To be fair, I think I played pretty well, but just got unlucky. Obviously there are some holes in my game which I will work at fixing up.

The kind variance I experienced today is just what I'm gonna have to expect if I'm gonna be playing a lot of poker, so I better get used to it. As I said in my previouse post, the effects are compounded because I so badly want to get out of the hole I'm in and actually rack up some kind of profit. Now I need to win anouth $80 to get back to even, instead of under $10 which is where I would have been had I mainted my highest point for the day, oh well... that poker. According to pokerpatterns/poker tracker I'm at around 3BB/100 for the week, so thats something I should be happy about.

I'd like to play a fair amount tomorrow too, however I do have some uni stuff to attend to so I'll see how I go and write up the weekly report tomorrow night.

Welcome to Variance

2006-08-04T23:57:00.000-07:00

Variance kicks my ass! I've experienced variance playing casino bonuses, I worked it out last night, I've played over 15000 hands of blackjack to unlock bonuses. You would think that I would have gotten the hand of it and been able to handle the swings rigth? Its not the case; I'm now experiencing variance in poker and it still kicks my ass. However, I think that I am becoming more resilient.

Let me explain the situation, I've been finding that when I play somedays, and I get ahead I am compelled to stop playing in order to "protect" the money I have won, which of course is rubbish but I still do it. That is I'm sort of scared of the variance that I know to expect. Anyway, I decided that I'd put in a solid day today, win or lose, just try and get the hours in. I've played about 350-400 hands thus far and experienced some pretty heavy swings. I think it was compounded, because I so badly want to get myself out of this hole that I'm in and I came so close to doing it. I was up to the point where I was down by only about 8 bucks. I had won about 50 bucks in like 20 mins/ half an hour. Then I got cained and lost 40 bucks in no time, some big hands including losing trip kings to a rivered gutshot straight, and losing trip 2's to a rivered straight, (although he may have been getting odds) but still bad for me.

I took a break for fear of going on tilt, played dad in some table tennis... kicked his ass 9 games to 1, and now I'm back at it. Sitting at around down 40 bucks over all. Tomorrow I'll have the weekly report, if I manage to get back in the black by then I'll post a pokerpatterns graph, if not I won't. I'll definately post a graph of my casino bonus winnings so far which a made up last night, till then, toodaloo.

Week 4 Report

2006-07-30T05:29:00.000-07:00

Stats:

Poker Play: +$38.75
Casino Bonuses: +$169

Total: +$207.75

Finally I'm starting to see a turn around in my poker play. I'm starting to get the preflop strategy cemented in my head, although I still keep the hands table next to me so I can refer to it if need be. My game has really taken the first leap towards becoming a true winning player. I got down below 200 in my poker stars account but finished strongly at 270 at the end of the day. I managed to win $38.75 over the course of the week, where I played between 800-1000 hands total.

The casino bonuses went well for me this week too. I only played one bonus over the course of the week and that was VIP casino, but I did very well, finising up by $169. I also just started on the Private Casino bonus today (100% up to 75 Euro's), it shouldn't take me long to finish that. Then I'm gonna to Euro bet, finish of the sportsbook.com group (3 casino's) then do a bunch of cashable video poker bonuses. Then the fun really starts as I move on to the semi- stickies. I'm hoping my bankroll will be up over 3 grand before I hit the semi stickies, ideally I'd like it at around 3500.

This blog probably seems to be somewhat boring for someone reading it. As at the moment its only weekly reports. I often think at points throughout the week that I could go do a post about something, like a big hand in poker or a bad beat or something, but I am usually to lazy to get started. Its the getting started thats the hard part, once I get started its easy. Although I do have another excuse, I've been doing another blog project called 'The Greatest Blog Experiment.' Its like a blog directory where I do 'blog of the month,' and 'blog of the week.' Its beggining to grow quite big, I've now got around 85 blogs linked to me, and fast approaching 700 hits, so that cool.

I still stick by my 'Goals' that I stated in an earlier post, although I've added in some more parameters.

I'll more up in poker stakes from 1/2 to 2/4 when my total bankroll is at least $3000, AND I'm up at least $400 from poker play.
In order to start playing semi-sticky casino bonuses, my bankroll must be at least $3000.
When my bankroll reaches $5000 I will withdraw $1000 ( AU$1300) back to my actual bank account.
Before I move up in stakes from 2/4 to 3/6 I need to make at least $1000 at 2/4 AND my bankroll must be at least $4000

In other news, I've got myself a job, I'm gonna do one day a week at my dads office, just crappy filing and stuff, but hey... its money. Hopefully by the X-mas holidays or first break next year, I'll be making enough from poker that I won't need to work in a 'Real Job.'

Week 3 Report

2006-07-23T07:43:00.000-07:00

Stats:

Casino Bonuses: +$49
Poker Play: -$95.50

Total: -$46.50

Unfortunately this is my first losing week, however, I didn't play a lot of either poker or casino bonuses at all this week. However I did finished my poker strategy essay on monday/ tuesday, so I was able to get back into actual poker play, but only played about 400 hands for the week.

So far I've just been trying to get the pre-flop strategy in my head while also trying out various strategies that I could remember off the top of my head. I intend to go throught the strategy bit by bit until I'm playing by all of it, then double back and work on different problem areas, so of course the preflop stuff is first. I'm also trying to get into the habbit of counting the pot in bets (SB and BB) instead of money, and actually counting the bets, not just looking at the pot summary that the program gives you. So I guess that my bad poker play run this week could be accredited to the fact that I'm just starting out with this new strategy.

The worst thing at the moment is that I don't know whether I'm just another losing player, or I'm a winning player who's just having a run of bad luck, and I don't know how much I would have to lose before I decided that it wasn't bad luck but bad play. Luckily my bankroll is over 2000 big bets so I've got a bit of room to move. I've decided that I'm just going to work on my game until I get better, never give up.

In terms of my goals for moving up in stakes, I've decided to alter them somewhat because it looks likely that my casino bonus playing will bring me to 3 grand much quicker than poker play, hence in order to move up to 2/4 I need a 3 grand bankroll, AND I want to have won at least double my lowest point at 1/2 stakes. Therefore I need to win about $400 at poker in order to move up the stakes.

I've also scaled back my effort with regards to poker bonuses. I've taken all my funds out of Titan Poker because I was unable to find games with 30% of people to the flop consistently, also its not poker tracker compatible, so I can't analyse my play. I am now playing at poker stars, where I'll probabally remain until I'm sure I'm a winning player.

Poker Play:

Titan Poker: -$26.75
Poker Stars: -$68.75

I only finished off the Casino Euro bonus this week, as it took quite a while. I ended up finishing with a profit of $64 which wasn't too bad. I'm now doing the sign up bonus at VIP casino which has just increased to 50% up to $100, $2500 WR. I've got about 6 more good cashable BJ bonuses still to do, then about 8 cashable video poker bonuses, and then its on to the semi-stickies. Hopefull I go well, because it looks like I'll be relying on casino bonuses to replenish my bankroll while I work on my poker play.

I'm also back at uni next week. This is good and bad for my poker play. It means that i'll be doing work and will be out and won't have as much time for poker, however the time that I do have, I'll probably have the computer to myself as my bro will be back at school. I'll also be looking forward to it more as a break from study.

Week 2 Report

2006-07-16T08:22:00.000-07:00

Stats:

Casino Bonuses: +$149.45
Poker Bonuses: +$42
Poker Play: -$87.75
Expenses: -$55

This week WAS better than last week in terms of money, however not much better, and it wasn't down to better poker play (or increased poker winnings). I started the week off well at the poker tables quickly getting up 20 odd dollars at Will Hill while clearing the last of the monthly poker bonus. However I proceeded to go on a nasty down turn, and once I had unlocked all the bonus I was down $61 on poker play. Titan poker didn't go much better, and I ended up down $26.75, and managed to unlock a very small portion of the bonus, $5.

The above poker play happened over monday, tuesday and wednesday morning, then I didn't play any more poker for the rest of the week. This was due to the fact that I was, and am currently, reviewing my poker strategies, by writing a strategy essay on the content of Small Stakes Hold'em. I have decided not to play any more poker until I have gone through the entire book and I have digested and understood the content, I am currently about 1/3 of the way through.

Poker Summary:
Bonuses:

Titan Poker: +$5
Will Hill: +$37

Play:

Will Hill: -$61
Titan Poker: -$26.75

Poker Expenses:

Poker Tracker: -$55

In other poker news, I FINALLY got my Neteller Account ceritified after sending heaps of emails and spending about half an hour on hold sorting it out with customer support. I bought poker tracker and I downloaded pokerpatterns which is a poker tracker compatible program for graphing. Poker Tracker is very cool, however I don't really have enough hands recorded to make any analysis meaningful, but I did have fun playing around with my stats etc. and looking at the graphs. Unfortunately though Poker Tracker doesn't support Titan poker, which is where I'll be playing for the majority of the coming weeks to unlock the sign up bonus. I haven't worked it all out yet and how to analyse opponents etc, but I will look more closely into once I get back into poker after finishing my essay. I've but the cost of poker tracker ($55) as a poker expense, because I paid for it out of my Neteller account, so I no longer have the money, and it is poker related, so it fits that it should come out of my bankroll.

Since I was wasn't playing much poker, I had more time to spend doing casino bonuses, and you can check out the write ups in my Casino Bonuses Played thread (link in sidebar).

Casino Bonus Summary:

UK Betting: -$30.20
Cherry Casino: +$104
Sportingbet USA: +$75.65

Therefore my overall result for the week was a profit of $48.70. Still not all that great, but better than last week. I am glad that I'm still moving forewards, rather than back. Currently I'm aiming for the $3000 bankroll goal in order to move up stakes from 1/2 to 2/4. I've also got some casino bonus plans brewing, but I'll post about them another time.

Poker Strategy

2006-07-11T22:41:00.000-07:00

I have been somewhat reluctant to post anything about the poker strategy that I follow, incase someone reads this then somehow makes the connection when playing against me, which leads to my ultimate downfall. However, I have decided that players at lower stakes likely wouldn't go to that much trouble to discover their opponents strategies, and even if they did, they wouldn't know my player nickname or the sites I play at.

Anyway, the strategies I've been playing thus far are not secret, and are well known to all. I have been playing the 'Grinder' strategy, where you, as Matt Damon's character says in Rounders: "get your money in when you have the best of it, and protect it whent you dont. Don't give anything away." Neteller has yet to cerifty my account, so I STILL haven't got my hands on the full version of poker tracker in order to analyse my play. Hence I don't really know if I'm actually a winning player yet. I haven't played anywhere near enough hands to be statistically significant, so the flucutations that I'm experiencing now don't really mean anything. It has come to my attention, however, that I'm possibly not a winning player, or that I'm only marginally +EV or a break even player.

What I've decided to do is move away from my Grinder strategy and addopt the play style taught and recommended in 'Small Stakes Hold'em,' by Miller, Sklansky and Malmuth. I bought it last year and have already read through it twice a couple of months back, before I started the blog. The material is very specific to small stakes holdem, which is obviously what I play, and takes advantage of mistakes made by other players, typical at lower stakes. The book has 350 plus pages and is very dense in information, so I had no hope of absorbing all the content the first couple of times I read it. Basically it recommends are more looser preflop strategy than I've been playing, and emphasises more on good post flop play than pre-flop, as that is where others make the most mistakes.

In order to help my digest and remember all the information I'm going to write an essay on the book, for my personal use only. I will post back in the future with my progress in following the strategies in the book.

On the bonus front, I haven't started the week very well at all. Almost all of the good sign up bonuses I have already done, and those left have large WR which leads to more fluctuations and me pulling my hair out. I am getting better at keeping track of funds and moving money around etc which is good. Soon I'll be tackling the video poker bonuses, then follows the Semi-stickies (I'll explain later) and Stickies. The semi stickies and stickies have more risk involved but also give the opportunity for me to make big scores, to the tune of 400-800 bucks profit, so I'm looking forward to them too.

Well I'd better get started on that essay then, toodaloo.

Goals

2006-07-10T18:23:00.000-07:00

I have formulated some 'goals' that I am going to aim for, so I thought I'd better post them here. First of all, they're not really time goals, like: 'I want to win two grand by the end of July,' they're more like check points which, when reached, will trigger something to change.

1. When my bankroll reaches $3000 I will move up in poker stakes from 1/2 to 2/4- this is very conservative in terms of bankroll, as I've read that 500, and even 300 big bets is all thats required in a bankroll. Three grand is 750 big bets.

2. When my bankroll reaches $4000 I will move up in poker stakes from 2/4 to 3/6- again this is farely conservative bankroll wise.

3. When my bankroll reaches $5000 I will withdraw $1000 from my Neteller account, but not before.

Obviously these check point goals aren't set in stone, as I may have to move back down in stakes if I find I'm getting killed at 3/6, but the third goal I'd like to try and stick to.

Casino Bonuses Played

2006-07-09T23:41:00.000-07:00

Rather than reporting my casino bonus results in my day to day posts, I've decided to keep a running tally of them here. I'll update this post every time I do another casino bonus, and I have also linked to this post in the side bar.

The first few bonuses here are from before I started keeping this blog, and they detail how I built my original bankroll. If you want to do any of these bonuses for yourself, remember to check the current terms and conditions, as they often change. If you are unfamiliar with the process of bonus swindling, check out my strategy guide, Bonus Swindling

#1. Deposited $200 at Bet365 for their 100% sign up bonus up to $200, with a WR of $4000. I started off betting $1/ hand then got ahead a bit so I upped it to 5/hand, and went on a large losing streak. I proceeded to up my bets to $100/hand to chase my losses- which you should NEVER NEVER do, however on this occasion I got lucky and ended up with a $350 profit.

Result: +$350

#2. Deposited $100 at Casino Elegance for what I THOUGHT was a cashable bonus of 100% up to $100, but it turned out to be sticky. Moral of this story- READ THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS CAREFULLY. I finished the WR about even, but then, realising that I had no profit upped my bets to 100 and lost it all pretty quickly.

Result: -$100

#3. Reading the posts at Blackjackinfo lead me to believe that the bonus at Golden Palace was a sticky bonus. I read and re-read the t & c's but it still appeared to be cashable to me, however since I had already made that mistake previously with Casino Elegance, I decided to play it as a sticky bonus. I deposited $100 for the 300% bonus up to $300, which gave me $400 on the table to start. I aggresively bet $100 per hand and ran my balance up to $900 before settling back to grind out the WR. It was as around this point that I read on in the thread at Blackjackinfo and discovered that the Golden Palace bonus WAS now a cashable bonus (it had previously been sticky). This was GREAT news, I finished the WR up some more and cashed out of this one with a proft of $840.50.

Result: +$840.5

#4. Deposited $100 at Starluck for the 100% sign up bonus up to $100. I ran well on this one betting the minimum $1/hand and finishing up above EV.

Result: +$125

#5. Deposited $100 at Planetluck (sister casino to Starluck) for exactly the same sign up bonus as Starluck. I absolutely killed this bonus, starting off betting $1/hand at the beggining then upping it to $5/hand at the end when I was well ahead.

Result: +$224

#6. Deposited $80 at at Will Hill for the 100% sign up bonus. I did really well here and withdrew with a profit of 180 bucks. Will Hill also offer a $40 monthly bonus and another $40 monthly poker bonus- I will hit these later.

Result: +$180

#7. Intercasino offer a great sign up bonus of 100% up to $100, but they also offer this same bonus EVER month. The WR isn't bad at 25x bonus ($2500), and is generally easy money. I decided to bet $5/hand so it would clear quicker and because I could handle the variance better now as my bankroll was bigger. I went on a losing streak and lost the bonus and deposit.

Result: -$100

#8. Littlewoods offer a 25 pound sign up bonus as well as a recurring 25 pound bonus every month, so thats 50 pounds for the first month. I absolutely murdered this bonus, finishing well up after betting 2 pounds/ hand. Littlewoods also has a reacurring monthly poker bonus which i'll hit up later.

Result: +$295

This is the point where I started keeping this blog. In actual fact, the next two bonuses I was already doing before I officially started the blog, but as I hadn't finished them yet, I decided to count them as entirely in the blog documented period.

#9. Deposited $100 at Aceclub for the 100% sign up bonus. The bonus for Aceclub is rather high ($6000), considering the value of the bonus, so I was ready to expect more variance. This was lucky because I proceeded to go on a bad losing streak and lost the bonus and the deposit, betting $5/hand.

Result: -$100

#10. Window's Casino was an utterly terrible experience for me, read more about it here. In summary; I deposited $150 for what I thought was a cashable bonus with low WR and good blackjack rules, however it turned out that the WR was MASSIVE (10500) and the rules were terrible (dealer hits soft 17). But since I had already deposited I decided to play anyway, and after being mostly up throughout the WR, I finished it at my all time low, got stroppy, upped my bets, and lots it all. I repeat: NEVER NEVER NEVER RAISE YOUR BETS TO CHASE LOSSES.

Result: -$150

#11. As its now a new month, I doubled back and did the Intercasino monthly bonus, $100 match. After a couple of bad bonuses I needed a winner and, thankfully, Intercasino delivered this time and I finished well up.

Result: +$189

#12. Doubled back for Will Hill monthly bonus, $40 match. I finished the WR at -$17 and decided to cash out at that point, not raise my bets to retrieve losses, which I'm happy I was able to avoid. Looking back, I was quite stupid with this one, as with Will Hill you wager through the bonus first, so once i'd lost back to my original $40 deposit I could have simply cashed out even, oh well, I'll remember that for next time.

Result: -$17

#13. Deposited $188 over at UK Betting for their monthly bonus of 100% up to 25 pounds. The reason I deposited so much more than the value of the bonus was that its a bonus thats added AFTER you have wagered through the wagering requirement. Its another crypto bonus like Intercasino, Will Hill, and Littlewoods so I had to wait for a pin code to cash out. The WR for this one was 500 pounds, which I completed in one session, betting 2 pounds/ hand, and finished down 36 pounds, so once the bonus was added my result was -11 pounds (about -$20.20).

Result: -$30.20

#14. Cherry Casino was a HUGE head ache for me, but it turned out alright in the end. I deposited $222 for the 50% sign up bonus up to $111, which had a WR of 13 x bonus and deposit= $4329, a pretty big WR as it is, but I decided to bet 5/ hand thinking I'd finish it in about 4 sessions. I proceeded to go on a terrible loosing streak, I just couldn't seam to buy any luck... by the time I'd wagered though $4500 I was down to $195, so I'd lost the bonus and about $30 of my deposit as well. However my low point was around $160, so I was glad that I'd recovered somewhat and has happy to cash out only down 30. I went to the cashier and my balance available to withdraw was much less than my total balane. I was about to send an email in my rage, then I checked my bonus WR level and saw that the unthinkable had happened. Between the time that I looked at the Terms and Conditions for this bonus and the time that I'd actually deposited (about two weeks) they'de changed the WR to 20 x deposit and bonus = $6660. I was faced with a predicament, I was already down but 30 bucks and I still had $2000 of WR to fulfill, which could lead me to being down further. In the end I decided that I'd continue to play but play it like a semi-sticky, that is I would bet higher amounts and try and run my balance back up then grind out the rest of the WR. I did this, and after some nervous moments managered to run my total back up to $333 (orginal deposit plus bonus). I then dropped back to betting 2/hand and ground out the remaining WR, finally finishing with a good profit.

Result: +$104

#15. Deposited $50 at Sportingbet USA for the $30 sign up bonus (10% of deposit plus $25 free). This bonus is pretty borderline in terms of hourly winrate, but hey its free money. I bet $1/ hand for this one which took a little while because the software is very slow. The WR is only 20 x bonus so that wasn't too bad. This bonus is a little bit different to the others, because you must deposit into your account and they will give you the 10% of sign up bonus, then wager through 10 bucks and they will credit your account with another $25 within 24 hours. This bonus is also good because it is released into you withdrawable balance bit by bit as you go through the WR not in one lump sum and the end. I ran pretty well with this one finishing up with a nice profit.

Result: +$75.65

#16. Deposited Casino Euro for 50% up to 111 Euro, this is the same as Cherry Casino, these two are in the same group. However the WR for Casino Euro was only 3330 Euro. This one looked like it was going to be a white wash, as I lost every session and was right down to my original deposit, but I had a nice little run at the tail end of the WR and finished up by 49 Euro's. However there was some trickery at work. When I deposited the 222 Euro, US$288 was taken from my Neteller account, applying the same exchange rate to my withdrawal (as most casino's do) my cashout amount should have been US$69, but I only received US$49 back in my Neteller account. I sent an angry email to support explaining all this, and they said that they must follow the exchange rate as it changes and that the apparent loss of $15 was from the change in exchange rate from time of deposit to time of withdrawal. I am no expert in finance, but that change in ex rate seems a little high. They gave me the website that tells them the ex. rate but I haven't got around to checking it yet. All in all I was somewhat peeved, and felt like I was cheated out of $15. In other words, if I'd waited until the ex. rate went back to what it was when I deposited and then withdrew, I would have got the correct amount.

Result: +$49

For those of you playing at home, I would caution you to be careful when tackling the bonuses at Casino Euro and Cherry Casino, and had problems with both. And, despite coming out with a profit from both, I only had 1 winning session out of the 10 I played at the two casino's. Don't avoid them, they are still good bonuses, just be warned.

#17. I had a much better experience at VIP casino which is another crypto. I deposited $200 to take full advantage of the 50% bonus up to $100. For some reason the software was really slow the first couple of sessions, but after that it improved to its normal speedy self- I think it was a connection problem from my end. I ran really very well with this one betting $2/hand, and finishing up $169. However I feel like I lost a bit because I was up by $250 at one point, but $169 is still pretty awsome.

Result: +$169

#18. Deposite 75 Euro's (US$97.55) at Private Casino for 100% deposit bonus up to 75 Euro's. This is a great casino and bonus, fast software and quick cashouts. The WR is only 20x deposit which leads to a good expected value. I went well with this one finishing above EV for a profit of 110 Euro (US$134). Private Casino is definately going on my top 10 list.

Result: +$134

#19. Deposited $50 at Players Only Sportsbook and Casino for a 50% bonus up to $25 plus $5 free money. This is in the same group as Sportingbet USA which I did earlier, its a small bonus, but hey... its still money. The WR is $600 and I finished up above EV with a profit of $38.

Result: +$38

#20. Its another month, so back to Intercasino for the $100 monthly bonus. Finished a little below EV for this one, but still a tidy profit.

Result: +$79

#21. Littlewoods monthly was next, another 25 Pound bonus added after finishing WR. I finished up by 4.5 pounds for this one but due to a changing exchange rate my net result was even, oh well.

Result: $0

#22. UK Betting monthly- same as littlewoods, 25 pounds added after completing WR. Finished up above EV at +43 pounds but similar to Littlewoods got hit by the exchange rate and had a smaller profit than expected, but hey thats still good.

Result: +$71

#23. Ran well with the Will Hill Monthly too, finishing with a good profit.

Result: +$63

#24. Finally time to hit the video poker bonuses. I started off with Sterling House Online Casino, and deposited 50 Pounds ($96) for the 100% sign up bonus. The WR was large and video poker has a higher house edge and variance than blackjack, so the strategy was to try and double up first at BJ, then drop back and grind out the WR at Vid Poker Aces and Faces. However I lost the bonus and deposit while trying to double up. Not such a good start.

Result: -$96

The next group of Vid Poker bonuses are all part of the same group and offer similar bonuses. The good thing is that they use software that has an autoplay feature so you don't actually have to play the hands urself... you just set the number of hands to play and the software will play automatically applying expert strategy. The aslo allow 20% of the WR to be cleared at BJ, then the rest must be cleared at certain Video Poker games, with the best allowable game being Aces and Faces.

#25. Fortune Room Online Casino: 100% up to $50, WR= 20x (d&b)

Result: -$50

#26. Royal Vegas: 100% up to $100, WR= 20x (d&b)

Result: -$100

#27. 7 Sultans Online Casino: 100% up to $85 plus $15 free, WR= $3775

Result: +$42

#28. Desert Dollar Casino: 150% up to $90 plus $10 free, WR= $3250

Result: -$60

#29. Vegas Towers Casino: This one was unique, a 100% STICKY up to $50 with NO WR. Since this was a sticky I decided to aim for an aggressive target of $300. WR allowable games were anything so this wasn't actually a Vid Poker bonus but BJ bonus. I lost my bonus and deposit trying to hit aggressive target.

Result: -$50

#30. Platinum Play Casino: 100% up to 100 pounds, WR= 20x (d&b)

Result: +$26.50

#31. Vegas Palms Online Casino had a unique bonus where you deposit $100 and then get unlimited free money to play with in a mini casino but only on slots. Then you could claim the amount you made over the top of the original free money balance. I claimed the maximum of $200 then had a WR= 20x (d&b)

Result: -$8.75

Net Result for all Vid Poker Bonuses above: -$300

#32. Its a new month so hit back at Will Hill for the monthly bonus. I had a pretty bad run here, and to make matters worse, I accidently changed my bets from 2 bucks to 5 bucks at one point which really compounded my losses. I orginally deposited $200 and was all the way down to $88 when I got frustrated and did the unthinkable of betting it all... luckily I won and ended up finishing the WR at down only $39.

Result: -$39

#33. Hit back at Intercasino for the monthly bonus again. I decided to play it a bit differently this month to make it less of a grind. The plan was to play it like a semi sticky, that is make big bets of $25 a hand and run my total up to something like $400 then drop back to smaller $5 bets to clear the rest of the WR. Unfortunately, I busted out in the first stage of $2 bets, oh well, thats the way the cookie crumbles.

Result: -$100

#34. Deposited $100 at Sports Interation casino for a 125% sign up bonus up to $125. I played this one like a semi sticky, betting $50 a hand to reach a target of $375, however busted out before reaching it.

Result: -$100

#35. Deposited $50 at Sands of the Caribbean for a 100% sign up bonus up to $50. Again, played this one as a semi sticky, $50 bets towards a target of $200. Busted out after only 4 hands, :(

Result: -$50

#36. Deposited $30 at Pharaohs Casino for a 100% bonus up to $30. Played as semi sticky, busted out making bets of $30 towards a target of $120.

Result: -$30

#37. Deposited 50 Pounds at Ladbrokes for a 100% up to 50 GBP sign up bonus. This is a great bonus as teh WR is low, only 200 GBP, however 5GBP is the minimum bet that can be made. I ran well with this bonus finishing up.

Result:

#38. Deposited $100 at Omni Casino for 100% sign up bonus up to $100. The WR for this one was high ($5000) so I needed to play it like a semi sticky. I started off with $50 bets and ran my total up to $400, then dropped back to $10 bets to grind out the rest of the WR, however my balance dropped back to $195, so I played $50 bets again and unfortunately busted out.

Result: -$100

#39. Deposited $200 for a 100% sign up bonus up to $200 at casino on net. The WR for this is $10 000, so needs to be played as semi sticky. I made $50 bets and hit my target of $625 very quickly which meant I had a lot of bets to make to grind out the rest of the WR. It took almost 2000 bets, but I finally finished with a good result.

Result: +$205

#40. This bonus was great, and very satisfying. Windows casino gave me a birthday bonus of $25 of free money with no deposit required and a WR of $1000. I made $5 bets and went on a hot streak, finishing the WR well up.

Result: +$140

#41. Doubled back to Littlewoods for the monthly bonus, depositing 80 GBP to complete the WR of 625 GBP and then have the bonus added afterwards. I finished this one even.

Result: $0

#42. I received an email from Casino Elegance offering me a 300% reload sticky up to $60. With a starting BR of $80 I managed to make it through 625 of the 900 WR betting $10 a hand, but then unfortunately busted out.

Result: -$20

#43. Oops, these two belong back between #32 and #33, but I guess I'll just have to put them here. Hit back at Intercasino and Will Hill for the September Monthly Bonus. Bet $5/ hand and finished down a bit for both.

Result: Int: -$18.50
Will: -$39.00

What a Massive Week!

2006-07-09T20:57:00.000-07:00

The first week of my attempt to derrive my income from only poker and bonuses has come to an end with an amazing profit of... +$18.76... Oh... Yehh.. Ok, so it wasn't that great, however I am glad the I managed to finish in the black, after a week of crazy ups and downs. Heres an overview of my stats:

Casino Bonuses: -$78.00
Poker Bonuses: +$89.26
Poker Play: +$7.50

First of all I should first review my goal for the week, which was to acheive 10 000 hands. I really don't know whether I reached my target, as I still haven't got Poker Tracker yet, but I doubt it. I started off the week playing Full Tilt Poker to unlock as much of the sign up bonus as possible before it expired on friday. Over the first two days of the week I managed to win $60 and unlock $40 of bonus to be up about $100. Then wednesday brought be a massive losing streak of $150, to fall back down to -$50 for the week. I think this was a result of some bad play, bad luck, and playing too many tables (I was multi-tabling at 3-4 tables most of the time). I then decided to drop back to only two tables and concentrated on playing well and making good decisions. This, combined with the fact that I was getting less hands per hour than I orginally thought (see previous post), as well as not as many hours put in led me to not getting as many hands in as I had originally planned. I continued playing thursday and friday and unlocked 40 more of the bonus, finishing up a total of 50 for Full Tilt, however down 30 for actual poker play.

Saturday I set up a Titan Poker account and deposit $500 for a $500 sign up bonus, and started to chip away at that. I finished up $8.75 for Titan Poker for the week, however only played a few hours, and none of the bonus unlocked yet. I also deposited $200 into Will Hill Poker for their great monthly bonus where the pay you 5 pounds for every hour you sit at the tables (not raked hands). I unlocked 1 hour of this ($9.26) and finished up 28 bucks 74 from poker play.

Poker Summary:
Bonuses:

Full Tilt: +$80
Will Hill: +$9.26

Play:
Full Tilt: -$30
Will Hill: +$28.74
Titan Poker: +$8.75

My week was all over the place (generally bad) for casino bonuses. First of all I had to finish the WR for Ace club and Windows casino's sign up bonuses which I'd started previous to the beggining of this blog. I busted out of Ace club pretty quickly, betting $5 a hand- it was a run of really bad luck. My experience at Windows casino was much worse, a combination of bad luck and my stupidity, mainly my stupidity. The WR was massive ($10500, but still +EV) so I'd decided to bet $10/ hand which is already pushing it. I had some pretty good runs throughout clearing the WR, twice making it up to $500 but then dropping back down to the original $300 ($150 deposit + $150 sign-up bonus), but my lowest point had only been about 250. Finally as i was reaching the end of the WR I hit a bad run and ended up clearing it at $210, a profit of $60. I was pissed off that I'd up so high ($500) twice and my losing streak and brought me to my all time low as the WR was finished, below my EV ($100). However I still had a profit, so I decided to play one more hand then cash out. I played one more hand and won it to be at a total of +$220, but then I thought that I was only $30 away from my EV point, so I thought I'd play one more and try and get a bit closer... you know the rest. I proceeded to lose that bet, then a string more till I found myself at $160 (+$10 overall). I thought what the hell and bet $100 which I lost to a dealer blackjack, then bet the remaining 60 which I also lost. So in a matter of minutes I went from a perfectly safe +$70 to -$150, and a waste of time. This is an examply of what not to do with casino bonuses- absolutely terrible- NEVER NEVER NEVER up your bets to chase losses. NEVER keep playing after the WR is cleared (except for cover in certain situations). I beat myself up about this occasion for the following two days, so hopefully I've learned my lesson for next time.

I went much better with the Intercasino monthly bonuses and finished up $189. I didn't do so well with the monthly Will Hill casino bonus and finished the WR at -$17, so in summary my casino bonus results for the week were as follows:

Ace Club: -$100
Windows Casino: -$150
Intercasino: +$189
Will Hill Casino: -$17

I probably won't report my Casino Bonus happenings as I have above in my normal posts, except in passing comment. I'm going to post a running account of all my bonuses from start to finish, and put a permanent link to it in the side bar. I will use the posts for mainly poker play results and poker bonus results. Poker bonus results will always be easy, as you can't lose a poker bonus, only unlock it slowly- so there won't be much to report. I'm almost done certifying my Neteller account so I can pay for Poker Tracker, I'll hopefully get this done in the next couple of days, so I'll be able to analyse my play and the play of others which I'm very excited about. It will also allow my to create some graphs, which I'll start to post up here when I can enough hands down.

I've also been thinking of some more goals which I was going to post here, but I've run out of time, so I'll post them another time. Also look out in the sider bar as I've added some links and something that shows my current bankroll- I'll update this as I go along. I hope this coming week as more fruitful than the last, however it is all a learning experience so i'm not particularly upset with this weeks results. I'll post again soon.

Day 1 Report

2006-07-09T20:54:00.000-07:00

Starting Bankroll: $2187
Results:
-$100 : Lost Ace Club sign up bonus and deposit
+$22 : Playing 1/2 Limit Holdem at Full Tilt Poker
End Bankroll: $2109

I decided to play only Full Tilt this week, as I still have $120 of my sign up bonus left, and its only valid for another 4 days, so I want to unlock as much of that as possible. I think I was a little bit optimistic about the number of hands I could crunch an hour. The tables I were playing at were averaging between 50 and 70 hands per hour, with an average of 30-50% of players to the flop. I still stand by my goal of 10 000 hands for the week, I'll just have to put more hours into achieving it than I originally thought. I think I will aim to play at tables with at least 30% of players to the flop.

I started off the day well, winning some biggish hands early, but then altimately got too loose and was chasing too much and took a nasty down turn to being under by about $40. I then had to dig my heals in and focus and I ground it out and ended up finishing strongly with some big hands at the end: result: +11 BB. I played about 3 1/2 hours mostly with 3 tables open, but up to 4 for a little while, then down to 2 near then end. I probably played about 630 hands, which would give me a winrate of 1.75 BB/100 hands. However its still very early days yet and these statistics mean NOTHING in the short run.

I also played some more of the WR for the Ace Club deposit bonus, but ended up losing it all (I was already down to 80 from 200 from previous play). I also chipped away some more of the massive WR for Windows Casino deposit bonus, and I should complete that tomorrow.

Finally I downloaded poker tracker for the trial, however I intend to buy it anyway, but I'm having some trouble with my hand histories... they seem to have not been recorded, so i'll have to work that out. I'll have to spend some time over the next few days learning how to use the software, but it should be very helpful to keep track of my stats.

I won't be doing a report every day for this blog, but of course I had to for the first day.

The Story So Far...

2006-07-09T20:50:00.000-07:00

In my entire life (i'm 19 now) i've never had a job for more than five weeks. The jobs i've had were short term and have been few and far between: swimming teacher, tree planter, personal seller and office assistant. I've never been all that fond of authority, nor of doing things the same as everyone else. I have always looked at "alternative" ways of making money, and online poker and bonus swindling has given me the perfect opportunity to do that.

One of my mates is always telling me to get a job, or get a real job, so that is the inspiration for the naming of this blog. The possibility that I could earn an income this way is very appealing. The "pay" is potentially very good, in Australia gambling winnings are untaxable, I can work when I want and take breaks and holidays when I want, I don't have to "travel" to work, and I'm doing something unique and different- which I always strive to do.

About 3 months ago I deposited US$220 into a Neteller account (online bank account) to try my hand at online poker. I didn't do too badly, and was up to about $750 after about two months of playing about 5-10 hours a week. My biggest accomplishment was winning a $10 buy-in tournament of 150 ppl- I got about $270, plus I won a satellite tournament and got some other MTT finishes in the money. Overall, I made most of my profit at MTT's, I broke about even at SNG's and I consistently lost money at cash games. Almost all of my play was at No Limit Texas Hold'em, with some at Limit Hold'em. I think the major flaw in my game was my tendency to get emotional in the game, when I lost a big hand or pot I would often throw things against the wall- and I ended up putting some holes in the wall and door, and breaking a bunch of stuff. It was one such incident, about a month ago, when I'd had a bad day and I lost yet another buy-in at a low limit cash game, and I went on "extended tilt" and deposited $200 of my bankroll into a $1/$2 NL cash game and went all-in on a hand when I was pretty sure i was beaten- it was out of shear frustration from my tilt. I lost the 200 then took all my money back to Neteller so I wouldn't play anymore.

I took a week off, then decided to see if I could do some bonus swindling which I'd heard and read could be quite profitable. To cut a long story short, my bonus swindling has been successful and I built my online bankroll from $480 (where it was after poker) to about $2000 in about 3 weeks of playing about 2 hours each day.

I have just finished my mid-year uni exams, and now have three weeks off. I have decided to return to poker, as well as spending much more time doing bonus swindling to try and earn a lavish income. I'm going to continue to play casino bonuses as long as i can, then move onto poker bonuses after that. On the poker front, I want to start out as 1/2 limit holdem grinder, and move up the stakes as I get better.

To this day, I haven't told my parents or any of my family (there's 5 of them) of my online poker or bonus exploits- I always tell them I'm just playing play money (which I did used to do for poker). My mum is VERY anti gambling and thinks that if I even gamble once I'm going to become addicted- shes very paranoid. Dad is allllll business and see's gambling as a waste of time and money- when I tried to explain to him that card counting in blackjack can be profitable for the player he said that theres no way that it would work, or that it would be a waste of time etc etc. I know the only way that he will understand is if I put it in "his" words, ie. show him business style reports etc. and graphs and tables that show my profits.

As well as simply being a record of my play, I intend this blog to serve two main purposes. One is a step by step record and explanation of my means and results which I can later use to explain to my parents where I've been getting my money from. The other is to act as a venting medium for poker so that I don't go on tilt or break things.

Tomorrow is the start of the Official record of my play. I think that one thing that could help me avoid tilt is to try and think of the money in terms of units and not the actual value. Hence my target for my first week of play, in terms of poker, is 10 000 hands (or more). Assuming about 100 hands per hour and multi tabling at 4 tables at a time, I think I should be able to reach that goal by playing about 5 hours a day. If I get board with poker I will do some bonus swindling to break up my play- I'm currently clearing the wagering requirement for cashable bonuses at Aceclub and Windows casino.

Wish Me Luck!