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 Modern tendencies in the area of bonus hunting. By Arthur Prudent.

    Cracking down on bonus hunters is getting tougher! A wide range of devices and new fighting measures are taken:

    “Sticky” bonuses become more and more popular (a casino player cannot get the amount of a bonus), last year a new variety appeared – “phantom” bonuses – a variant of a sticky bonus, but the amount of a bonus while taking money is not left on the account, but is removed. At present most casinos with PlayTech, Microgaming, RTG softwares offer “sticky” bonuses.

Other casinos expand the list of games forbidden for bonus wagering. BlackJack or Video Poker are either forbidden or wager requirements increased by 2-4 times. Some popular on-line casinos introduce bonuses which can be wagered in Slots only.

    Wager requirements continue to grow. A year ago you could find on-line casinos offering decent bonuses with 10-20 times wager requirements. Nowadays 25-30 times are the summit of a hunter's ambition ( for Slots bonuses wager may be a bit lower).

But not everything is so bad. Casino bonus hunters have new interesting perspective in a related area – on-line Poker rooms. The Poker industry is growing now incredibly rapidly (the number of players and bets for the last year have grown by more than 5 times!). New Poker rooms are constantly appearing which try to attract new players offering bonuses, money for playing and free rolls, and large Poker sites keep up with young competitors.

    At present among Poker rooms are more popular interest bonuses on the first deposit – 20-25% bonus up to $100. Fixed bonuses exist (about $50) and in Poker rooms with Cryptologic software monthly bonuses for the time of playing are $5 per hour. The wager requirement is expressed by the number of played deals or the amount of bet money.

New Poker rooms need players strongly, nobody will come into an empty room, therefore they are ready to propose money to players not for sitting and playing (so-called proposition players or props – the player should play at the table appointed by casinos and he gets for that a bonus or some tens of dollars per hour).

    The third variant of earning money is tournaments with free entrance designed to attract new players and keep old ones. It can be a tournament on one table with a prize fund of $10 or it can be a tournament for $30000 with the first bonus of $6000 (at present the highest fund of free roll is $100000!

    A question arises: is it too risky to hunter in Poker. Will not you lose more? Will not rake swallow all profits? Here of course much depends on the level of the player. However, at low limits up to $1/$2 (it is no use to trying higher for a hunter and the bank does not allow to risk in this way) the level of the players is not too high, therefore anybody who will spend a couple of hours on studying the chance concept and basic principles of the game and print the table of the start hands, has good chance to become a plus player. Of course some negative losses are possible but in on-line casinos the situation is the same therefore Poker rooms is more kindly soil for the hunting. And while acquiring playing experience a bonus hunter may well transfer to the class of professional players and start earning tens and even hundreds of dollars per hour WITHOUT BONUSES.

    Therefore, hunting in on-line casinos is gradually declining and its place is going to take on-line Poker hunting. The king is died, long live to the king.

Arthur Prudent is the developer of www.bonus-map.com , web site covering gambling news, features reviews on Casinos, Poker rooms, bingos, Sports Betting bonuses promotions and more.

Modern tendencies in the area of bonus hunting.