Bonus requirements...

Hi,

I have emailed 888 support re this issue.

From their reply if I, as a winning player on 888, make a deposit and thus get a bonus, I will have to wager the bonus funds in order to achieve their wagering requirement.

When making a wager on poker all bets will use my existing funds first prior to using any bonus funds "All bonuses in your account awarded prior to, on or after May 25th, will be used after any cash on your account that has no wagering requirements. ".

I said - "If I have any funds in my account prior to making that deposit then all wagers I subsequently make will be made from that balance and will not count towards the wagering requirements towards earning the bonus."

Their reply - "This is correct, Bonus will only be used when real funds are not on the account"

Therefore if my existing funds never get below zero I will never be able to achieve the bonus requirements.

I then said - "Thus if I am a winning player, never getting to use the bonus funds to place a wager as all my wagers are made from my cash balance, it will be impossible for me to earn the bonus."

Their reply - "As a winning player, this would benefit you as what ever winnings you have would be available for your withdrawal and not subject to wagering, which may result in losing those winnings."

So apparently not being able to earn a bonus is now somehow to my advantage???

I have in the past 3 - 4 years made a few (less than 10) deposits in order to get a bonus (which I have had to earn through playing). I will now refrain from ever making a further deposit on 888 as there is simply no point if I can never earn the bonus.

Originally posted by FVM8973
How about cashing out all my money, then exchange my gold tokens for bonus cash? As I have no more money that that bonus cash, will I be able to use it to clear all future hand of the day bonuses?

Read the rules carefully.
I'm pretty sure I read in there something about cashing out means you forfeit something -- but I can't remember what.

If you cash your gold tokens for a cash bonus, you will still be able to clear it even if you don't withdraw.
You will just use your real money balance to do it.
We presume that you will win during the course of cashing out your bonus.

In the next week or so I might try to do exactly what I suggest to see what happens.

Cheers,
VS

no such thing as free money

It seems 888poker is determined to make their site very unpopular with players by making them all feel cheated. First their terrible software which is almost unplayable if more than a few tables are open, and now the 'bonus, sorry but no bonus, scam'. It's almost like they are wanting to close their poker site down for good. Perhaps 888Poker is the victim of industrial espionage? Competitors from other pokers sites applied for management jobs at 888 with the intention of driving custom away? That, or the people running the network are the greediest retards imaginable. Why kill the goose that lays the golden egg? That is what 888poker seem to be doing.

In the next couple of weeks I will use Gold coins to buy a small bonus, then play it out and report the results on my https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=450673&goto=firstnew thread -- or perhaps start a new one.

Stay tuned.

Follow-up:
Here are the bonus T&C:
https://www.888poker.com/terms/shop-bonuses/
and
https://www.888poker.com/real-money-poker/deposit/bonus-policy/

Since the first link contains the paragraph:

Players have 7 days from when their Bonus is granted to use or wager their Instant Bonus before it expires.

I will purchase a $10 bonus on Wed June 10 to find out what happens.

I'll play NL 10 cash to clear the bonus, with the option to play PLO8 10 instead if I lose too much too fast playing NLHE

We will play this live on stream at http://www.twitch.tv/maugr1s
For at least part of each stream, and report the results there and in https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=450673&goto=firstnew br>

Let's see what happens...

Today morning I deposited $30 to 888 to spin the bonus wheel (or how they call it). I wish I had read this thread earlier
Thank God, I only get a 5% bonus, worth $1,5.
So instead of buying a $1 bonus for 130 gold tokens, is it way better to buy a $1 tournament ticket for 120?

UPDATE:
I played more than 800 hand on NL5 (without losing my entire BR ) and nothing happened with the wagering line.

Originally posted by LahtiPelican
UPDATE:
I played more than 800 hand on NL5 (without losing my entire BR ) and nothing happened with the wagering line.

I would love to see what it says in the information box.
(Click the little blue ? beside the wagering line.

Cheers,
VS

This text appears and a link to their Bonus Policy.
Another session done, and as you can see the line is still white. I also noticed that I started the session with 220 status points, and after more than 400 hands, I still got 220, which is also strange.

Very interesting indeed.
I will be doing my own bonus attempt starting Wednesday this week.

The 400 hands you played -- what level and what game(s)

If you use a tracker, can you check to see how much rake was paid?

I can't imagine that your status would not have increased at least a little.

Cheers,
VS

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Very interesting indeed.
I will be doing my own bonus attempt starting Wednesday this week.

The 400 hands you played -- what level and what game(s)

If you use a tracker, can you check to see how much rake was paid?

I can't imagine that your status would not have increased at least a little.

Cheers,
VS

At the moment I am playing on NL5 SH. I think I found the solution for the status point issue: with the challenge 'Play Poker' you can only collect 220 points. I used to love 888 Poker a few years ago, but I am getting more and more disappointed now...

Anyway, I am following your bonus attempt in your blog!

Hey GedyKnight! I got the same response as Fagin. Basically this means no more bonuses.

Today I've got a $5 casino freeplay, so I decided to play a round of roulette, to find out If I am losing my money or the freeplay.
Well, things didnt't happen as I planned.

So folks, that's how I became a winning roulette player

Then I made an interesting experiment: I sat to a NL200 table with my entire bankroll, so my available balance was exactly $0 .
Then tried to play roulette again, cause as you all see the bonus policy, if my availabe balance is zero, I can use my freeplay balance. But my only option was to deposit again, 888 did not let me to use my freeplay. So I think that's all, bonuses and freeplay are missleading on 888 from now on...

Interesting.
I purchased a $10 "Immediate Bonus" using Gold Tokens today.
I wrote about it in https://forums.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=3147551#post3147551
I'll update that thread each day.

Cheers,
VS

As I said some days ago, I cashed out all my money except $1. 888 Poker took some tickets but guess what... the bonuses are still there and they are in my balance, available to be used. I had like $60 in Hand of the Day bonuses, and started to clear the first one. Probably I won't be able to clear the second one as I am winning. So I am thinking of keep playing and cash out again some days before my bonuses expire. Then I will use my balance to get into tournaments or something.

However, I do not see the point for 888 Poker, if people cash out all the money and keep playing with bonus money.

Hi FVM8973,
if you read the two pages linked below you will find that you clear the bonus by playing and earning bonus points.

From the bonus policy
Unless stated otherwise in the applicable Promotion Terms: (i) immediate (non-pending) bonuses may only be withdrawn after a player has collected 2.5 Bonus Points for every $1 of the received bonus amount.

From the comp-points page
You can earn BPs by:
Playing in poker ring games -earn 2 BPs (if applicable) for every $1 of your contributed rake.*
Playing poker tournaments -earn 2 BPs (if applicable) for every $1 of tournament fee.

If you keep track of your contributed rake, you will be able to tell when your bonuses become available for withdrawal.

Best of luck :gl:,
VS

So, in summary, it means that I must cash out the entire Cash Balance and pray that the Bonus will remain. And play from Bonus Balance or from Gold Tokens. And, if I will win Cash, draw it out again, and again... ???
I'm not able to understand what is the point of this!
(I do NOT want to think that they want to clear the room before they close.)

Originally posted by GedyKnight
So, in summary, it means that I must cash out the entire Cash Balance and pray that the Bonus will remain. And play from Bonus Balance or from Gold Tokens. And, if I will win Cash, draw it out again, and again... ???
I'm not able to understand what is the point of this!
(I do NOT want to think that they want to clear the room before they close.)

NO NO NO
In fact, if you cash out, you forfeit your bonus.
In the post immediately above your there are two links to 888's official documentation on this.
READ THOSE LINKS

If you have a real money balance, you earn bonus points as you play.
When you have accumulated enough bonus points, your bonus balance becomes part of your cash balance.

The only way to achieve this is to play -- and from what I understand, it will take a fairly high volume.

I specifically asked 888 support how to tell how many bonus points I have received.
Unfortunately, I asked several questions in that email.
They answered all except that one.

<sigh>
VS

Hi Vorpal,

Thanks for your answer!

Cash out was my last idea, because:

Originally posted by FVM8973
... I cashed out all my money except $1. ... the bonuses are still there and they are in my balance, available to be used.

And from 888 policy:
If you make a withdrawal request, your Restricted Funds may be forfeit (...) and any related winnings ...

I'm not a pro player, without bonuses I have just very low profit so $200+ bonus is important for me. I wanted to collect a lot of Bonus Points, so I went from NL5 to NL10.
I made 3 levels = 10k Club points = $100 rake = 200 Bonus point = $80 bonus transferred to cash. (1st a $50, and some $1...$10 bonuses)
In theory. But in the real I got nothing.

And the Support answered:
"...to answer your first question, no you did not collect bonus points from bets placed using real money. Only when a bonus is used to place a bet will wagering be contributed to.
As for how you can transform the bonus; once you no longer have a cash balance, that is you withdraw your cash amount and play with the cash balance, you will then start using your bonus balance to place your bets."

BTW:
You quoted from the policy:
(i) immediate (non-pending) bonuses may only be withdrawn after a player has collected 2.5 Bonus Points for every $1 of the received bonus amount.
But the next sentence is:
For example, a player must accumulate 25 Bonus Points using Restricted Funds (...) before withdrawing a bonus totaling $10.

So if somebody was able to withdraw cash from bonus, please be kind and share the know-how!