Zero To Hero: Build A Poker Bankroll From Nothing At Bet365

Isn’t it impossible to get a poker bankroll for free?

Not at all.

While it’s true that you do usually need to have a stake to sit down at a poker table, and that conventional poker strategy would have you keep many times that stake in reserve as a bankroll, you can start from nothing in a few ways:

• Freeroll tournaments: most online poker rooms offer freeroll tournaments. These allow you to play a tournament for free, but win real money doing so.
• No deposit offers: online poker rooms like Bet365 offer new players free poker cash that they can use without making a deposit.

Chris Ferguson: $0.00 to $10,000

The World Series of Poker champion and former co-owner of Full Tilt Poker once set out to prove that anyone can build a poker bankroll, regardless of how much they have.

He started with an account balance of $0.00 and began playing freerolls. Over the course of the next 18 months, he proceeded to turn that balance into $10,000.

Once he had made a few dollars playing the regular 2,700-player freerolls at Full Tilt, he adhered to a strict bankroll management strategy to build his way up through the games to make his five figures.

Boku87: $5 to $100,000 (in just 10 months!)

German mass-multi-tabler Thomas Boekhoff, better known as “Boku87”, once set out to turn $5 into $100,000 playing Sit & Go Tournaments.

He discovered the low stakes Sit & Go games to be very easy for him, and thought of taking on the challenge. He had previously turned $100 into $10,000 over 15 days; this challenge took a lot longer but 45,000 tournaments later he had reached his goal.

Annette Obrestad: from freerolls to £1,000,000

Annette Obrestad is known online as “Annette_15” because she was just 15 years old when she began playing poker. Naturally, she could not legally deposit to any online poker site.

That left her with just one choice: freeroll poker tournaments. She began playing those and eventually built her bankroll, becoming one of the most successful online poker tournament players of the mid-to-late 2010s.

Her career was cemented in poker history when, at 18, she became the youngest ever World Series of Poker bracelet-winner at the inaugural WSOP Europe Main Event in London in 2007, winning £1,000,000.

The Bet365 no deposit offer

Here’s what you get when you sign up at Bet365:

• Free €5 cash game ticket
• Free new player bonus of €100
• Free €5 in tournament tickets
• 10 free casino game spins
• New player Welcome Mission

Note that the new player bonus, tournament tickets and free spins are only unlocked upon making your first deposit or transfer.