Ultimate Bet online poker room is running a special from January 3rd to January 31st 2006. Instead of their normal 40% match bonus for new users, they're offering 100%. They have lots of interesting tournaments, including an upcoming $1 Million event that you can enter for as little as $3.30. If your first deposit is before January 8th, you also get a seat in their weekly freeroll where 5 players get a seat in the main $1 Million event.
Online gaming and big promises... and player risk! Ken, I continue to hear a lot of negative press about online gaming due to the number of sites that do not want to pay folks who actually win. Seems they tend to get greedy and eventually and go down the tubes when their reputation gets trashed bad enough. When that happens, lots of people get screwed. Not to mention, online gaming is still illegal in most, if not all, US states. Illegal for the player, but not necessarily for the website operators. Federal law may be even more strict? In other words, if they decide to not pay you, the player can't do anything about it. Even if the player had recourse, the majority of the sites I have seen are incorporated in shady countries where money talks, and integrity walks (out the door). The one you mention about the million dollar prize is based in Canada. How are they guaranteeing the top prize? Is there a bond posted that players could verify?
There are certainly no guarantees, but I've personally played at more than a hundred different online casinos. I've never once been stiffed, although I've had five or six occasions when it took a while to be paid. Most recently, I waited almost a month for a payment, but I knew when I chose to play at that particular casino that they were a little less trustworthy than my usual haunts online. That's actually the first slow-pay experience I've had since 2002. These days, most places pay in anywhere from a few hours to 3 or 4 days. If you stick to the big-name places online, with lots of players, I think they are extremely reliable. As for the million from Ultimate Bet, I have little doubt that this is certain to be paid out. This is one of the larger poker rooms, and they're making plenty of money. No-pay would kill their lucrative business very quickly.
It'd be nice if their point system to get your bonus was a little more generous. For most players (medium stakes), you're going to have to play at least 20 raked hands for every $1 of bonus money. Translated = $100 in bonus money = 2,000 raked hands. Pretty steep! Most are 10-1, and I've seen some prima rooms that are even 7-1.
