There are certainly differences between face to face poker and online play. And if your poker game relies on the advantages that can only be found in a casino or home game setting, online play might not be for you. But, if you can hold your own at an internet card room, you'll find that now is a very good time to be playing poker online.

With the number of poker rooms growing almost daily, there is a lot of competition for players. And the number one weapon in that competition is money. Players can find the online poker rooms giving away free money in a variety of ways.

The first, and most obvious is in the No Deposit Bonus. This is free money that an online poker rooms give new players to use at their tables. The players do not need to make any deposits into an account to receive the bonus. It is a great way for players who want to test out the waters of internet poker to get their feet wet. You can spend time at the real money tables, on the house.

The second way to receive extra money from the poker rooms online is through a deposit bonus. These are commonly offered to both new players in the form of a welcome bonus, and to players that have played at the room before via reload bonuses. A percentage of a player's deposit is matched by the poker room with bonus money. As a player spends time at the poker tables, that bonus money is converted into cash that can be withdrawn.

The amount of bonus money you can collect, and how fast it turns into cash vary greatly from room to room. But, there is enough bonus money out there that you can spend every hand you play in a ring game working off a bonus.

With experienced players playing two, three or more tables at a time online, they can really clear bonuses quickly. This can add a nice amount of money to a player's bankroll, compliments of the online poker rooms.

While taking full advantage of poker room bonuses tends to require time spent at the ring game tables, there are other ways to take advantage of poker room kindness. Players can find tournaments that require no entry fees, but award real money prizes. These are known as freerolls.

Freerolls are tremendously popular now, and there are plenty of them online. Smaller freerolls may have prize pools of $50, while larger ones have $1,000,000 in prize money at stake. All without an entry fee.

Even with all of these chances to build or pad a poker bankroll by playing online, there's still more. Poker rooms often offer guaranteed prize pools for their tournaments. This means when the buy-ins from the players who register for the tournament do not add up to at least the guaranteed prize pool amount, the poker rooms will contribute the difference. Extra money that can be won, that comes courtesy of the house.

With all of this extra money floating around in the online poker scene, there's no better time to play poker online.