"Cover Play" Numbers things

[dibbs]

When I say coverplay I mean some amount of play between the time you deposit and redeposit in an obvious whoring fashion. Whether it be Empire, Bodog, Party, whatever.

What's a good number for this? A few hundred hands in one spot? A few hundred hands between a couple of days/different sessions? I imagine it's hard to know, but does anyone have any educated guesses about how much is a good number to avoid being flagged?

[mattw]

along with the OP's question, could any responders include answers for casino whoring?

[DavidC]

[ QUOTE ]
When I say coverplay I mean some amount of play between the time you deposit and redeposit in an obvious whoring fashion. Whether it be Empire, Bodog, Party, whatever.

What's a good number for this? A few hundred hands in one spot? A few hundred hands between a couple of days/different sessions? I imagine it's hard to know, but does anyone have any educated guesses about how much is a good number to avoid being flagged?

[/ QUOTE ]

Do poker sites label you as a bonus whore? I know casinos do, but I figure the poker sites make money on your whoring anyways so they don't care too much, it's just a drain on their margin rather than on their assets.

[parappa]

I have blatently whored at least 15 poker rooms and at least 30 casinos. While it has been previously believed that certain amounts of cover play would prevent you being labelled a whore or a bonus abuser, my opinion based on experience is that no one really knows which sites are going to take up bannings, suspend accounts, etc. and that most of the sites don't know themselves until the week before they do it. It tends to be an overreaction, and the pattern is usually that some bannings occur and that it is a one-off.

I would not spend a minute worrying about this topic. Yes, it might happen to you. If you do this for long enough it will; it's a cost of doing it. Perhaps some sites are a bit worse about asking for ID or something. But if you don't attempt to cheat the sites, but rather simply honestly take advantage of the promotions they offer and play there or not depending on whether you feel like it or not, you are relatively unlikely to have problems.

Never believe info that you see here or on the net. Read the site's T&Cs for yourself. If you are not violating them, you are unlikely to be banned. Also, if you don't know what you're doing, never be the first one into a new site. Figure out who on the sites you read are experienced and/or trustworthy and trust their research only as an anecdote of a good experience and as a pointer to a possible site.

In short, my opinion is that cover play is somewhat overrated. There is nothing naughty about taking advantage of promotions that sites offer, there is no guarantee they will continue to offer them, and other than becoming a steady (and therefore in the case of casinos, losing) customer there isn't that much you can do to prevent yourself from being possibly banned as a bonus chaser.

[BigDave]

In terms of casinos, the bannings that will happen most often will be pre-banning from playing X ammount of casinos in a specific group. There is really nothing you can do about this. You can try to space them out over time, but many times this is no good either. In these cases, they will not let you deposit, so there is no worry. I have only run into a few of these so far.

The only time I ran into real trouble was when I did the Fortune Lounge group too quickly. I believe I did 7 of them in about a week, and I was very blatant. Autoplay smallest coinsize to the exact WR and cashout. I kicked their ass on all of them cashing out at least the bonus, and often times more. My last withdrawl for Fortune Room was blocked, and my account was locked. It took me over two months and some outside help to get some of my money back. Basically they said I had a total of $1000 of deposits there, and that I had already cashed out $663, so they were willing to give me 337 of the 608 that was in my account as a "deposit refund".

I have done about 90 casinos now, most of them pretty blatantly stopping on or very near the WR. And this is the only problem I had other then the prebanning that happens to everyone, whether you cover play or not. If I could do it all over again, I would have spaced out the Fortune Lounge better and not done them so quickly (although there terms all pretty much suck now so i am glad I did them when I did). I would suggest the following if you are worried (again this might not even be enough from getting pre-banned):

1. Far and away, the best thing you can and should do is research, research, research. Read the casino forums at bonuswhores.com and see which casinos people are getting banned from and why. There are other very good casino forums out there as well, but the one at bonuswhores seems the most active. Use the search feature and find the casino you want to play at BEFORE you deposit to read trip reports. You will find out very quickly which casinos are banning people and why.

2. Do not have pending cashouts at more then one casino at the same group at the same time.

3. Space out your signups at casinos that are part of the same group or network.

You can just accept the fact that banning is inevitable, and happens to every good whore. But if you put in the time to do a little research and be a little careful, you may be able to delay your first one.

[mattw]

thanks for the replies and advise.

[PokerAmateur4]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
When I say coverplay I mean some amount of play between the time you deposit and redeposit in an obvious whoring fashion. Whether it be Empire, Bodog, Party, whatever.

What's a good number for this? A few hundred hands in one spot? A few hundred hands between a couple of days/different sessions? I imagine it's hard to know, but does anyone have any educated guesses about how much is a good number to avoid being flagged?

[/ QUOTE ]

Do poker sites label you as a bonus whore? I know casinos do, but I figure the poker sites make money on your whoring anyways so they don't care too much, it's just a drain on their margin rather than on their assets.

[/ QUOTE ] Bodog has a bottomless reload bonus, you are given $2 if you play in a tournament where the rake is $1. You are thus costing them money.

[Thoth]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
When I say coverplay I mean some amount of play between the time you deposit and redeposit in an obvious whoring fashion. Whether it be Empire, Bodog, Party, whatever.

What's a good number for this? A few hundred hands in one spot? A few hundred hands between a couple of days/different sessions? I imagine it's hard to know, but does anyone have any educated guesses about how much is a good number to avoid being flagged?

[/ QUOTE ]

Do poker sites label you as a bonus whore? I know casinos do, but I figure the poker sites make money on your whoring anyways so they don't care too much, it's just a drain on their margin rather than on their assets.

[/ QUOTE ] Bodog has a bottomless reload bonus, you are given $2 if you play in a tournament where the rake is $1. You are thus costing them money.

[/ QUOTE ]
They recently changed this. You now get $1 for each dollar in tournament rake. Still a good deal, but not as good as it was.