There are so many online poker sites vying for your business that most of them try to tempt you with a unique promotion or the promise of something for nothing. shop around before you sign-up, and take advantage of the latest offers.
Sign-up bonuses are extremely common and are normally promises to match your first real money deposit up to a certain limit. So, if you sign-up and deposit $100, the online poker room will promise you a $100 bonus. There is a catch though - you normally won't be able to access this bonus money until you've played a certain number of pay tournaments or raked hands on the cash tables. But bonuses aren't to be sniffed at. At the end of the day it's free money for playing poker, and it can often arrive in your account at the most opportune time.
In the same way that supermarkets try to keep you coming back for more with a loyalty card, online poker sites try to keep you playing at their tables with regular player points schemes. And in among the bog-standard giveaways like t-shirts and baseball caps, you can find some useful schemes that offer you tickets to 'exclusive' freerolls and satellite qualifiers. Whatever you do though, don't get dazzled by offers that seem too good to be true - they invariably are.
We've unearthed some pretty earth-shattering giveaways previously, including a site that was offering a brand new Mini Cooper in return for 60 million player points. Playing at the rate we do (and we play alot), we worked out we'd need to play for a mind numbing 26 years to earn enough points to bag one. By which time you'll be zipping around in a hover car.