Poker Tournaments. Sit and Go Poker. Best Poker Rooms By Country & Platform. Poker Sign-Up Bonus. Poker Sites for US Players. Freeroll Poker Sites. Online Poker for Mac. Poker Site Reviews Network & Site Analysis. Freeroll Strategy. Freerolls are, as the name suggests, free-to-enter online poker tournaments which are laid on to attract casual players and to help you to build a bankroll. Most big poker sites will offer daily or weekly freerolls with $1,000 or $2,000 prizepools up for grabs. You might be required to use some player points to enter, but. The best freeroll poker sites are the ones that not only offer a great mix of poker freerolls, but also ones that offer you the chance to make money in other ways. These top online poker sites.

At PokerNews, we work hard to bring our readers great freerolls every month, many with prize pools over $5,000.

Check out this month's exclusive PokerNews Freeroll, and remember, 'exclusive' means that our freerolls have small fields, since only players who sign up through our PokerNews links can play!

What are freerolls?

You may have heard the term 'poker freeroll' and wondered to yourself what one actually is. Thankfully, the answer is a simple one: poker freerolls are tournaments that cost nothing to enter, which means you get to play poker for free!

Not do they cost nothing to enter, they almost always award a real money prize, which makes them perfect to start your poker career with as you can build a poker bankroll with no initial financial risks to yourself.

Why is it good to play freeroll tournaments?

Freerolls are one of the most popular tournament formats in poker, played by hundreds of thousands of poker players every week. Some people enjoy them because it gives them the chance to play poker for free, while others take advantage of the fact there is no tournament buy-in so they can try new strategies without any risk to their bankrolls.

It isn’t only amateur players who you will find competing in a poker freeroll because they are often used by more experienced players who are trying out the features and software of a poker room that they haven’t used before.

Are freeroll tournaments really free?

You’re probably sat there, reading this article and thinking that there must be a catch and that freerolls can’t really be completely free. Well you need not worry about there being any hidden fees or nasty surprises in store because freerolls are free poker tournaments that cost nothing to enter, otherwise they couldn’t be called a poker freeroll!

The only downside to these free poker tournaments is that the prizes on offer are not usually very large. Often, the total prize pool is only $50 to $100 dollars, although there are regular PokerStars freerolls that have $1,000 prize pools to play for and some of the PokerNews-exclusive freerolls have massive prize pools of $10,000 and even $20,000 for you to compete in.

Different kinds of freerolls

Online poker sites offer several different freeroll tournaments, all of which allow you to play free poker. One of the most common poker freerolls is the new player freeroll, which are only open to players new to the site and are designed to give you the chance to feel your way around the site’s software and to say thank you for signing up to them.

Another common freeroll is one that rewards you for making your first deposit on a site. These normally have a larger than typical prize pool, and are only available to players who have made their first deposit during the qualifying period.

Freerolls are often used as the first step in the satellite process, making it possible to qualify for major online and live tournament for free, while offers are exclusive to players who have created their poker account via PokerNews links.

Where are the best online, freerolls?

Each online poker room offer a different take on their freerolls so it is difficult to give one the label of best, plus what is not to like about getting to play for real prizes for free? Surely that means that all freerolls are best?

That said, it’s hard to beat the PokerStars freerolls that often have prize pools in excess of $1,000 or the partypoker freerolls – there is a $5,000 Cash Booster freeroll every week at partypoker – or the Full Tilt Poker freerolls that pay out between $500 or $1,000.

If we had to put our necks on the line and choose a best freeroll then we would have to go with the yearlyWorld Series of Poker freerolls. Some sites run special promotions in the run up to each World Series of Poker (WSOP) that award seats to the WSOP bracelet events and even the $10,000 Main Event! How awesome would it be to win your way to the WSOP for free?

Freerolls versus Play Money: What is the difference?

You may think that there isn’t much difference between play money and freeroll tournaments because they are both playing poker for free, but that is where the similarities end.

Best Online Poker Freerolls For Us Players

Play money games are, as a general rule, played by people who are there to pass the time and who have no real interest in actually playing poker. Players in play money games are often going all-in every hand, which make them difficult to impossible to improve your game in because they do not play like real money games.

In the early stages of a freeroll tournament, there are often players who go all-in frequently like there are in play money games. However, once the prize money – which is real, actual money – is in sight or if the freeroll awards large prizes, free poker tournaments start to play very much like those tournaments that command an entry fee. This fact alone makes freerolls the perfect platform to hone your poker tournament skills.

Free Online Poker Freerolls

Free Poker Alternatives

In addition to play money games, there are plenty of other options, aside from poker freerolls, that allow you to play poker for free. They all suffer from the same negative traits as play money, though.

Best Online Poker Freeroll Sites

Well-known apps such as Zynga Poker, Governor of Poker and many other poker-related poker games are undoubtedly great fun to play, but none of them can truthfully claim that they are a true representation of the beautiful game of poker.

The only way to experience the thrill of playing real money poker for free is to jump into one of online poker’s many freerolls and see what all the fuss is about for yourself! Good luck!