Where to Find Poker Freerolls Online
Here’s the bottom line: There’s no question that finding the best poker freeroll tournaments can boost your bankroll at no cost. Who doesn’t love a little free money?
Unfortunately, there’s a big problem: there are so many awful poker freerolls out there that aren’t worth your time. There are also so many poker rooms out there that it’s almost impossible to manually scan all of their freeroll tournament offerings.
That’s where I come in.
Rank | Poker Site | USA Freerolls | Daily Freerolls | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 |  | 8 | ||
2 | | 1 | ||
3 |  | | 3 | |
4 |  | | 8 | |
5 |  | | 7 |
I’ve been playing online poker since 2004 and I know when I see a quality freeroll on the schedule.
So, what I won’t be showing you is:
- Poker rooms that offer minuscule freeroll tournaments simply to get players to download their software.
- Sites that require huge amounts of gameplay that will only appeal to the diehard grinders who don’t need freerolls anyway.
A select few offer good value for free tournaments and little or no requirements. That’s what you’ll find right here.
I’ve researched and played personally at just about all of the most reputable and biggest online poker sites out there that offer some kind of free poker tournament.
This is my collection of freeroll sites that I truly believe offer the best combination of value, lack of requirements, and time commitment.
Table of Contents
- What Is A Freeroll Poker Tournament?
- Examples of Formats
- How can I play for free without depositing?
- Are there poker freeroll tournaments for US players?
- How do poker freeroll tournaments work?
- What kind of tournaments are there?
- How do you win?
- Finding poker freeroll passwords
- Where can you find freerolls?
- Where did the “free rolls” term come from?
- More on Specific Poker Site Freerolls
- Black Chip Poker
BetOnline has removed their classic hourly freerolls, but still hosts the occasional free poker event. The one you can bet on happening every month is the $1,000 guaranteed Casino Freeroll.
To earn entry into this freeroll, you just have to complete a ‘mission’. This week, all BetOnline is asking you to do is wager $10 on a specified slot in the online casino. The mission changes every so often, so make sure you check every week to find out what the criteria is to gain entry.
BetOnline
Name: BetOnline Poker
Website: betonline.ag
US Players accepted: Yes
Bonus: 100% and $135 in free bets
Traffic: #3 in US market
In operation since: 1991 in brick-and-mortar form
Full review: BetOnline Poker review
BetOnline Freerolls
- Only for depositors
- Casino freeroll held weekly
- Find out how to gain entry by checking My Missions
- $1,000 guaranteed prize pool
Blackchip Poker actually shares the same network as ACR Poker so you can play in up to 8 $50 freerolls per day. On Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, they are PLO8 tournaments and the rest of the week, they are traditional Texas Hold’em Events.
Blackchip Poker
Name: Blackchip Poker
Website: blackchippoker.eu
US Players accepted: No
Bonus: 100% welcome bonus
Traffic: #2 worldwide
In operation since: 2012
Full review: Black Chip Poker review
Blackchip Poker Freeroll Tournaments
- 8 freeroll tournaments every day
- No deposit neceessary
- $50 guaranteed in all freerolls
- A mix of PLO and Texas Hold’em Poker tournaments
Bovada has always ranked highly in my estimation as top poker site, but its lack of freeroll tournaments has always been a bugbear of mine. Fortunately, the poker room has finally gotten the message and decided to offer players a few opportunities every week to take part in MTTs without having to spend money on a buy-in.
There are now three freerolls available every day at Bovada, which run at 11am, 3pm and 5pm.
It’s definitely not as many as you’ll find on sites like ACR Poker, but it’s definitely a huge improvement on their previous offering, which was none.
You should stay in touch with the Bovada community by checking their forums often and signing up to their newsletter. Every so often, the online poker room will host special freeroll events.
For example, there was a Refer-A-Friend freeroll tournament event for about a month. While these events don’t come around very often, there are definitely worth taking part in.
Bovada Poker
Name: Bovada Poker
Website: bovada.lv
US Players accepted: Yes
Bonus: 100% poker bonus
Traffic: #1 worldwide
In operation since: 2011
Full review: Bovada Poker review
Bovada Poker Freerolls
- Three freerolls a day
- No real requirements aside from being a depositing player
- Up to $20 prize pools
ACR Poker is one of the best online poker sites for US players who are looking for free poker tournaments. This popular poker room offers 8 freeroll poker tournaments every day at midnight, 3am, 6am, 9am, 12am, 3pm, 6pm and 9pm.
Each freeroll tournament features a $50 prize pool, which is a lot more than the measly $10 guarantees they used to offer in their on-demand freeroll poker games.
ACR Poker
Name: ACR Poker
Website: acrpoker.eu
US Players accepted: Yes
Bonus: 100% up to $2,000
Traffic: #2 in US market
In operation since: 2001
Full review: ACR Poker review
ACR Poker Freerolls
- 8 freerolls daily
- Prize pool is $50 for each
- Hundreds of players get involved
- Completely free to enter, no deposit necessary for existing players
- $250 private freerolls for our new depositors
What Is A Freeroll Poker Tournament?
A freeroll is a free online poker tournament where you can usually win real money. Sometimes poker sites offer freerolls with tournament tickets as prizes in lieu of real money prizes.
This might sound like they are not worth playing for, but the tournaments that the tickets are for can come with some pretty hefty guarantees – take ACR Poker’s Venom tournaments and OSS events. These are million-dollar tournaments that you can win your way into without having to spend any money at all.
Free rolls are structured with a standard poker tournament format and starting chips, but blind levels are often shorter to finish the game in a quicker timespan. Most free poker tournaments have blind levels of 10 to 15 minutes so they’re not quite turbos but they are quite quick to finish.
Examples of Formats
Freeroll poker tournaments come in all shapes and sizes. Here are some examples of the different types of free poker tournaments that you might encounter:
- Freeroll poker tournaments at an online poker room that’s free for everyone to enter with no restrictions.
- On-demand poker freerolls that are open to everyone and starts when 300 players register.
- Tournaments that are free to enter, but only available to players who have made a deposit in the past calendar month.
- Exclusive freerolls that awards free entry into high value MTTs but are only open to poker players who have reached the highest player rewards tier.
How Poker Freerolls Work
Poker freeroll tournaments are just like any other multi-table tournament except that there is no entry fee. Many top online poker sites offer free rolls that are open to all players without any requirements, giving every player the opportunity to win real money prizes without spending any of their own money.
Other sites require a number of player points or raked hands in order to qualify for the event.
Freeroll tournaments have exploded in popularity over the past 15 years, as new players or experienced players with limited bankrolls compete for a prize pool without spending any real money. These events typically fill up very quickly, but they are great fun when you get involved.
How can I play for free without depositing?
Find a poker site that hosts no-restrictions freerolls. Just about every site does in some form with Black Chip Poker and ACR Poker being my top picks at the moment. Here’s what the process is to get started without depositing.
1. Visit a site that hosts poker freeroll tournaments.
2. Download the poker site software. Some sites, like Bovada, offer freerolls on their no-download platform.
2. Sign up for a free real money poker account. This usually requires minimal information and, at most, will be your name, email address, and home address.
3. Find the poker freeroll in the tournament section. Most poker site software will allow you to only show free-to-enter ones. Just use the filter and select “freerolls” or set your minimum and maximum buy-in amounts to $0.
4. Enter it and play for a chance at real money prizes for free.
Are there poker freeroll tournaments for US players?
Yes, and, in fact, my top-rated site for freeroll tournaments without restrictions accepts US players. These are arguably most important for those from the USA because depositing often means extra hassle.
The few reputable American online poker sites also vary greatly in terms of player traffic, software, and tournament schedules. Freerolls can be an easy and free way to scope out all of those aspects.
How do poker freeroll tournaments work?
The actual freeroll poker tournament works identically to any other real-money multi-table tournament so you can test drive the feel of the poker website without investing anything.
The best poker format, for me, is one with short levels to get through the tournament in a decent amount of time. Freerolls can draw several hundred up to several thousand players so traditional long blind intervals are impractical.
What kind of tournaments are there?
Freerolls are usually thought of as free-for-all crapshoots with tiny prizes and massive fields. However, there are actually several variations:
- No-restrictions. These usually have a prize pool of $100 or less. Entrants may be up to 5,000
- Recent deposit requirement
- Poker player point buy-ins
- Player reward tier threshold
- Private community-run
How do you win?
With a lot of patience and luck, and maybe a bit a skill at the final table. Poker freeroll tournaments go a lot like play money tables for the majority of the tournament: half of the table goes all-in every hand and things turn into a lottery with little-to-no skill involved.
My best advice would be to simply wait out the craziness early unless you have pocket Aces or Kings. Those are the only two hands you should call multiple all-ins with and even pocket Kings are questionable when opponents will be playing any Ace.
Wait it out unless you hit a monster hand and start really playing when 50-75% of the field has busted out.
Finding poker freeroll passwords
When browsing for the best poker freeroll tournaments in the tournament section at a given poker site you’ll likely run into dozens of password-protected events with unusual titles. These are private community freerolls, hosted by a specific poker room or organization. They use a freeroll password to restrict entry only to their members.
One of the most unethical practices that has always disgusted me is the stealing of poker freeroll passwords from private communities, often to post on a leech website dedicated to these scummy practices.
Other desperate freeroll players see password freerolls in a tournament list, visit the community listed in the title, and pose as a member simply to get the password. What a bottom-feeding waste of time.
If “freeroll whores” are players who make the online rounds simply to play these freebies, then password scrapers are the gum stuck to the bottom of their shoes.
If you see a password freeroll for a group you aren’t a member of, just move on. They aren’t meant for you.
Where can you find freerolls?
Freeroll poker tournaments are most commonly found online, rising to prominence in the past 15 years thanks to the poker boom of the early 2000’s.
Online poker sites came up with freerolls as a way to get players to download their software and capture their eyeballs without having to convince them to make a deposit.
On the player side, who doesn’t want something for nothing? Actually breaking out the (virtual) wallet is a big decision. Why not get to know the poker site without risking anything? You’ve got a slim chance at a real prize, which you could potentially build up into a real bankroll.
Live poker
While less common, live poker freerolls do exist. However, these are very exclusive freerolls that take place in the form of special invite-only events such as a small cardroom inviting players with the highest number of logged hours for free tournaments.
In the height of the early-2000’s poker boom one of my local cardrooms even hosted a freeroll every week just to get new players in the door.
More notable live free tournaments have included heads-up championships and WPT championships featuring top pros and winners of annual tournaments. Of course, these are the most exclusive of exclusive freerolls.
Where did the “free rolls” term come from?
The quaint story from the Wikipedia pages on freerolls explains that the term came from the old surreal ’50s Las Vegas days when casinos would often try to draw players by literally giving them free rolls of nickels to play at the slot machines. We’re still rolling with it today as the term has become synonymous with poker freebies.
More on Specific Poker Site Freerolls
BetOnline
BetOnline is my pick for the best freerolls online, both in terms of prize amount and frequency.
They give away over $800 daily in freerolls and run an event every hour with no restrictions. The highlight of the day is a $300 freeroll at noon EST.
The biggest open-to-all freerolls left
There are no restrictions for entry, but the actual player numbers usually settle in at around 800-1,000, which is very reasonable for a freeroll. Prizes go to the top 10-40 finishers depending on the event, concentrating bigger winnings to the final table rather than spread out minuscule amounts over hundreds of players as a normal paid tournament structure would.
BetOnline has, by far, the highest prizes daily for no-restrictions freerolls.
Some hours see 2 freeroll tournaments on the schedule with the second solely giving out frequent player points, which can be used to enter select tournaments. At 20 or more no-restrictions freerolls per day this poker room easily leads this category.
View complete details on the BetOnline Poker freeroll schedule.
Excellent credit card success rate
Players who do go on to deposit real money will find the highest US credit card success rate in the industry. While the freerolls used to be one of the few promotions offered to our new players there is now a 200% bonus, which is currently one of the largest online.
This is in addition to an instant free sports bonus and instant free tournament entry money. The cash tables are also some of the loosest in the US market.
Black Chip Poker
Since Black Chip Poker and ACR Poker share the same poker network, they have the exact same selection of poker freerolls. This would be normally be something that puts me off but the sheer number of daily freeroll tournaments is what keeps Black Chip Poker as one of my top sites for completely free poker.
On top of all this, Black Chip has a fantastic tournament offering for players who want to spend some money on tickets. Like ACR, Black Chip poker events like the Venom and Online Super Series have some of the biggest guarantees in the US online poker market with millions of dollars up for grabs every month.
Bovada Poker
After getting off to what I would call a slow start with regards to the freeroll tournament trend, Bovada really is one of the best freeroll poker sites left offering them regularly.
A significant benefit of poker freerolls that are only beneficial to regular players is it helps keep the attendance clear of freeloaders and heightens your chances of actually coming in the money.
Their poker freerolls aren’t the quickest way to win real money for your bankroll – but, they are great if you just want a little boost or are just starting out. Two of their daily freerolls have a $20 prize pool and the other has a $12 prize pool.
View complete details on the Bovada Poker review.
ACR Poker
ACR Poker easily deserves one of the top slots thanks to its impressive schedule of daily online poker freerolls.
It’s honestly impressive that the poker room has continued to offer this many freerolls on a daily basis. Most sites would try this as a promotion for a few months or weeks, decide that they’re giving away too much free money and trash it, but ACR has stuck with it.
For this reason, ACR Poker stays my top pick for free poker tournaments. You really can’t beat them.
View complete details on the ACR Poker Review.
Late registrations allows you to join in-progress freerolls
ACR freerolls have such absurd late registration times that players can join in at any time an hour or more after it has already started. If you get in on one of their freerolls early you experience an interesting arc to the tournament where you can accumulate chips while players keep joining with short chip stacks.
For most players, these are useful as a secondary window to take out your aggressions and tedium on when you are not hitting the deck in your real tournament or cash game. It is also a good way to get used to the mechanics of the software risk-free.
Positives of ACR Poker include a 100% bonus for our players, the most cash games in the US market, and a $1,000,000 guaranteed Sunday tournament.
Josh is one of the world’s most respected online gambling experts. He has been featured on outlets such as CardPlayer, the World Poker Tour, Google News, and Forbes. Josh has nearly 20 years of experience reviewing poker rooms, casinos, and online sportsbooks. He launched Beat The Fish in 2005, which has been peer-certified as a trustworthy gambling portal. Josh’s proven systems and extensive knowledge of the iGaming industry have been used by thousands of online bettors to make more informed decisions.
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Test
When playing those on demand free rolls @ ACR other than out waiting the bingo period what are the best strategies for opening with premium hole cards?
Hi, Richard. Thanks for the question.
As you said, those first few rounds of freerolls both at America’s Cardroom and everywhere else are full of insane all-in-or-fold gameplay. “Bingo period” – that’s a good way to describe it.
You’re right that waiting out those starting rounds is wise when you have medium-strength hands (something like K-Q or A-J) or “double up” hands that need help (like small pocket pairs) since you’re unlikely to be able to see a cheap flop with position. That’s what you need with those types of hands.
Even though the winning percentages of premium hole cards (think pocket Queens, Kings, Aces, or A-K) takes a huge hit when played against multiple opponents you also can’t just lay them down because everyone else is being crazy.
Personally, when I’m in a tournament or Sit and Go when everyone is raising massive amounts pre-flop on every hand (i.e. every freeroll ever) I won’t even bother with anything besides pocket Kings or Aces unless I can get heads-up. That’s unlikely early in a freeroll.
When you do pick up Kings or Aces I recommend raising a crazy amount. Start with 10x the big blind minimum and go up from there. If the trend is for all-in raises pre-flop then just go all-in yourself. It’s the only chance you have to maybe isolate to 1 or 2 opponents, which is what you want.
You also disguise your hand well as you look like just another bingo player and stand a great chance to get called. If your hand holds up you’ve now taken down a big pot and can really take it easy for awhile while the fish knock themselves out.
Hope that helps!
I’m still only learning to play so for me freerolls are a great way to get the hang of the game. There maybe plenty of fish in them but I wouldn’t know the difference :D
Phil, absolutely, I think that freerolls are one of the best ways to learn the mechanics of the game before you actually risk anything.
Play money would be the other obvious choice, but I think freerolls serve a better purpose as some of the players you’re up against will actually play with a modicum of skill.
Freerolls also help you learn the multi-table tournament format.
Personally, I don’t particularly care about freerolls… Too many donks shocing every hand
I understand, Mat. Most of us probably reach the point where we don’t bother with insanely-populated freerolls for minuscule prizes.
However, they can still serve a need for players with severely restricted bankrolls or those just learning the game.
I also tried to include more substantial freerolls that regular players will actually want to pay attention to.
Meh, there arent any good freerolls anymore. There used to be the time when you could fire up like five of them during a day, all with great prizes and not so many players.
I think rooms should go back to offering more freerolls to attract players, thats one of things that made online poker huge…
Derek,
I can understand the sentiment, but a couple of points:
1. I’m not sure the old days were quite as generous as we all like to remember them, at least in terms of freerolls.
I remember not bothering with them pretty quickly after I started playing regularly in 2004 because the prizes were just too small and the player pools to large to spend any time on.
Maybe I just wasn’t looking in the right places, though.
2. Those great golden days just aren’t coming back. I was there and loved them, too. But poker is very different these days.
Online poker sites are operating on smaller budgets and raking in a whole lot less money.
Most of them that are around are already established so probably feel little need to offer freerolls to draw new players. It’s probably just seen as an expense to them.
A few sites do still offer some pretty big freerolls to regular players higher up in their rewards tiers, but I know that can be obnoxious.
The best bet is probably going to still be BetOnline. I think they have the biggest freerolls open to everyone and they have them every hour.