When you are claiming any free poker promotion, you should be aware that there will almost always be terms and conditions attached to the offer.

The free money on offer is for you to play poker with, so a lot of places will require that you are actually able to play poker before they will give you the money.

It was not always like that. One time anyone could get the money and start playing, whether they were able to play poker or not.

But that seems to have been to expensive for the poker sites running these promotions.  To be fair, there is no profit in it for anyone if the player that gets $50 for free losses it in one or two hands. The poker sites need you to be able to play and to play with the free money for a long time in order to make a profit from this.

So nowadays the poker sites may ask you to take a quiz to prove that you are able to play poker, a least a little bit.

Also, you will almost always have to prove your identity in order to qualify for the free bonuses. Again, it was not always that way, and many sites gave out the free cash to any and every claimant. But then a lot of smart and dishonest players that claimed the bonus signed up again using their friends or family members names and addresses. So, effectively, some players were able to claim the free bonuses multiple times. And, assuming that they were losing the money as fast as they got it, that was not profitable for the poker sites either.

So now most places will require that you prove your identity by sending in ID documents or by receiving a verifying phone call.

As is often the case a few bad apples made things more difficult for all the other players, but that is just the way it is these days.

It is still well worth the small effort that you now have to take. Once everything is completed these poker sites are actually giving you free money. That does not happen very often.