There have been millions of people who have deposited money into online poker rooms, most of who likely had dreams of winning all kinds of money and becoming a professional poker player. Sadly, 99% of these people end up using all of their money up within a few days or weeks and chalk it up to either bad luck or fixed poker games. I can speak from experience and tell you that neither of these reasons are the real cause of going broke at  poker online, but that it is actually bad judgement on behalf of the players themselves.

I can remember back to the first time I made a deposit to an online poker room to learn poker. The minimum deposit amount was $50 and that is the amount I put into my account. I figured even if I didn’t strike it rich with this that I would at least be able to play for a few months and get lots of practice for when I really took a run at the big money. I ended up running out of money within a few hours. I then dedicated the next few weeks to researching these online poker rooms to try and prove that they were indeed rigged so that I could get my money back. Of course the evidence I needed was never found, and to be honest, it is because it does not exist. Online poker games, just like in casino poker games are totally legitimate.

The real reason I lost all of my money so quickly is the same reason most players who make online deposits lose their money so quickly; we played games that were way too expensive for our budgets. With my $50 deposit I played two $10 sit n’ go tournaments and lost, then tried my hand at the $1-$2 blinds games which quickly ate up the rest. Even though at the time I was a horrible poker player, that is not the main reason I lost my money so quickly, instead it was because I had no place playing such costly games with such a small bankroll.

When you make a deposit to an online poker room you should never risk more than 5% of your bankroll at any given time. This of course means if you deposit $50 (the minimum at most online poker rooms), then you should never play a tournament that costs more than $2.50, nor go to a cash table with anymore than $2.50 at a time. Yes this means likely you will be playing at the penny tables to being, but in all honesty with a $50 bankroll this is where you should playing to ensure that even if you take a few bad beats that you will not quickly go broke. Instead it will take quite awhile to go broke, or if you are a skilled player, you will slowly and properly build your bankroll up enabling you to play at the larger action tables.

The key to remember is that Rome was not built in one day, and nor will a massive bankroll be built in one day. These things take time. Yes it is true that you could take your whole $50 deposit to a $1-$2 blind cash table and build that $50 up to $150 or more rather quickly, but when you have your whole bankroll sitting with you at the table all it takes is one hand to lose it all.