Poker freerolls? Cash out?

Question

Does anyone know what is the policy on cashing out if you never made a deposit in your account but win a lum sum in the freeroll tournament that you register. (US players) and what are the requirements to get a withdraw transaction?? Can you get a bankwire if you a US residents? and how much are they charging? Please help and thank you for your reply:)

Answer 1

Okay, lots to cover here.  Lets assume you're on PokerStars (the policies will be a bit different in the different sites.)  

Most sites will require you to make some kind of deposit transaction into an account so that they can have some kind of exisiting transaction-type to work with.  

As far as I know there are currently only two ways for US players to make transactions short of using cashiers checks.  One is "Echecks," which is an online service that mimics writing a check from your regular account.  You register at the Echecks site, they withdraw money from your account, charge you a fee  and "write a check" to the poker site using those funds.  

The other method is a certain type of Visa gift card and I'm not sure which type it is.  Only one type of Visa will work with poker sites--all others will be blocked.

Next point--if you win real money on a site but don't have a cash account they are likely to require you to play a certain amount of real money hands (ones that involve taking a "rake" from the pots,) earn a set number of frequent player points (which also require playing cash games,) or wait a set period of time before the money can be withdrawn.  This particular policy varies WIDELY from site to site--you should send an Email to the site's support to find their exact terms.  

They want a deposit transaction record from you because they will normally use that same method to send the funds back to you when you withdraw.  You can request a wire transfer but most sites in the past would require you to have an online banking service like PayPal or Neteller to handle the transaction.  Neither of those sites are usable in the US anymore.  Regardless, if the site was to handle the wire transfer themselves they would charge you a fortune to do it.

Finally, you can request a cashiers' check but they're likely to chage you a small fortune for that as well.  Your best bet is to contact the site's customer support and ask them this same question.  They are normally very helpful about transaction inquiries and will be happy to help a new account with real money like yours.  If you are on one of the smaller and less reputable sites you may never see that money at all.  Caveat Emptor, pal!

Answer 2

Most sites have a minimum withdrawal.  It's hard to get that much in one free roll tourney, so chances are you don't have enough.