By the BonusWithoutDeposit editorial team · Last updated October 2026 · How we review
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The "skill games" are those in which the result depends above all on the ability of the player, and only in part on chance: "rummy" and its many variants, "backgammon", chess, draughts, the card and puzzle games played in tournaments and, in a category of its own, poker. They share a feature that distinguishes them from every casino game, since the player does not play against the house but against other players, and the operator earns a commission on each game or on each tournament (a "fee", similar to the poker "rake") rather than a house edge.
The consequence is important, and worth stating clearly: in a casino game the mathematics works against every player, however capable; in a skill game a player better than his or her opponents can expect, over time, to win more than he or she pays in fees, which is precisely what makes these games different (and, in many countries, differently regulated).
The free offers of the skill platforms take two main forms: the first is the free tournament, the "freeroll" familiar to poker players (and to us), open without any "entry fee" and with a real "prize pool". The second is a small welcome credit, spent on the entry fees of the first games, whose winnings become withdrawable under the conditions of the site.
A worked example shows how the fee works, and why skill matters: ten players pay one dollar each to enter a game whose winner takes nine dollars, so that the operator keeps one dollar (ten per cent of the entries, a common figure). A player who wins one game in ten breaks even on the prizes and loses the fees, while one who wins one game in five collects eighteen dollars over ten games for ten dollars spent, and ends with a profit of eight. No casino game allows such a calculation, whatever bonus it offers and however long one plays at it!
The operators below are the poker rooms and casinos that we list for their free offers, with poker as the skill game of reference; the platforms devoted only to rummy, backgammon or chess tournaments follow different models, and we describe them below without listing them, and each card shows the terms published by the operator.
Markets: the operators below address the international, non-regulated market; before registering, it is the player's responsibility to check that playing with them is allowed in the country where he or she is located.
Rummy is a family of card games built on the same mechanism (drawing and discarding cards in order to form combinations), with variants that change from country to country (and sometimes from family to family), from the Indian rummy played with thirteen cards (very popular in its home country) to the "gin rummy" of the American tradition. Backgammon combines the "dice", which introduce chance, with a strategy that over a series of games decides who wins, and it is perhaps the clearest example of a game in which luck counts in the single match and skill in the long run. Chess and draughts, finally, are games of pure skill, played online in tournaments with entry fees and prizes.
Poker sits halfway between the two worlds, and it is the skill game that most of our readers know. The cards are dealt by chance, but over thousands of hands the better players win at the expense of the weaker ones (as anyone who has played for years knows), while the room takes its "rake" from every pot. The free offers of the poker rooms (the rare no-deposit bonuses and the freerolls) are described in detail on our page devoted to no-deposit poker.
The distinction between skill and chance is also a legal one, and each country draws it in its own way. In the United Kingdom, for example, the Gambling Act 2005 treats as a game of chance any game that involves both an element of chance and an element of skill, so that poker is "gaming" while a game of pure skill such as chess is not; in the United States each state applies its own test to decide whether skill prevails over chance, with results that change from one state to another.
The operators listed on our pages address the international, non-regulated market, and it is the player's responsibility to check, before registering, what the law of the country in which he or she is located allows. The rules described here are informative, and serve only as examples.
A game in which the result depends above all on the ability of the player, such as rummy, backgammon, chess or, in part, poker. The player competes against other players rather than against the house.
They take a fee on each game or tournament, usually a share of the entries, instead of relying on a house edge.
Yes: free tournaments have real prize pools, and the winnings from a welcome credit become withdrawable under the conditions of the site.
It depends on the country: the United Kingdom treats a game that mixes skill and chance, such as poker, as gaming, while each American state applies its own test.
The skill games are the only games on our pages in which practice and study can turn into an advantage, and the free offers are the right way to measure one's level before paying any entry fee. Start with the free tournaments, keep track of your results over a few dozen games, and pay the fees only when the figures show that you win more often than the fee requires. 18+, and gaming for money should remain entertainment.