If you’re from the United States and have a hankering to play live poker, then you owe it to yourself to head to HogWild Poker, which launched a live staking promotion this week. Every month, HogWild Poker will award 15 players with a $500 staking package for the live poker tournament of their choice. By the way, if you’re not familiar with HogWild Poker, it’s a free, U.S.-legal site based in Kentucky.

The staking promotion has been in the works for quite some time. In fact, PocketFives first learned about it before Thanksgiving. To take part, all you need to do is sign up for HogWild Poker and play in specified free games during the week. Only the results of your eight best games will be tracked, and you need to play in at least eight of them in order to receive a spot on the leaderboard.

In order to get your hands on a $500 staking package, just finish in the top 15 on the leaderboard. You’ll also get HogWild Poker gear to wear while you’re at the casino. And as a bonus while you’re trying to qualify, the tournaments on Sundays and Wednesdays carry a $200 prize pool.

HogWild CEO Jeff Amrein commented in a press release sent out this week that he’s looking forward to sending several dozen players to live events: “Players in our leagues love the fact that their game improves rapidly when they compete in our league format. Along the way, almost every player has a dream to be staked as a pro and we wanted to give many players that experience, rewarding them for their demonstrated skill over multiple games. Nearly 50 players will live that chance in the next three months thanks to this series.”

Anyone who scores a HogWild Poker live package can pick whatever event they want to enter. HogWild Poker officials will then take care of funding their buy-in. All HogWild asks in return is that players donate 10% of any winnings to Poker Gives, a charitable organization that helps poker players give back to society. Poker Hall of Fame members Mike Sexton and Linda Johnson were among those who founded Poker Gives.

Besides the free games being held as part of the staking series, HogWild Poker is hosting events that have a buy-in of 5,000 Hog Bucks. If you’ve never played on HogWild before, you get 5,000 Hog Bucks when you create an account. You can buy and win more Hog Bucks should you need them, and you’ll get 3,000 for every friend you refer to the still-nascent free room.

The HogWild Poker player with the best 12 games between February 1st and May 31st will score a $13,000 World Series of Poker Main Event prize package. The “Big One” comes your way in early July from the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, and when it kicks off, HogWild Poker will be represented.

Anyone can start a private poker league on HogWild Poker, making the site quite unique. You can set your league’s proprietary rules, customize its blind levels, and even determine the length and frequency of your games. HogWild Poker is in the midst of running a private league for PocketFives memberswhose fourth and final game takes place next Tuesday. The PocketFives league at HogWild Poker is completely free to enter and will shell out an iPad 2 to the winner.

Finally, HogWild Poker facilitates prop bets between players, so you can challenge your friends to last-longers and best hands of the night. The same press release describes another unique in-game feature: “HogWild Poker has innovated a game function that actually makes the play much more like a live game – hole cards that are dealt down. When a player looks at his or her hand, their hole cards light up, allowing for plenty of speculation as to whether that is a signal of strength or weakness.”

If you sign up for HogWild Poker, make sure to come back to PocketFives and let the site’s staff know what you think in their official support thread. Hog Wild is still growing and definitely values any constructive comments you have.