What Is Poker Rakeback?
Quick answer for those in a rush: When you play poker, the poker site takes a percentage of the pot known as rake. Poker Rakeback Guide gives you this rake back. Free cash! Hurray! Click here to see our deals. Read on for more details.
Firstly we should answer this question:
What is poker rake?
Poker is such a popular game because unlike blackjack and many other casino games, it is not the house you are battling against, it is other players. This means that the card rooms do not win money from players, so why do they bother to offer poker games?
The answer is the rake!
The rake in poker is a small fee that the card room (or poker site) takes for offering the games to their players. In short the rake is the price of playing poker.
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So...
What Is Rakeback?
Rakeback is when you receive a percentage of all the fees and rake you have paid back into your poker account, to do with as you wish.
When you sign up for a poker room through Poker Rakeback Guide, we give you a percentage of your rake back into your poker account. It doesn’t matter how well you play or what limits you play, you always get your rakeback payments, and receiving rakeback will greatly increase your win-rate and allow you to make more money.
Different types of rakeback:
- Flat rakeback percentage – you get a set percentage of your rake paid back into your account. Simple!
- VIP programs – you earn points based on your rake, and these points can then be used to purchase cash bonuses. Usually a tiered system, so the more you rake per month the higher your effective rakeback percentage will be.
- Bonuses – bonuses, especially sign up bonuses, can add a huge amount to your rakeback.
- Rake Races and Chases – extra leader board promotions where you earn points based on your rake. The more you play the higher up you will finish and the bigger prizes you can win.
To see a list of PRG’s exclusive promotions including Race Races, Rake Chases and Freerolls, check out our Poker Promotions Page. These promotions are on top of rakeback!
Poker Rakeback Examples
Cash Game Example
James signs up for an account at Minted Poker. By signing up using the instructions on Poker Rakeback Guide he has a 40% rakeback deal.
James plays no-limit Hold’Em games with blinds of $0.25/$0.50 (50NL) and 6 players per table. He plays 4 tables at once and averages 4 hours a day. By using our rakeback calculator we can calculate that James will earn $1,056 in rakeback every month. That’s $12,848 a year just from rakeback!
Tournament Example
John signs up for an account at Cake Poker. By signing up using Poker Rakeback Guide he guarantees himself 33% rakeback.
John’s favourite games are $30 sit n go tournaments which have a $3 rake. In his first month he plays 20 of these a day and so rakes $1,800 for the month. Thanks to his 33% rakeback deal he receives a payment of $600 back into his poker account. That’s $600 to add to any winnings from the games and is on top of any sign up bonus and rake races winnings!
How to get rakeback:
- Create a Poker Rakeback Guide account (it's completely free with absolutely no obligation). Click here to sign up
- Choose a poker room from the list on Poker Rakeback Guide
- Click on the deal and follow the sign up instructions
- Play Poker
- Poker Rakeback Guide will now pay you rakeback
- The more you play, the more we pay!
Poker Rake Continued...
Tournament Rake
Tournament rake is very simple to explain and understand. The fee (or rake) for tournaments is simply added to the buy in when you sign up for the tournament.
On some sites the rake is displayed next to the buy in so for example a twenty dollar tournament with a two dollar rake is displayed as $20 + 2. On other sites the buy in and the rake are both lumped together, so $22. The rake will always be displayed in the tournament lobby though so you can check exactly how much rake you are paying for any particular poker tournament.
Cash Game Rake
In cash games (also known as ring games) the rake is calculated as a small percentage of the pot. This percentage is usually somewhere around 5% at online poker rooms but can be considerably higher in brick and mortar casinos.
Note: Real casinos (i.e. not online) are known as brick and mortar casinos because they reside in actual physical buildings.
Most online poker rooms operate a ‘no-flop no-drop’ policy in cash games. This means that the rake is only taken if the hand goes as far as the flop, so any hand that is over pre-flop is free from rake.
Rake Methods
There are a few different methods poker sites use to allocate rake to players for the purpose of deciding how much rakeback they receive or how many points they earn.
- Dealt Rake Method
- Contributed Rake Method
- Weighted Contributede Rake Method
- Custom Rake Methods
For more detail on these, see our article on Poker Rake Methods.