What exactly is Rakeback / Rake Rebate?
If you are at all involved in the world of online poker, then you certainly must of heard the word rakeback or rake rebate by now. If you haven’t heard it yet, or you have no idea what it means, we are going to take care of that today. After all, it has become the big word because it is pretty important. In fact, to put it lightly, if you don’t know what rakeback or rake rebate is, or even further, you don’t have rakeback, then you are missing out… big time!

Casinos get your money whether you win or lose in poker
Before we can get too far into rakeback, there are a lot of things we need to explain. You might not even know what the “rake” is. Basically the rake is a fee the poker room charges to run the game. Look at it this way, when you play a casino game like blackjack or a slot machine, you are actually wagering your money against the money of the casino. Like in blackjack, when you lose a hand, the dealer scoops it right up and, just like that, the house has five more bucks than it started with. Or look at a slot machine; if you put $100 dollars into a quarter slot machine, you get 400 credits, when those credits run out, you are down $100 bucks and the house is ahead $100! Poker is not like either of these examples, and there's one big reason:
In poker you are wagering against your opponents, not the casino
So how does this work then? How in the world does the casino make any money with a poker room? Well its really quite simple, the casino takes a little bit out of every pot (you probably don’t even notice). This action of taking money out of each pot is called “ the rake” simply because the casino is “raking” money from each pot. Yep, that’s right every precious little pot you win on party poker is missing a little bit of what actually went into it. You're probably thinking “ahh that’s no big deal, its just a buck or two” and that is where you are dead wrong.
You see, many of your favorite online poker rooms have rakes that can go as high as four dollars per pot. Now usually how it works is the room will charge three to four dollars per pot, or ten percent of the pot, whichever one is less. There are of course exceptions to this, but it gives you a general idea of what is going on.
I want to give you one example of how much rake can affect you
Look at the following scenario:
You and ten friends have sat down at party poker, each with $100 dollars to play a friendly game of 2/4 limit hold em. You have all agreed to play until either one player has it all or there is no money left. Eventually, no one will have any money left. The $1000 dollars that you and your friends had in total, will belong to the house. They will have quietly raked it away from you every hand…and in the end, the house is the only winner. Even if somebody does win all of the chips, some have mysteriously disappeared. Hmm, I wonder where they could have gone?
Now this scenario might take a while, but you need to get the idea in your head that...
You are losing money on every hand to the house!
Here is another trick, next time you are playing at your favorite brick and mortar casino, keep track of all your tips and drinks with your chips. Every time you win a pot and tip, set aside one chip in a separate pile equal to the amount you tipped the dealer. Every time you buy a drink, set aside that amount in your separate pile. Also, every time you win a pot, set aside another chip in the pile. You're gonna puke when you see how big that pile is at the end of your session! This is all money that you voluntarily gave away during your session. Now add all the rake you paid and you have to wonder how you have any money left! It's time to get an online poker rake rebate!
If you need more proof, just look at the table below. It assumes your are playing about 5,000 hands a month of limit hold em at a full ten seat table:
Limit |
How much you pay to the rake each month |
1/2 |
$390 |
2/4 |
$540 |
3/6 |
$760 |
5/10 |
$1,240 |
This is a very light assumption, because I am sure many of you are playing five to ten times that many hands per month or you wouldn't be here reading this right now. Also, its about the same for you no-limit players, and if you play 6 max tables like me …well, you don’t even want to know how much MORE you are paying to the rake.

So what are we going to do about that pesky rake?
The great thing is that there is a something you can do to help cut down on the rake and increase your hourly win rate! Its called rakeback, and it allows you to recapture a certain percentage of the rake you have paid each month. It's like recieving an online poker rake rebate at the end of the month.
The amount of rake you can recover varies, but generally it is between twenty and forty percent. That’s right, twenty to forty percent of the rake you pay comes right back to you at the end of the month in cold hard cash. After all, it was your money to begin with. Why don’t we look at the example from above and see how rakeback would help us:
Limit |
Monthly
earnings without
Rakeback |
Monthly
earnings
with 25% rakeback |
1/2 |
$150 |
$247.50 |
2/4 |
$300 |
$435.00 |
3/6 |
$450 |
$640.00 |
5/10 |
$750 |
$1,060.00 |
As you can see it adds up to a lot of extra money each month and really helps your bottom-line. Every competant poker player needs to have rakeback, and more importantly every good player needs rakeback from a good affiliate. There are a lot of different rakeback offers out there, but it is very important that you choose a good affiliate to work with when looking for your rakeback deal.
Awe, is it your first time getting a rakeback rebate?
Keep in mind when looking for a rakeback deal you have to be signing up to the poker room you are looking in to for the first time. If you already have an account at a certain poker room, you will not be able to get rakeback there. You might be able to get it on a skin of that room though, so make sure you look into what rooms are available on the network you would like to play.
Where should I go for online poker rake rebates?
Rakeshark.com is an excellent site that has an excellent reputation and the best service for your rakeback needs. You have to understand; your rakeback affiliate will be a middleman between you and the poker room you get rakeback at. You need to be able to depend on your affiliate for many things. You want an affiliate that can pay you promptly each month, answer your questions promptly and be available most of the time for any concerns or questions you have. Rakeshark can provide all these services plus give you the best rake rebate rates at all the best poker rooms.

Just remember next time you sit down to play some poker that you are paying a lot of money to the house and that there is a way for you to recover some of it. You need to get yourself a rakeback deal, and you need to get one from a reputable and stable online poker rake rebate provider. Rakeshark can do all of this for you and make your monthly earnings skyrocket with their rakeback rebate services. |