What Is Rakeback in Poker?
Whenever you play poker at an online poker site (or live), the site will usually take either a small percentage of each pot (for cash games) or a small registration fee (for tournaments).
In a cash game for example, the rake might be “5% of each pot, up to a maximum of $5”.
In tournaments the buy in might be listed as “$10 + $1”, where $10 goes towards the prize pool, and $1 is the fee that goes to the site itself.
These fees are called the “rake”, and they are how the casino or poker site makes money.
Some sites allow you to get a refund of a certain percentage of the rake that you have paid. This refund is called rakeback, and it can add up to a very relevant sum of money.
How does Rakeback work?
To get rakeback, most sites require you to input a particular signup code when you first register on the site. If you are already playing on a particular site, you generally aren’t able to add rakeback to your account. If you didn’t sign up with a rakeback code when you originally registered, then you usually can’t get rakeback at all for that site.
Here is how it works:
Lets say a player named Rhys signs up at a poker site that offers 33% rakeback instead of Frequent Player Points. Rhys plays a fair bit of poker: he plays a $20 tournament after work two or three nights a week, plays a few $15 SNGs on the weekend, and usually plays cash games on a couple of tables Saturday night. Let’s say that at the end of the week Rhys has spent a total of $40 in rake.
At the end of the week, the poker site will give Rhys a refund of 33% of the rake he has paid.
33% of $40 = $13.20.
Simple as that. Rhys doesn’t have to do anything special to receive the $13.20. He doesn’t have to email anyone. He doesn’t have to keep track of how much rake he has paid. He doesn’t have to present a coupon. He doesn’t need to do anything other than play poker, and his rakeback gets put straight into his account at the end of the week.
Some sites have a slightly more complicated rakeback method however: You will often need to set up an account with a third party called a “rakeback affiliate”, and then the affiliate pays your rakeback, sometimes by deposit to your poker account, and sometimes by crediting an account that you set up on the affiliate’s site itself.
The amount of rakeback that you receive can add up significantly. It’s not unusual for a full time poker player to pay as much as $2,000 of rake every month. That’s a fair bit of money, and receiving about $660 per month in rakeback makes a big difference to a players’ overall profitability; it works out at almost $8,000 per year in extra poker income.
Rakeback is one of the best benefits of online poker. If you are a casual player, or even an online pro, you will find that rakeback is an excellent way to generate some additional profit.
