Many online poker rooms use a technique known as poker rake to charge players. This is the main way that the companies and websites bring in money, and it is important to understand how it works before you fully invest yourself into the games themselves.
In the game of poker players wager money against one another rather than against the house, and that is why poker rooms and casinos have to charge a rake in order to turn a profit. Essentially, you should look at this as a small entry fee that is charged in order to organize the games and give you all of the playing options that you have.
While online poker players are not actually losing any money directly in the poker room, the room slowly takes tiny payments from every pot and tournament entry fee. In most cases the rakeback equals out to be about 5% overall, and online it can range anywhere from 1 cent up to $5 dollars.
Thankfully, there is a way to get your rake back and prevent yourself from spending more money when playing online poker. This is known as a poker rakeback.
In the simplest of terms, a poker rakeback is a refund of the rake that you pay. By finding the proper rakeback site you can actually save over 30% of the overall rake that you would normally pay when sitting down at an online poker table. There are systems in place that allow you to keep track of all of the rake money you are paying, then get refunds based on a revenue share agreement that will have been put into place. In most cases a rakeback is paid once a month and is put directly into your poker account rather than any bank accounts being used.
Your savings can be exponential if you play a lot of online poker, and there are also rakeback calculators that you can use to determine just how much money you could be saving in the short and long term.
How is a Rake Calculated?
Many online poker rooms will give you an exact breakdown of the total amount of rake that has been taken from pots. In terms of your poker accounting, the personal rake you pay is recorded by the backend of the software and your rakeback total is then calculated based on those numbers.
With the shared rate calculation, the rake is divided amongst everyone that receives cards. So if the rake is $1 and there are ten players then 10 cents is taken from each player.
If you are serious about online poker and dedicated to playing often then you will definitely want to look into setting up your own rakeback. Doing so is actually quite easy in the end, as all you have to do is select a rakeback site that can help you get your money back, and then sit back and allow them to do all of the work.
There really is no reason why you shouldn’t, unless you like losing more money than you have to.