Rake is the scaled commission fee taken by a cardroom operating a poker game. It is generally 2.5% to 10% of the pot in each poker hand, up to a predetermined maximum amount.[1][2] There are also other non-percentage ways for a casino to take the rake. Some cardrooms will not take a percentage rake in any community card poker game like Texas hold 'em when a hand does not have a flop. This is called 'no flop, no drop'.[1]
Poker is a player-versus-player game, and the house does not wager against its players (unlike blackjack or roulette), so this fee is the principal mechanism to generate revenue.
It is primarily levied by an establishment that supplies the necessary services for the game to take place. In online poker it covers the various costs of operation such as support, software and personnel. In traditional brick and mortar casinos it is also used to cover the costs involved with providing a dealer (though in many places tips provide the bulk of a dealer's income) for the game, support staff (from servers to supervisors), use of gaming equipment, and the physical building in which the game takes place. The rake in live games is generally higher than for online poker.
Sep 24, 2013 A Look at House Rules: The Rake and Time Pots. And even if you have played in a casino poker room, you may have been so wrapped in the action, the players, and conversations — not to mention keeping track of your own hands and betting — that you didn’t even notice the dealers sticking their fingers into the pot to make chip change. Jan 07, 2018 Another benefit of holland casino poker rake playing free casino slots games at Slotomania are our special perks: from free spins to bonus rounds, making your holland casino poker rake game even more enthralling. This product is intended for use by those 21 or older for amusement purposes only. It’s basically the same rake you pay in Austria and Germany. I think the 1/2 rake at CCC is capped at 15€ and at Spielbank Berlin it’s 20€ at 2/2. And Kings casino offers a lot of free stuff on the side while you don’t even get free soft drinks in Germany and at least in some places even pay an entrance fee to enter the casino.
To win when playing in poker games where the house takes a cut, a player must not only beat opponents, but also the financial drain of the rake.[3]
- 1Mechanism
Mechanism[edit]
There are several ways for the rake to be taken.[4] Most rake is a fixed percentage of the pot, taken on a sliding scale, with a capped maximum amount that can be removed from the pot regardless of pot size. Less frequently, rake is a fixed amount no matter what the size of the pot.
Pot rake[edit]
A percentage rake is taken directly from the pot. In a live casino, the dealer manually removes chips from the pot while the hand is being played and sets them aside to be dropped into a secure box after completion of the hand. When playing online, the rake is taken automatically by the game software. Some software shows the rake amount next to a graphical representation of the dealer and takes it incrementally between the rounds of betting, whereas other software programs wait until the entire hand is over and then takes it from the pot total before giving the rest to the winner of the hand. This is the prevalent method of collecting rake in online poker.
Dead drop[edit]
The fee is placed on the dealer button each hand by the player in that position, and taken in by the dealer before any cards are dealt.
Time collection[edit]
Time collection (also 'timed rake' or 'table charge') is a set fee collected (typically) every half-hour during the game. This form of rake is collected in one of two ways:
- Player time: A set amount is collected from each player.
- Time pot: A set amount is collected from the first pot over a certain amount.
Time rakes are generally reserved for higher limit games ($10–$20 and above).[citation needed]
Fixed fees[edit]
The fee per hand is a fixed rate and does not vary based on the size of the pot.
Tournament fees[edit]
The above examples are used in ring games, also known as cash games. The rake for participation in poker tournaments is collected as an entrance fee. This may be displayed by showing the tournament buy-in as $100+$20, with the $20 being the house fee or 'Vig'. Other times they will show they buy-in as $100 and list the percentage they take for expenses.
Subscription fees[edit]
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Some online cardrooms charge a monthly subscription fee, and then do not rake individual pots or tournaments.
Rake free[edit]
Some online poker websites have done away with the rake altogether. These 'rake free' poker rooms generate revenue by increasing traffic to the company's other profitable businesses (such as a casino or sportsbook) or by charging monthly membership or deposit fees. Some sites are only completely rake-free for frequent players, while offering reduced rake instead for other customers. Due to high fixed costs of operating a poker room, such as marketing, few online poker rooms have been successful in offering rake-free game, often going bankrupt or sustaining themselves by exploiting loopholes in offshore jurisdictions to refuse to honor players' cash withdrawals. However, some financially sound poker rooms have on occasion offered rake-free games to entice new sign-ups or to encourage players to try out new game formats.
Rakeback[edit]
Rakeback is a player rewards method that began in 2004, whereby some online poker sites or their affiliate partners return part of the rake or tournament entries a player pays as an incentive for them to continue playing on that site [5]
Rakeback in cash games can be calculated using two different methods: dealt and contributed. The dealt method awards the same amount of rakeback to each player dealt into a hand, and the contributed method rewards players based on their actual contribution to the pot. In poker tournaments, rakeback is deducted from cardroom's entry fee. Rakeback is similar to comps in 'brick and mortar' casinos.
As online poker becomes more mainstream online poker professionals have begun using rakeback as a means of increasing profits or cutting their losses. Depending upon the stakes the player is playing, how many tables they are playing at once, and the number of hours played daily, online poker pros can earn thousands of dollars in rakeback every month. This gave rise to so-called rakeback pros, players using a less intensive losing strategy at many tables simultaneously while offsetting their losses through rakeback.
Not every online poker room offers rakeback. Sites such as America's Cardroom, Intertops and Grand Poker allow affiliates to offer rakeback as a direct percentage of rake and tournament entries paid back to the players. Other card rooms such as PokerStars, PartyPoker, Ongame Network and the iPoker Network forbid affiliates to give rakeback. Instead they offer in-house loyalty programs that gives cash and other rewards to players based upon how much they play.[6] At such networks, rakeback deals are sometimes cut between an affiliate and a player without the poker operator's knowledge. Such deals, if discovered, tend to result in the expulsion of either offending party, and, sometimes, in penalties for the poker operator, if they are part of a bigger poker network.
In brick and mortar rooms, the floorperson may offer a rake reduction or rake-free play to players willing to start a table shorthanded.
Legality[edit]
In most legal jurisdictions, taking a rake from a poker table is explicitly illegal if the party taking the rake does not have the proper gaming licences and/or permits. The laws of many jurisdictions do not prohibit the playing of poker for money at a private dwelling, provided that no one takes a rake.
See also[edit]
Notes[edit]
- ^ ab'Poker Rake - Calculate Poker Room Rake - Calculating the Rake'. www.pokerstars.com. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
- ^'View The Rake and Blind Structure For Cash Games at partypoker'. www.partypoker.com. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
- ^Raked Over the Coals: Poker Rake, archived from the original on 2015-10-15, retrieved 2017-02-13
- ^'Poker Article: The Effects of the Rake or Time Charge on your Bottom Line By: Dave in Cali - The Poker Forum.com'. www.thepokerforum.com. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
- ^'Is Rakeback Legitimate?'. ProfessionalRakeback.com.
- ^flopturnriver.com (2010-01-13). 'Make Thousands by Playing at PokerStars in 2010'. Flopturnriver.com. Retrieved 2010-01-29.
Sat, May 18, 12:52am by Ethan Anderson
Last Updated Tue, Oct 8, 12:25am
Still, this leads to an obvious question: if the game is only between the players and the casino doesn’t participate, how do they make money on poker? The answer is the rake: an often overlooked and misunderstood part of both online and land-based poker games. Without the rake, the poker room wouldn’t make any money; with it, it means you’ll have to be a little bit better than average to show a profit yourself.
What Is the Rake?
Rake is the small amount of money that’s taken out of the pot by the casino after most hands. This is essentially the way the table pays for the game; the casino doesn’t actively play against the players at the table, so they must make their money in a different way.
The rake is usually taken only after the end of the preflop betting. This leads to the popular “no flop, no drop” rule used in many poker rooms: if all of the action takes place preflop and someone wins the hand on the first round of betting, there will generally be no rake paid.
Assuming a rake is taken, it is usually taken as a percentage of the total amount of the pot. For instance, a live poker room might take $1 in rake for every $20 in the pot from a typical low-stakes game. There is almost always a maximum rake amount as well; to continue the above example, that casino might take a maximum of $5 from any one pot, regardless of whether the pot size is $100 or $1,000.
Examples
Online poker uses rake too, often with very competitive rates when compared to live casinos. For the following examples, we’ll be using the rake table from Intertops, one of our favourite online poker rooms (and one that has a particularly good rake rate for players).
Since online poker rooms don’t have to work with physical chips, they can be much more exact in their rake amounts, taking rake a penny at a time if necessary. For instance, at a typical limit take – say a $1/$2 limit hold’em game – Intertops will take $0.25 for each $5 that goes into the pot. Another way in which Intertops is better than a live game when it comes to rake is the low maximum they’ll take: in this game, the maximum rake is only $1.
At higher limits, the maximum rake goes up – but the rate at which that rake is collected is much slower. At a $15/$30 table, the maximum rake is $50c, but only one cent in rake is collected for every $0.50 in the pot. At the highest limits, the rake is taken simply as a flat amount; play at $100/$200 or higher, and every pot will be rake at $2.
No-limit hold’em games follow a similar pattern. At the $1/$2 no-limit tables, a penny is taken for every $0.15 in the pot, up to a maximum of $1. If you want to play in the nosebleed games like $50/$100 and up, the rake rate stays the same, but the maximum rises to a still very reasonable $2. In fact, this is essentially a flat rate, as any pot that makes it to the flop at these stakes will always hit the $2 maximum.
Casino Poker Rake
Consequences of the Rake
So, how does rake affect poker games and the way you should play them? First, it means that an average player who breaks even with his opponents will actually be a small loser after accounting for the rake. Even above-average players will generally be around breakeven after the rake, which explains why only the top players can consistently turn a profit in raked games. This is different than in an unraked home game, where any player that is better than average will come out ahead.
House Rake Poker
Since the rake is small, though, it shouldn’t greatly change the way that you play poker. Of course, you should be sure to take the rake into account when you calculate pot sizes and odds, but this will only be a major factor when it comes to relatively small pots.
Alternatives to Rake
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While rake is more or less universally used in online poker, there are alternatives sometimes used in live poker. The most common of these is the time charge, which is popular in high-stakes games (particularly in no-limit play). In this system, every player pays a set fee for being at the poker table, usually every half-hour or hour. In exchange for paying this charge, the casino does not take rake from every pot.