One of the biggest complaints from poker players both in the brick and mortar casinos and online is having to pay rake. Players get around this by playing in side games, and back-room games, which means no rake, but lots of risk. Now, there is a completely safe way to avoid having to pay the house, and that is the various online rake-back programs.
Rake is how the sites make there money, it’s a small deduction from every pot, usually capped around three dollars. Tournaments have rake as well, it is presented as the various tournament fee’s and service charges. The poker rooms make huge money from the rake the players contribute with. It is not unusual that a single player pay $3000 to the poker room every month, and that’s just one player. A poker room with thousands of active players earns quite a lot of money to say the least.
Rakeback programs offer some of this money back to the players. Sites operate on two different programs; they either refund you a percentage of the total table rake, or of your personal rake, usually between twenty five and thirty three percent. If you receive 27% rakeback, and rake $1000 one month, you will get $270 rake back. The more you rake, the more you get back. This is a great option for players, especially at the higher limits.
The only drawback to these programs is that you may get your various bonuses counted against your rake back, basically, no double dipping. If they give you fifty dollars as a deposit bonus, you can expect to get fifty dollars less from rake back in most cases. There are various rakeback programs available on the internet to help you get back some of that hard earned cash!