The Advantage of Rakeback

 

Many new players focus on things like sign-up bonuses when deciding on an online poker room, but they tend to overlook “rakeback”, which may be the most important part of all.

Before I explain the importance of rakeback, we need to go back and see what rakeback is and where it came from. Rake is the percentage (commission) that a poker operator takes out of every pot that is played. It usually goes up to $3 per hand, but when you think of all the hands that are played during the entire day or during a tournament, it adds up to a lot of money. In other words, you can say that rake is the commission that a poker room gets for hosting the game and the way that they make their money.

Now, if you play a hand of poker, you are also contributing to that rake. A percentage of the money that you played during that hand goes to the poker room in the form of rake. Imagine the amount of money that you contribute via rake during the span of a week, a month or even a year. All those little cents and dollars do add up to quite the stash when you start to pay attention to it.

Luckily, someone had a brilliant idea a few years ago. Back in the 2003, Empire Poker – a skin of Party Poker at the time – made deals with affiliates that would give players their “rake back”. That particular deal gave players 22.5% of their rake back if they signed up with the affiliate and that's where the term rakeback comes from. Similar types of deals may have existed in the past but this was the first time that it was open to the public and it paved the way to the many rakeback deals that exist now.

It really could not be any simpler. You play a hand, you contribute to the total rake and at the end of the month, the affiliate makes sure that you get a percentage of that rake money, back into your account. While a sign-up bonus may offer you $500 extra once, rakeback offers you money back at the end of every month. Win or lose, you are getting a percentage of your money back and you assure yourself of some extra income. You can use that extra money to play more and obviously win more. It's a concept that should appeal to most online poker players.

Full Tilt Poker for example offers players 27% rakeback, along with special rake races and freerolls. If an offer like that is on the table, there should be no reason for you not to take it, you will only need to sign up for Full Tilt Rakeback. People tend to go an extra mile to take advantage of special deals, sales, discounts and money-back offers, so why not do the same when playing online poker?

If you're looking for good internet poker sites to sign up with, make sure that when you are checking things like software, game variety, the community, customer service and reputation, you also check out their rakeback deal as well. You'll be thankful at the end of every month when that extra money just appears in your account.

 

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