Rake, Bonuses & Rakeback

All poker sites (apart from one - I'll get to that later on) charge a fee for the privilege of playing real money poker on their tables. This fee is a percentage of the pot, which is removed and retained by the site when the pot reaches a certain size. This fee is referred to as the rake.

It is easy to underestimate the impact of the rake, because the charge is small compared to the size of the pot and because the money is removed from the pot rather than your stack, so it is easy not to notice that you have won slightly less than was put into the middle.

It would be possible to make a lot more money playing winning poker but for the rake. Slightly losing players would become break-even or even profitable, and losing players would get more action for their money, lasting longer before busting out. A reduction in or elimination of rake charges by the major poker sites would unquestionably benefit all cash game players. However, until that occurs, there are three things you need to know about that can decrease the impact of rake on your profit margin: Bonuses, Rakeback and Rake-free Poker

Bonuses

Bonuses are probably the most important way of "making money" (really, in most cases, getting your rake back) from poker sites. They generally come in two flavours, "sign-up bonuses" and "reload bonuses". The former you can only claim when you sign up at a new site or network skin. If you are planning on signing up at a new poker site, read on and follow the essential links at the end of this article - don't just take the first bonus you see - I'll explain why in the next section! The purpose of sign-up bonuses is to attract new players to a site. The purpose of reload bonuses is to keep them putting money in rather than moving somewhere else.

Bonuses are usually a sum of money, but sometimes consist of goods such as chip-sets or software, or entry into special tournaments. The best bonuses can be equivalent to getting 100% or even more of your rake back when you first sign up at a site, while some others look attractive, but take so long to earn ("clear") that they are not worthwhile attempting. To check this, you need to look at the clearance rate of the bonus, and whether it is credited based on hands dealt to you (better for tight players) or hands in which you contributed money to the pot.

There are a wide range of bonuses and the available offers change frequently. The essential web reference for bonuses is Bonus Whores. (A 'bonus whore' in online gambling is a player who moves from site to site, looking for the best bonuses). For a beginning player this is not a bad strategy to build a bankroll, but later I recommend staying with one or two sites so you can get to know your opponents and outplay them that way, rather than playing poorer poker and completing the gap with bonus money. If you are going to do this at most sites, you should definitely sign-up with an affiliate who offers rakeback...

Rakeback

The world of rakeback is a little more cloak and dagger than that of bonuses, although thanks to the setting up of the Rakeback Review and the Rakeback/Affiliates forum at Two Plus Two it is a lot more open than it once was. Before I explain further, I need to introduce some terminology that is commonplace in the world of rakeback.

An affiliate is someone who is given money by a poker site for signing up new players. They are given a continuous income by the poker sites that they sign players up for, based on the amount of rake they generate. A proportion of this is given to you as rakeback.
MGR is Monthly Gross Revenue - The amount of rake you "earn" at the poker site concerned in a month. Your rakeback payment is based on this, and often (but not always) bonuses are deducted from it.

As with data mining, poker sites fall quite neatly into three main categories when it comes to rakeback. These are: Sites for which rakeback is freely available through affiliates; Sites for which rakeback is available "under the table"; Sites for which no rakeback is available. The following list is not exhaustive, but covers the most important players

Sites for which rakeback is freely available

• Prima Poker Network skins
• Cryptologic Network skins
• Full Tilt Poker
• Ultimate Bet
• Absolute Poker
• OnGame Network skins (Not all skins)
• Boss Media Network
• Tain Network
• Tiger Gaming
• Games Grid

Sites for which it may be possible to obtain rakeback deals

• Party Poker
• B2B Network
• Pacific Poker (888.com)(?)

Sites for which no rakeback is available

• Poker Stars
• Paradise Poker

Rake-free Poker

In April 2006 a major sports betting site unveiled a poker room with a difference. Unlike all of the other sites, players at World Poker Exchange (WPEX) pay no rake. Hence, there is no need for a rakeback deal or bonuses, since all players are getting 100% of their rake back.

Given that this is a great deal for the player, it may surprise you that the player base at WPEX remains quite small, with 1000-1500 cash game players at peak times (Poker Site Scout). This can partly be explained by problems with the software, such as disconnects and an unreliable e-mailed hand history system. It is not as yet possible to data mine at WPEX either.

Despite this, to essentially play poker for free, to test your skills against a better calibre of players (in general) for a while, and to help support rake-free poker, I'd say it is worth giving World Poker Exchange a try!