Poker Rake and Rakeback Explained: What Playing Really Costs

Poker rake is the fee a poker site charges for hosting the game: a small percentage of each cash-game pot, up to a cap, or a fee added to each tournament buy-in. Rakeback is any scheme that returns part of that fee to you as cash, points or bonuses. Rake is the main ongoing cost of playing poker, so it is worth understanding before you sit down.

What is poker rake?

In poker you play against other players, not against the house. The site does not win or lose on any hand, so it earns its money by taking rake instead. Because rake comes out of raked pots and tournament entries, players as a group always receive back less than they put in. Even someone who breaks even at the tables before rake is losing money after it.

How rake is taken in cash games

In cash games the site takes a percentage of each pot, usually as the pot is built, and the winner receives what is left.

• The percentage: commonly around 5% of the pot, although it can be a little lower or higher depending on the site, the game and the stake.
• The cap: a maximum amount of rake per hand. Caps usually vary with the stake and the number of players at the table.
• No flop, no drop: at most sites, if a hand ends before the flop is dealt, no rake is taken. (If you are unsure what the flop is, see how to play Texas Hold'em.)

As an illustration only, imagine a table with 5% rake and a £2 cap. A £20 pot pays £1 in rake. A £100 pot would pay £5 at 5%, but the cap limits it to £2. These numbers are examples, not any site's actual charges. Every licensed site publishes its own rake page, and you should check it before you play.

How rake is taken in tournaments

Tournament rake is simpler. It is the fee part of the buy-in, and it is usually shown separately. A tournament listed as £10 + £1 puts £10 into the prize pool and pays £1 to the site, so you spend £11 in total.

Fees are commonly around 5% to 10% of the buy-in and tend to be a smaller percentage at higher buy-ins, though formats vary. In bounty events the buy-in is split three ways between the prize pool, the bounty and the fee. If you re-enter, you pay the fee again each time. Our poker tournament strategy guide covers the formats in more detail.

Why rake matters more at low stakes

The percentage may be similar at every stake, but the cap is not. At the lowest stakes pots are too small to reach the cap, so the full percentage comes out of almost every pot that sees a flop. At higher stakes, big pots hit the cap and the effective rate falls.

Compare two pots that are both 60 big blinds, using the same illustrative 5% rake:

• At 2p/5p, a £3 pot pays 15p in rake. That is three big blinds.
• At £1/£2 with a £3 cap, a £120 pot pays £3 instead of £6. That is one and a half big blinds.

Measured in big blinds, the low-stakes player pays twice as much in this example. Small amounts also add up: an average of 2p in rake per hand comes to £200 over 10,000 hands.

Example rake costs

The table uses illustrative figures (5% cash-game rake with the caps shown) to show how the sums work. Real charges differ from site to site.

Game	Pot or buy-in	Example rake	Effective cost
2p/5p cash game	£3 pot	15p (cap not reached)	5% of the pot
10p/25p cash game	£15 pot	75p (cap not reached)	5% of the pot
£1/£2 cash game, £3 cap	£120 pot	£3 (capped)	2.5% of the pot
Any cash game	Pot won before the flop	Nothing	0%
Tournament	£10 + £1	£1	About 9.1% of the £11 paid
Tournament	£100 + £8	£8	About 7.4% of the £108 paid

What are rakeback and loyalty schemes?

Rakeback returns part of the rake you have paid. It comes in several forms:

• Flat rakeback: a fixed percentage of your rake paid back, often weekly. At an illustrative 20%, £50 of rake would return £10.
• Loyalty or VIP schemes: you earn points for the rake you generate and exchange them for cash, tournament tickets or bonuses. Higher tiers usually return more.
• Leaderboards and rake races: prizes for the players who generate the most rake or points in a period.
• Missions and reward chests: rewards of varying value for completing set tasks.

Rakeback reduces the cost of playing; it does not remove it. Be wary of playing longer or at higher stakes just to reach a reward tier, as the extra rake and risk usually outweigh the reward.

How rake-released welcome bonuses work

Most poker welcome bonuses are not paid up front. The bonus sits in a pending balance and is released in instalments as you generate rake, within a time limit. Many poker rooms run their games in US dollars, so the terms are often quoted that way.

A typical structure releases $1 of bonus for every $5 of rake you pay. On those terms, a $600 bonus needs $3,000 of rake to clear in full (600 × 5 = 3,000). While you are clearing it, that works out to the equivalent of 20% rakeback.

The headline figure can mislead a low-stakes player. If you generate $250 in rake before the deadline, you receive $50 and the remaining $550 expires. Always read the release rate, the instalment size and the time limit in the terms, and treat the bonus as a discount on rake, not as free money.

Contributed vs dealt rake

Sites need a way to decide how much rake each player has "paid" for rakeback and bonus purposes. There are two main methods.

• Dealt: the rake from a hand is credited equally to every player who was dealt cards, whether or not they put money in the pot.
• Contributed: rake is credited only to players who put money into the pot. In the widely used weighted contributed version, your share matches the proportion of the pot you put in.

Say a six-player hand generates £1 of rake from a £20 pot, and you put in £8. Under the dealt method you are credited with about 17p (one sixth). Under weighted contributed you are credited with 40p (8/20 of £1). If you had folded without putting anything in, you would get about 17p under dealt and nothing under contributed. Players who fold most hands therefore earn rewards more slowly under contributed methods.

Keeping rake costs sensible

• Read the rake page and compare percentages, caps and tournament fees between sites.
• Count rewards at what you will realistically earn at your volume, not at the headline rate.
• Include rake when you plan your budget. Our guide to poker bankroll management explains how.
• Only play at sites licensed in Britain, where terms must be set out clearly. See is online poker legal in the UK.

Where to play

Rake structures, loyalty schemes and bonus release rates all differ between rooms. We set out the key terms side by side in our comparison of the best UK poker sites.

Play responsibly

You must be 18 or over to play. Rakeback and bonuses lower the cost of poker but never guarantee a profit, and short-term results depend on luck. Set a budget you can afford to lose, do not play more to chase rewards, and visit BeGambleAware.org for free advice and support.