What is Rakeback

Online Poker Rakeback is the most profitable promotion since the introduction of "welcome bonuses". Unfortunately, while every online poker room draws in traffic from generous first-time deposit matches, not every online poker room supports Rakeback.

Online poker Rakeback is the service of giving a player back a percentage of the rake from each hand they are involved in. In order to better explain how Rakeback works, we first need to define the "poker rake".

Online Poker Rake

Online poker rooms stand to gain nothing from their operation alone. Players compete against each other, not the "house". So, to compensate for this, online poker rooms collect a small rake from cash game pots. This keeps the online poker room running, paying for administration fees and other costs.

The industry standard rake is 5%, capped at either $3 or $5, though $3 is more common. In order for a hand to be raked, it must surpass the typical 'No Flop, No Drop' policy, which states that any hand that does not move on to see a Flop will not be raked. If a hand is not raked, no Rakeback will be paid.

Online Poker Rakeback

Players can receive a percentage of each raked pot deposited back into their bankroll by signing up for a Rakeback program. There are several types of online poker Rakeback deals to choose from, depending on the poker room you are playing at. The standard Rakeback deals are:

- Contributed Rakeback

- Dealt Rakeback

- Shared Rakeback

Contributed Rakeback rewards players with a percentage of Rakeback based on the amount they actually contributed to a raked pot.

Examples of Contributed Rakeback: Ultimate Bet, Absolute Poker, Aced, Minted Poker

Dealt Rakeback works in the exact same manner as Shared Rakeback except that players are not required to contribute to the raked pot in order to receive a Rakeback. So long as you are dealt cards, you may fold immediately and still be eligible to earn Rakeback on the hand.

Examples of Dealt Rakeback: Full Tilt Poker, Poker Heaven

Shared Rakeback means that the rake is divided equally among each participating player (those who contributed to the pot), then pays out Rakeback percentages based on that median amount.

Examples of Shared Rakeback: Cake Poker, Players Only

Finding Online Poker Rake back Deals

If you've spent a decent amount of time playing online poker, you may be wondering why you've never seen an online poker room promoting Rakeback. This is because the online poker rooms don't actually promote Rakeback. Only 3rd party poker sites such as FTRake are able to offer Rake back deals.

FTRake makes a deal with the online poker room which allows them to offer Rakeback, but in order for a player to take advantage of it, they must join the online poker room using FTRake links and/or Coupon Codes when signing up.

To learn more about Online Poker Rakeback, please view the following pages:

Choosing Rakeback Deals

Shared Rakeback

Contributed Rakeback

Dealt Rakeback

Calculating Rakeback