What is Online Poker Rakeback?
Very often online poker players find out about rakeback when it is too late. So please read this article about rakeback before you sign up at a poker room.
Introduction to Rakeback
In a nutshell, rakeback is a promotion that was introduced a few years ago by some online poker rooms seeking to attract high volume players. The most important thing to know is that in almost all cases, you can only get rakeback at a room if you join as a new player there.
If you are already a loyal player at any poker room, you will normally not be allowed to switch from the regular non-rakeback program to their rakeback program. This is why it is so important to do some homework first before signing up at any online poker room.
Other than that, the good news is that rakeback is a very lucrative deal if you are a regular player so you should not pass on it, as no other incentive or promotion can surpass a good rekeback deal.
Rakeback simply means that you will get back a fraction of the rake that you generate. That fraction is usually somewhere around 25-35%. For example we offer a 27% Full Tilt Poker Rakeback. Note that this also includes a 100% bonus up to $600 if you use our Full tilt bonus code.
Rakeback: more details
The way online poker rooms get paid is through the so-called rake, and this old expression is coming from the brick and mortar casinos as well. Unlike casino games such as roulette where the house has an edge, casinos need to take a fee from poker players in order to get compensated for organizing poker games and tournaments.
For ring games, online poker rooms take the rake from each pot if a flop is seen. The rake is normally capped at 5% of the pot or $3, whichever is smaller. For tournaments, the rooms charge the buy-in fee which is often 10% of the buy-in. So when you join a tournament where the entrance fee is $200+$20, it means that $200 goes into the prize pool and $20 is taken by the organizer.
Getting rakeback, you get a share of that rake back into your account. For regular poker players who play large amount of hands, this rakeback can reach significant amounts of money, as each small rakeback amount from each raked hand you get involved with adds up. It could be hundreds of dollars per month, even thousands or more for the highest volume players. So why pass on that?
Many online poker rooms offer a rakeback program, but some persistently refuse to do so and propose instead an internal VIP program. Pokerstars and Bodog are two such cases. These VIP programs tend to be similar type of strong incentivized promotional programs, but their terms are more complicated and they tend to try to make the players captive. Instead rakeback is a simple formula with no string attached.
Some of the most popular rakeback programs are Full Tilt rakeback, Cake Poker rakeback and Absolute Poker rakeback. It does not matter if you prefer tournament or cash games, you will benefit from a rakeback deal in both cases.
The way to get rakeback is very easy. First use a rakeback site like rakebackriches.com and choose one of their offers. Then open an account at the poker room using the specific code or link provided by rakebackriches.com. Once your details are finalized with the poker room such as your username, send them to us in order to add them to our database, so that your rakeback can be tracked properly.
That is all there is to it. From then on your rakeback will be automatically added to your account on a daily basis. Yes we offer daily rakeback here, and most of our competitors only offer monthly or weekly rakeback.