Know Your Poker Room’s Rake Rates

You might think that rake rates are completely irrelevant to winning money at poker online. After all, the room is going to a cut of the pot whether you win or lose, right? And in your case, you’re losing all the time anyway, so what does it matter?

Well it’s not the most important part of the game, but it may be worth knowing. Especially if you’re signing up with a deposit bonus (like the 100% bonuses offered to the US-friendly sites we support, Cake Poker and Full Tilt). If you deposit $600, and get a $600 bonus, the rate at which you will be able to withdraw that bonus is based on the rake, and how much the poker rooms make from the games you play. Either based on Frequent Player Points (FPP), or the rake itself.

For instance, Cake Poker gives you 1 FPP per $1 of rake, with each point worth $0.06 of your bonus (they also give you 7 points per $1 of tournament fees you spend). So to access your $600 bonus, you are going to have to participate in games generating $10,000 worth of rake income (or spend $1428.57 joining tournaments).

Obviously, that’s the biggest scenario, and if you are dumping $600 on your first deposit, you are going to be playing with some pretty large pots. If you deposit something like $60, it will be much easier to make that back with $1000 worth of rake money to the room. I’ll talk more about comparing bonus win back rates at another time (so you better subscribe to my feed, loser!)

Some rooms take higher rakes than others. For instance, in a FL $2/$4 game with under 4 players, Cake Poker is raking $0.50 for every $20 in the pot (2.5%) to a maximum of $1. Full Tilt rakes $0.50 per $10 (5%) to a maximum of $1. So using Cake Poker as an example again, you will be earning 1 FPP per hand, or $0.06 of your bonus for every hand you play this fixed limit game.

In a No Limit $1/$2 game with 5 players, Cake Poker is raking $0.05 per every $1 (or 5%) to a maximum of $2. Full Tilt will rake $0.05 for every $1.00 in the pot, to a maximum of $3.00 per pot.

Playing high stakes? In a No Limit $100/$200 game, Cake Poker is raking $5 per pot in a 6 player game. Full Tilt rakes $1 per pot (that goes up to $3 per pot with more than 6 players).

Both these rooms (and most others) have a “No Flop, No Drop” policy, where if everyone folds before the flop, no rake is taken.

Knowing this information may or may not be relevant to you, depending on how tedious you are with your money. But there it is for you. More importantly, I will be discussing bonus win back rates, which ranges quite a bit from room to room.