Looking after you margins Pt2 .. Rakeback

I’m always amazed how many people playing regular poker at a fairly decent level still don’t have a clue about rakeback. Rakeback can make a bad month look Ok, when it comes to getting an edge it is one of the biggest ways to boost that bank roll month after month.

To be fair most of the mid level semi-pro grinders have decent deals set up, but it’s always worth keeping an eye out and making sure the figures add up, as an example below will demonstrate.

First of all, what is rake back?
sorry to those of you sucking eggs here)

Rakeback usually applies to cash games (but some rooms do offer to return a % of tournament entry fees as well). In each hand the house takes a % of the pot, this is usually 3% capped at £3 (as Rob mentioned in the comments from the previous post there is a $3 cap on the $ tables so why does anyone play the £ table!?!?!?). Rakeback is where the house will credit you back with a % of the rake that you have contributed over the previous month.


How do you get it?

Several methods of receiving rakeback….

1: Contact the poker room direct and ask for a deal, you are more likely to get a deal if you play a lot of poker.
2: Sign up with an affiliate who will pay you the rakeback themselves (some risk here!)
3: Sign up with an affiliate who has a deal with the poker room so that the room will credit your account direct. (as search on the web will reveal numerous examples)
4: Sign up direct with one of the growing number of rooms who are offering rakeback to each and every person on the site, irrespective of the amount they play.


Is it worth while!?…

Rakeback can turn a non-profit making player into a profitable one, it’s as simple as that… it’s not unusual for people to receive £1K + per month in rakeback. As a rule the more you play the better the deal, 20%-35% is the norm. Some of the guys who multi table 24x7 receive several thousand pounds per month in rakeback alone. As a rough guide you will get about £70 per 1000 hands playing £2/5 NL on a 30% RB deal. If you are playing 30000 hands a month, you are earning significantly more than the annual UK wage just in rakeback.


Things to keep an eye out for…

If you are going to do the deal through an affiliate then do some research and get one that is reliable. Try and get one that has the poker room pay direct into your account. There have been some horror stories of affiliates doing a runner with the monthly payments. If in doubt it is possible to negotiate direct with the poker room in some cases.

The headline % is not always what it seems to be. I was caught out with this for a month when a rival poker room offered me a better deal. You need to ask if the % rakeback is based on your gross rake generated or the net rake (after the room has deducted costs).

Several months ago I was on a 25% deal … this was based on the gross rake I generated. So if I generated 4K rake in a month I’d get 1k back.

I was then offered a 30% deal. However, it was not obvious this was based on net rake after poker room costs. The costs were 30%. So the net rake was only paid on 70% of my gross rake generated!

70% of 4K is 2.8K…
30% of 2.8K is 840…. I’m loosing out to the tune of £160 a month!!! WTF!

A lot of players are still on this deal with a well known card room and accept their monthly payments without question…like I said it pays to check the numbers and look after your margins.

For those of you with poker tracker I’ve got a useful bit of code that you can drop into the Access database. This will work out how much rakeback you should be receiving on a monthly basis. Drop me a mail if you want a copy.


Cheers,

Jim