Texas Hold’em Accounts: Rakeback Explained

By Sarah Borroum

When you decide to give Texas Hold’em a try, you might hear something about rakeback. What is this, and why should you care? Because rakeback puts money back into your pocket, you should take the time to understand this deal before you create a Texas Hold’em account.

Texas Hold’em sites, like brick-and-mortar casinos, charge a rake. When you buy in to a tournament, part of the entry fee goes to the house. And every time you win a pot in a cash game, part of the money “the rake” goes to the house.

Typically, the house collects a small percentage of the pot for the rake. You won”t often pay more than one or two percent of the pot. This does not seem like much money, especially when you consider that many card rooms cap the rake at a set dollar amount. (You cannot, in most card rooms, pay more than a few bucks per pot even if one of the pots is huge.)

However, if you win enough pots or enter enough tournaments, you will end up giving the house quite a bit of money. That’s how the card rooms stay in business, so they’re counting on the rake.

Rakeback simply puts part of the rake back into your hands. Rakeback sites have worked out deals with online-poker sites so that everybody can make some money. Here’s how rakeback works.

You sign up for a Texas Hold’em site through a rakeback affiliate. Typically, you will either enter a special code that the rakeback site gives you or follow the signup link that’s listed on their site.

Whenever you pay a rake, the Hold’em site keeps part of the money. Another part of the rake goes to the rakeback affiliate. The rest – thirty-five percent or more, depending on the affiliate – goes into your account at the rakeback site.

Hold’em sites make deals with rakeback affiliates for money. Rakeback attracts players to that poker site, which means that more money is going to the site. Pro-rakeback sites make more by giving you, and the affiliate, some of the profit.

However, you should not expect to avoid paying anything at all in the way of a rake. The poker site will still collect part of your rake – and the rakeback affiliate gets a cut as well. Think of rakeback as a discount on what you owe the house when you win a pot.

Not all rakeback sites are equal, though, so you should do some research before you sign up. Find out which sites offer the best deals and have the best reputations. You don’t often get to add rakeback to your Texas Hold’em account after you sign up, so you need to make the right decision the first time.

Signing up for rakeback is a free, easy way to get a discount on the rake. A few minutes of research before you sign up for a poker account can save you hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on the rake depending on how much you play.