Rakeback has been offered for as long as online poker rooms have existed, as a method to attract players to their sites. As more and more poker rooms joined the market, so Rakeback became increasingly important to the poker player. Rakeback provides a "second income" from poker winnings and taking a few minutes to search for the deal that suits you best can have positive changes on your game that you never expected! In fact rakeback has had such an impact on the modern online game that it has created a whole strategy of its own, which can be read about in the life of a rakeback pro.
Below are 10 of the most important reasons for adding a rakeback deal to your arsenal....
Rake races and rake chases!
With the competition between the poker rooms becoming more fierce, Rake
races and rake chases were introduced to encourage players to play more
at their sites. These races occur normally once a month and
prizes are in the thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
You can read more about rake races here,
and for a full description of what rake races and rake chases are click here.
Freerolls!
Poker rooms and affiliates will often provide players earning rakeback
with monthly exclusive freerolls. As these are only for members of a
particular site or network, these fields can often be very small and as
such be a nice payday when you finish in the money. At the Pokerpod, we
currently offer monthly rakeback freerolls at Ultimate Bet,
Absolute Poker
and Cake Poker.
Maximize your winnings,
and importantly, minimize your losses! If
your a winning poker player, rakeback can add significantly to your
overall win/loss rate at the end of the month/year. Many professional
online players rely on this, together with deposit bonuses to earn
their wage. A winning player will see his profit and then
each week/month see another chunk added on from their rakeback
returns!. Likewise, if a player has a bad month, rakeback can bring their
win/loss rate up to a break even level, and even if they have had a
really bad month, having rakeback coming into your account will
minimize those losses. In fact, in the modern era of online poker, the
majority of players are break even players. The addition of a good
rakeback deals turns them into winning players! You can see from the
win/loss graph below the impact that rakback can have on your bankroll.
You can still take
advantage of bonuses & Promotions!
One of the common misconceptions of having a rakeback deal is that
eligabilty to bonuses and promotions are affected. This is not true.
While some poker rooms may reduce rakeback earnings in relation to a
bonus from your overall MGR,
it does'nt reverse the rewards. Indeed, many poker rooms will not even
deduct it from your rakeback. Due to the competition between the
poker rooms, promotions will rarely, if ever directly affect your
rakeback income.
Micro & Low stakes
payout more rakeback than you may imagine.
If you use our rakeback calculator to project how much you can earn in
a cash ring game, you may be surprised how it adds up over a month.
Assuming that rake is $0.05c for each raked hand lets look at an
example. If you sit down an play an hour on a full cash game and rake
100 hands, you could earn quite easilt up to $7 in rake in a single
session. If you multiply that for the month, you could easily be
looking at $200 per month in rakeback income from just playing lower
stakes cash games! Have a look at the rakeback calculator and see what you could
be earning. 
Get discounts in
tournaments! You get rakeback
whenever you pay rake, that means not just cash games, but in
tournaments and Sit and Go's too. In effect then you are receiving a
discount everytime you play a tournament and these reductions can be up
to 1/3 the cost of the initial buy-in!
Improve your mindset,
improve your play.
As every poker player knows, you play best when your attitude
and mind is totally focused. The knowledge that when you put your chips
in the middle, you will be getting some back regardless can have a
great effect on both your confidence and attitude towards poker. The
article "The life of a rakeback pro"
by the Betus team covers this point in more detail. You can read the
article here.
Rakeback can motivate you!
We've all been there, maybe its been after a few lossing sessions, or
even just a downswing but there are times when the motivation to
get online and play can be a struggle. Having rakeback behind you can
help overcome this due to the added bonuses that rakeback offer. If you
are climbing a rake chase leaderboard, you can track where you are at
the Pokerpod (click here to see the Full Tilt Poker
leaderboard for this month for example)
and may see someone coming up behind you and about to pip your points!
and therefore take away some of your bonus cash! This will soon
motivate even the most stubborn player!
Mastering another poker
strategy. Not all
rooms distribute rake in the same manner. There are two basic rakeback
methods and each is more suitable for a different type of player....- Contributed Rakeback - Contributed rakeback, probably the most common method calculates your MGR from money that you have contributed to the pot, including blinds and antes. So if you dont enter a pot, you will not get rakeback. this method is more suitable to loose/aggressive players who love to get in on the action and for lower stakes players who are likely to see alot more pots. Sites that use this method include Ultimate Bet, Absolute Poker, Fortune Poker, Fat Bet, Poker Nordica, Paradise Poker, Poker Kings, PKR Poker, Action Poker, Carbon Poker, Betfair Poker, Virgin Poker, Aced, NoiQ Poker, and Minted Poker.
- Dealt Rakeback - If you have been dealt cards in a hand, from the poker sites point of view you have paid rake in that hand, even if you didn't see a flop. So, if you are in a 10 handed full ring game and are dealt cards in a hand, and the rake for that hand was $2.00, under the "Dealt" Rakeback method each player is considered to have paid .20 cents in rake. The "Dealt" Rakeback method is the best method for poker players who play a very tight aggressive game style in a full ring game. Any player who plays tight will see fewer flops, but with "Dealt" Rakeback they still earn rakeback for every hand. The following online poker rooms, Full Tilt, Cake Poker, Red Star Poker, Players Only, Doyle's Room and True Poker all use the "Dealt" Rackback method to calculate MGR.
Rakeback accounts open the
doors to other methods of adding to your bankroll.
As many of the poker rooms compete against one another, as do
the rakeback sites, and many different opportunities have opened up for
even the casual player to make money from rakeback. At the Pokerpod we
have a referral system, where you can get paid a percentage of the
lifetime rakeback earnings of players that you refer! You can read more
details of this in our referral center.
You are also able to track your rakeback,bonus offers and referral
earnings
in your account section. If you dont yet have a rakeback account, you are missing out on hundreds, even thousands of dollars of expected profit!
