Poker Rake: What is a Poker Rake?

What is a Poker Rake? If you’ve ever played cash game poker in a casino, you’ve probably seen the dealer taking chips out of the pot during most hands. Those chips are the casino’s rake. A percentage of the chips wagered at the table is kept by the house or casino while the game is being played. This is called a rake.

History of Poker

Poker originated in the United States in the early 19th century and has since grown into a trendy hobby throughout the rest of the world. In 1837, the poker game was played in the United States with a standard pack of 52 cards. However, a Persian game called As-Nas used 20 cards and five cards for each player, which is debated to be the original form of Poker due to its similarities.

Additional evidence suggests that a game called poque, a French game similar to poker was played around the region where poker is said to have originated. However, there are questions about whether or not the name came from the Irish Game of Poca.

Poker’s popularity increased dramatically in the early 21st century because of the introduction of online poker and hole-card cameras. These technologies made the game more accessible, so it was no longer necessary to travel to a casino or even be at a table.

How is a Casino Rake Collected?

There are three standard methods of collecting rake (ordered from least to most common):

• Pot Rake

Rake is a percentage of each pot taken by the house. Pot rake generally ranges from 2.5% to 10% of the pool, with a maximum amount depending on the game and house rules. Some card rooms don’t rake until the flop. This is usually called “no flop, no drop” — if you win the preflop blinds, you get to keep it all!

• Time Collection 

Time collection is a set fee collected (typically) every half-hour during the game. It’s collected in one of two ways:

1. The more a player plays, the more that player can potentially lose. This is why rake is so essential.
2. Time rakes might be unavoidable, but they tend to be lower in limit games.

• Fixed Rake 

The dealer places a set amount of money in the pot before the hand starts, which is taken by the winner, or a predetermined amount of money is set aside for each hand to be used for the dealer’s commission.

How Should a Poker Rake Influence You?

The rake is 10%, whereas 6% is the industry average. What will this mean for your bankroll? In short, you’ll have to play more tight games and use a range that prevents marginal edges. Your preflop range will also change since we allow some bluffs. A higher rake increases the impact of preflop decisions on how you should play the hand post-flop, which will make your preflop decisions tighter. For example, calling with hands like ATo or QQo to get value from bluffs.

When you play tighter, you are forced into making more marginal-value bets, more bluffs, and in general, play a more aggressive style. But now that you’re playing tighter, you become less profitable.

How Much is the Rake in Poker?

The rake is the portion of the pot that the casino or bookmaker (or whoever is hosting the game) takes as income. Rake typically ranges between 5%–25% of the pool at most casinos and online poker rooms. Most poker games generate rake from every pot. The amount you get charged per hand depends on where you play (casinos usually have higher rakes than online poker sites), how much you bet, and even the game type.

Tournament Poker Rake

The rake in tournament poker is taken alongside the entry fee. Some rooms may even break down what part of the fee is buyin and what part is the rake. For example, if an entry is $5 + $0.50, it means that $5 goes to the prize pool while $0.50 goes directly to the room as payment for running the tournament. If a tournament takes place every day and there are 10% of the chips paid out as rake, it means that the total amount of chips in the tournament is approximately 9% smaller.

Rake Cap, What is it?

The poker rake cap is the maximum amount of rake that a player can incur in a cash game. It is specified by the site as a percentage of the buy-in. So if you have a $10/$20 No-Limit Hold ’em table. The rake cap is also a hard limit on how much rake can be deducted from a hand, and it works in conjunction with the rake percentage to determine how much rake is removed from each hand.

What is a Rakeback?

Rakeback is a verb used in poker to indicate that a player has received their share of money from the pot. After a poker room takes rake, it’s common for the room to give back some of that poker rake in the form of rewards. If a poker room offers an extra bonus for you to play more hands, then that is effectively considered as Rakeback, even if it’s not called Rakeback.

What is a ‘No Flop No Drop’? 

‘No flop, no drop’ is a standard poker expression which means that no rake will be taken from the pot unless a flop is seen. In most poker rooms, if you fold out before the flop, your hand will be raked. But there are some poker rooms that will rake the pot even if the flop isn’t seen. You might think it’s common sense to raked out before the flop, but for some poker rooms, you’ll get charged a pot even if you don’t see the flop.

Conclusion

Many players don’t think about how much they are paying in rake when they jump into a new game without thinking, so it is a good idea to keep track of your rake in each game to determine which games are best for you. Rake is the amount a casino extracts from every hand of online poker played at their site. The amount can be as much as 10 percent, and when the rake is high enough, it actually makes it impossible to earn a profit on a given a hand.

​When you’re planning on playing a game of poker, you may want to spend some time analyzing the rules, as well as the standard payouts for each kind of outcome and the poker rake. Just as when purchasing an item, it makes sense to see if you are getting a reasonable deal before making the decision to go ahead.