The importance of Rakeback
Rake is the fee charged by the poker room for arranging the games. Poker is a casino game that is not played against the dealer or the house but against other players. The best hand wins the pot and money goes to the winning player. Thus in order to make money the poker room takes a fee in the form of rake from every pot. The proportion of rake taken from the pot is roughly 5%, depending on the poker room. This amount can be anywhere from one cent to five dollars. The tournament fees that poker rooms charge are also considered to be rake.
So what is rakeback? Rakeback is the part of the rake given back to the player. It is a refund of the rake that you have already paid to the poker room. The usual amount of rakeback is 30% of your rake.
Poker rooms do not tell you how much rake you pay; you only see the total amount of rake taken out from each pot. There are two main ways that poker rooms use to calculate your individual rake contribution. These are called shared and contributed.
In the shared method, rake is divided evenly among all players. For example if there are ten players and the rake is $1, each player would be assigned 10 cents of rake. Player does not have to put money to the pot to get assigned rake, and it does not matter if you fold pre-flop.
In the contributed method, players must contribute money to the pot to get an assigned rake. Each player’s rake is proportionate to the amount of his pot contribution. If you were to contribute $50 to a pot of $150 and the rake taken from that pot was $3, you would get credited with $1 rake.