Rakeback Guide

The 'rake' is the amount the poker room removes from each pot, as a fee, for hosting/offering the poker game. The amount taken from each pot varies by limits, but is generally 5% of the total pot. For micro limit players, it can be slightly higher; players at the highest stakes will pay a smaller % of rake.

When you sign up with a poker room through Rake Tracker, you will receive a refund for every $1.00 that you pay in rake. This refund is known as rakeback. No matter what limits you play -- whether you are a professional or just play poker for fun -- receiving rakeback will greatly increase your win-rate, and allow you to make more money.

MGR stands for Monthly Gross Revenue. This is the number your rakeback is based on. MGR is your share of the rake generated in pots you play minus any deductions the poker rooms take out. Deductions might include bonuses, deposit fees, store purchases or other in-house promotions. Some poker rooms deduct all of those items as fees while others do not deduct any. It is always best to make sure what is deducted from your MGR at the poker room of your choice to make sure you are maximizing your rakeback potential. This information is available on the poker site review pages here at Rake Tracker.

Each poker room may have a different term for "Total Rake" or "Net Revenue", but it is essentially the total rake paid by you as calculated by the poker room. When Rake Tracker pays your rakeback, it is always a percentage of your Net Revenue.

In the online poker world, there are at least four different ways that a site will calculate the rake that a player generates.

Dealt: The easiest method of calculating rake generated. It is calculated simply by dividing the rake taken from the table by the amount of players dealt cards in the hand. Example: $1 rake with 10 players dealt cards. Each player would receive $0.10 in MGR attributed to them.

Average Contributed: Contributed rake is calculated by taking the amount of rake taken from the table and dividing it between the players who made a contribution to the pot. A player who folded before the flop and did not contribute at all to the pot would not get credit for any rake. Example: $1 rake with 10 players dealt cards, 4 of which contribute to the pot (including both blinds). Each player would get credit for $0.25 in MGR.

Weighted Contributed: Weighted contributed is like contributed, but is different in the fact that it allocates MGR based on how much of the pot a player contributed to. Example: Three players contributed money to the pot. The pot is $20 with a $1 rake. Player 1 and player 2 each contributed $8 and player 3 contributed the remaining $4. Player 1 and 2 would each receive 40% of the rake in MGR ($0.40) and Player 3 would receive the remaining 20% ($0.20).

Ongame Essence: Essentially they use a weighted contributed method and then adjust the numbers based on a player's skill level. A player who is superior to his opponents will earn fewer points; an inferior player would earn more. Based on reports we have received from players, the calculation is generally no more than +/- 25%. An exact formula has not been released by Ongame.

A rakeback provider is a company that advertises for a poker room or a group of poker rooms. Rakeback providers are paid a percentage of Total Rake for each one of their players. Rake Tracker then gives this payment from the poker room, in the form of rakeback, back to you, the poker player.

The first step is creating an account with Rake Tracker. This carries absolutely no obligation and will allow you to view our members area as well. Once you have logged into your newly created account with Rake Tracker, from the left hand side of any page, select the poker room(s) you are interested in receiving rakeback from and follow the sign up instructions. Within 5 minutes you can begin playing poker and earning rakeback!

Almost all of your rakeback stats are updated daily. If a site does not update daily there will be a note of this. There can sometimes be delays with the rakeback stats updating, but these delays are usually out of our control and are usually not more than a couple of days.

Yes! You will still be able to receive bonuses offered by the poker room and any other promotions offered by the poker room or Rake Tracker if you receive rakeback from Rake Tracker. Most online poker rooms deduct bonuses from your MGR but there are some that do not. This makes those rooms even more attractive to rakeback players. Even if bonuses are deducted it is much better to receive both bonuses and rakeback than either by themselves.

Many sites pay rakeback on a daily or weekly basis directly to your poker account, while some pay rakeback monthly.

For payments that are made monthly, are generally paid during the second week of the month, for the previous month's rakeback that is currently due to you. For example, if you have accumulated $400 in rake back in December, this will be paid to you in January. Though we strive to make the rake back payments to you by the 15th of each month, certain poker rooms automatically make the rake back payment to your poker account. There are times when the rake back payment will be made even later than the 15th due to their poker rake back payment schedule.

Note: You must have a rake back balance of $20 or more from the previous month in order to receive your rake back payment. If you are owed less than that, it will be carried over to the following month and will paid once your total has reached $20. This does not apply to accounts where you are paid automatically by the poker room.

We offer rakeback at many different rooms. Go to the Rakeback Homepage to see all of the offers. You can also see our featured offers by clicking below.

Full Tilt Rakeback
Cake Poker Rakeback

When you start playing at an online poker room they offer incentives to get players to make their first deposit. Most poker rooms require you to deposit a certain amount to receive the bonus. In almost all cases the bonus must be earned meaning you only receive it after playing a certain number of points or generating a certain amount of rake.

Occasionally, poker rooms will offer limited time reload bonuses. These are for existing players and often have the same requirements their first deposit bonus has. Reload bonuses are typically offered for special events to help promote tournaments such as the World Series of Poker while other times they are offered during typically slow times of the year such as holiday weekends. Some poker rooms offer monthly bonuses to their players.

Most poker rooms deduct a cleared bonus from your MGR. This means if you cleared a $200 bonus while generating $400 in rake you would only receive rake back from $200 because the other $200 was deducted from your MGR. If you were receiving 30% rakeback this would mean you would only receive $60 in rakeback instead of $120. Some poker rooms do not deduct any bonuses. This includes poker rooms on Boss Media as well as Cryptologic. If you were playing at those poker rooms you would receive $120 in rakeback in the same scenario.

We suggest looking over the entire Rake Tracker site, particularly if you are new to rakeback or our site. We think it will not only answer your questions, but could possibly provide you with a deeper understanding of rakeback and the effect the rake has on poker. Our prompt customer service can answer almost all your questions as well. Click here to contact us!