Rake - What is Rake?
When you play cash games, no matter if it’s online or offline the casino or pokerroom needs to make a profit. No blame to them, it’s not strange that they need to make money some way and the difference with poker compared to other games is that you play against players, not against the bank. What the pokerrooms do then is that they take a small part of the winnings, this is called Rake. The rake is usually a small percentage of the pot and generally about five to ten percent.
Effects of Rake
One of the effects of the use of rake is that players in average lose money. If there was no rake the average loss/profit from poker games would be 0. Another interesting fact is that the beginners don’t suffer as much from the rake as the pros. Many pokerrooms don’t take any rake at all from small pots and the nature of rake makes the difference bigger if you play many hands. Beginners usually play less hands than the Pros (either they win something or the squander away their chips fast). This makes the Pros suffer much more from rake than the beginners but on the other hand, they have Rakeback. Something most pokerrooms offer that is giing back a part of the rake to the player with the rakeback deal. Many a pro makes his or her living from the rakeback, thus making a profit out of the rake itself.
