This Online Poker Rake Comparison and Rake Calculator shows how much rake players effectively pay when playing online poker cash games and which poker sites are the least and most expensive.
When playing online poker cash games, approximately 5% of each pot is retained for the provider. In most cases, the rake is capped at $3 to $5 and is only taken if there is a flop. This doesn’t sound like a very much, but it amounts to a substantial amount over a longer period of time. This comparison show just how much rake you have to pay on each poker site.
Online Poker Rake Calculator
The following table shows:
- Cash game rake conditions (percentage and cap)
- Total rake that is taken from the table every 100 hands
- Rake per player every 100 hands
- Net rake
You can pick the poker variant, stakes and number of players to see how much rake you will pay on average on each different poker site.
Full Rake Comparison
The following table shows:
- Formal Rake: Cash game rake conditions (percentage and cap)
- Net Rake: Average rake percentage after cap and no flop no drop rule are taken into account
- Rake per player per 100 hands: How much rake each player has to pay over the course of 100 hands.
You can pick the poker variant and the number of players.
What is Net Rake?
When playing cash games, a certain amount of money is taken from each pot for the operator. There are two parameters defining the rake:
- Percentage: How many percent are taken from each pot (usually between 3% and 5% for online games)
- Cap: Once the rake reaches the cap no more rake is deducted for that pot (usually the cap is $3 to $5 for online games)
On top of that virtually all operators have a no-flop-no-drop rule. Meaning: No rake is collected if the hand is over before a flop is dealt. The GGNetwork is the exception to this rule. Here a hand is raked once there is a 3-bet or a flop. This rule is taken into account in this rake comparison.
Percentage and cap don’t really tell you how much rake you have to pay for a certain game and make it difficult to compare different rake models. For example: Playing $1 / $2 NLH, is it better to have pay 3% rake with a $5 cap or 5% rake with a $3 cap?
To answer this question and allow a general comparison of rake models, I use something called “Net Rake”. This is how much money you actually spend in rake compared to the pots you are playing. I explain below how I calculate the net rake. Over the long term this amount is basically the amount of rake you pay compared to the pots you win. Due to rake caps and the no flop no drop rule this number is always lower than the formal rake percentage, even considerably lower for high stakes cash games.
How is the net rake for the rake comparison calculated?
To calculate how much rake players actually pay at each limit, I took a huge sample of real-life online poker hands and compiled a list of all pot sizes in big blinds. Then it is easy to use the formal rake rules for each operator and limit to calculate how much rake is deducted for each pot. The no-flop-no-drop-rule (in the case of the GGNetwork the rule that hands are only raked if there is a flop or a 3-bet preflop) was taken into account as well.
This method gives a pretty decent estimation, how much rake each player has to pay on average for each limit.
Please note that the rake a player has to pay heavily depends on his play style. Loose players always pay way more than tight players.
There is a small caveat though: The real-life data I used is from several 100k datamined NLH100 cash game hands and scaled up and down for all other limits. This most likely over-estimates average pot sizes for higher stakes and under-estimated pot sizes for lower stakes. Thus the absolute rake for higher and lower stakes might be over- or under-estimated. But this doesn’t change the relative differences between operators or the net rake by a significant amount.
If you want to help me out and improve this comparison with better real-life data from other stakes, feel free to send me a message (info@primedope.com).
Notes
This rake comparison and calculator is going to be expanded, adding rake information for all operators, networks and game variants over the next weeks. Please leave a comment if you any suggestions or feature requests.
More Information
- Complete Online Poker Site Comparison
- What is Rake? (Wikipedia)
Hi do you think you can add nl1k on gg?
this is awesome, thank you so much for this!
At pokerstars zoom now has antes at 25nl, is that taken into account?
Hi Michael, the antes don’t change the way rake works or is calculated. BUT antes imply bigger pots and thus more average rake per hand.
GG changed PLO and 6+ rake structure last week, can you update? Great work by the way
Thanks :). Updated with the new PLO / 6+ rake structure over at the GGNetwork.
If the rake is the same (for.ex. micro 888, party 0.02) in PLO and NLH, it is shown, the same rake, but it is not true, because pots in omaha is higher !!!
You are correct. Right now the calculator only uses samples from NLH hands. For PLO pots are usually bigger and thus the rake is higher. But the relative difference between operators is largely unaffected by this.
I’m planning on adding real live PLO data at some point in the future, but most likely not within the next weeks.
Can you also add Unibet in the comparison? Thx
Unibet added.
Sorry guys, but the poker stars rake for Europe seems wrong
“PokerStars Europe” here means PokerStars.fr, PokerStars.es and the like. They have a separate player pool and different rake structure than the rest of PokerStars.
PokerStars.eu is the regular PokerStars (the former .com PokerStars).
Okay thank you!
Nice on, I was thinking same as Bruce.
Hi! Congrats and thank you for all this work. I wanted to know the following: The net rake in fast fold nl10 at GGPoker right now is 3.57%. Taking into consideration rackeback it would be correct if i say that the “true net rake” is lower than 3.57%?
Srry for my bad english!
Hi, thank you!
Yes, you’re correct. After considering cashback (e.g. via fish buffet) the true net rake will be quite a bit lower.
Hello Have you include in gg network the big jackpot hand in the rake ? Thanks
Hi, no this is not included.
GGPoker charges an additional 1BB once the pot exceeds 30BB for the Big Hand Jackpot. But in the long run the Jackpot is re-distributed evenly among all players and no additional fee is taken.
Meaning: The jackpot charge and the payouts cancel each other in the (very) long run. The net rake is not affected by this jackpot.
Hey on partypoker rake is taken 3bet preflop same like ggpoker ?
As far as I am aware, partypoker still has the no flop no drop rule. Truth be told, I haven’t played there for ages, but I cannot find any mentioning of them raking 3-bet pots pre-flop.
Amazing!! This calculator also consider the rakeback?
Thanks. Not yet. I’m working on adding rakeback information, but this will take some more time.
Would it not be super simple? For example on WPN, rake * .73 = true rake.
This is awesome. I played plo on winamax and rake bb/100 was spot on over like 100k sample. Maybe adding pokerbros would be cool as it’s becoming more popular but their rake structure is a bit fluid imo as the % changes from like 5-10% in lower limits I think based on how big the pot was.
Thanks. I’ll look into PokerBros and PPP, but cannot promise anything as I cannot seem to find any reliable information about the rake structure at those pseudo play money poker clubs.
Yeah it’s a problem, this is what they sent me:
5% up to….
Short table reduce half fee
.05/.1 8bb cap (Max .80$)
.1/.2 6bb (Max 1.2)
.2/.4~3/.6 5bb (Max 2~3)
.5/1 4bb (Max 4)
1/2 3bb (Max 6)
2/4 2.5bb (Max 10)
3/6~5/10 2bb (Max 12 ~ 20)
10/20 1bb (Max 20)
But problem is that it differes whether you play games w antes or not in regards to cap and also whitin the same games rake goes from 10-5% depending the size of the pot so def weird.
Max’s reply refers to the Diamond union and is correct, but there is also an approximate 1.5% extra on-top of the rake taken for the BBJ which is of course in reality, more rake.
Hi,
according to my database, partypoker rake 4.59$/100Hands at 50NL and 2.2$/100Hands at 25nl, why these significant differences ? (35K hands sample)
Hi Lucas, the rake you personally pay heavily depends on your play style. Looser players pay more rake than tighter players, for example.
Also, right now my calculator / comparison relies on data I collected from NLH ring games. Rake for fast fold games will be lower (because those games usually see fewer flops and less action) and for PLO games rake will be higher (because those games see way more big pots).
In the foreseeable future I will update the calculator with data from fast fold games and PLO games to provide more accurate numbers. But the rake numbers will always be average values for the entire player base as the individual rake depends on the play style of the specific player. The rake calculator still gives a good comparison between poker sites and networks.
Really nice content – thank you for producing it!
It would be great if there was an option to enter custom rake percentage and cap and see the resulting net rake or rake in bb/100.
Also, I believe GG rakes preflop if there is a 3bet or more. And I think you’ve used the regular speed rake structure – it would be great to see the rush & cash rake in bb/100 as well (which I believe is significantly lower).
Great site overall!
Hey Lewis, thanks for your remarks. Your suggestion for custom rake percentage and cap sounds great, will add it asap.
Right now this tool is still a work in progress. I’ll add more options and game types (rush, short deck) in the coming days and weeks.
And yes, GGPoker rakes as soon as there’s a 3-bet. This is not yet reflected in charts and tables above. Will adjust this as well.
Great info and nice site. Thanks!
Question: Where do you see that GG poker rake is taken preflop (after a 3bet) I can’t find that info on there website. Is that both NL and PLO ?
Heya, thanks. Yes, rake is taken after a 3bet or once the hand goes to the flop for all cash games.
See this incredibly brief q&a on their site: https://help.ggpoker.com/article/1837-are-hands-raked-pre-flop
On partypoker rake is taken 3bet preflop ?