What to Do After Comparing Rake
Volume Changes Everything
If you play fewer than 200 hands per day, the base rake percentage matters more than anything else. Rakeback programs can’t compensate for a high starting rake when your volume is low. At this level, CoinPoker’s 5% rake with low caps beats sites offering higher rakeback on a steeper base.
At 500+ hands per day, the equation flips. Rakeback structure becomes the dominant factor because you’re generating enough volume to climb reward tiers. GGPoker’s system can return up to 60% for serious grinders, and the larger player pool means you can stay in profitable games longer without running out of action.
At nosebleed stakes — NL500 and above — rake caps matter most. The difference between a $3 cap and a $5 cap translates to over $100,000 per year at 1,000 hands per day.
Game Selection Matters More Than Rake
A site charging 3% rake with tough regulars will cost you more than a site charging 5% rake with recreational players. The rake calculator tells you the cost of playing — it doesn’t tell you how much you’ll win. For that, you need to factor in field softness.
This is where CoinPoker and BC Poker stand out. Crypto poker sites consistently attract more recreational players than legacy platforms. A player winning 5 BB/100 before rake at a site taking 8 BB/100 in effective rake is actually a losing player. If you haven’t already, it’s worth checking how your site compares using the calculator above.
Don’t Ignore Rakeback Structure
Raw rake numbers only tell half the story. A site with 5% rake and 33% rakeback has an effective rake of 3.35%. A site with 3% rake and no rakeback costs you the full 3%. The net cost depends on your volume, your tier, and how the rakeback is distributed — upfront vs. monthly, flat vs. tiered. Our variance calculator can help you model how different rake structures affect your bankroll over time.
Test Before You Commit
Most sites offer deposit bonuses that effectively reduce your rake for the first few months. Use that window to test whether the games, software, and player pool fit your style. The cheapest site on paper isn’t always the most profitable one in practice.
Start with the complete site comparison to see how rake fits into the bigger picture — traffic, game selection, withdrawal speed, and overall value.
Full Rake Comparison
The following table shows:
- Rake per player per 100 hands: How much rake each player has to pay over the course of 100 hands.
- Net Rake: Average rake percentage after cap and no flop no drop rule are taken into account
- Formal Rake: Cash game rake conditions (percentage and cap)
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 to 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 million data mined No Limit Hold’em (limits $0.02 / $0.05, $0.25 / $ 0.50, $0.50 / $1.00, $1.00 / $2.00) cash game hands and scaled up and down for all other limits. This slightly overestimates average pot sizes for higher stakes and underestimates pot sizes for lower stakes. Thus the absolute rake for higher and lower stakes might be over- or underestimated. 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).
GGPoker Big Hand Jackpot extra rake
GGPoker charges an additional 1BB once the pot equals or 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 out in the (very) long run. The net rake is not affected by this jackpot.
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