You've come to PokerVIP because you want the best rewards and the most aggressive rakeback deals in the industry. Smart decision.
Rakeback and rewards make up a significant portion of most players' profits, but how rake is calculated is often overlooked. If you're a particularly tight player you will enjoy greater rewards from a site with dealt rakeback, and if you're playing a lot of pots you want a site that recognises the amount of hands you actually play!
This short article will run through the different rake methods and the sites that use them.
Live Poker Rake Method
It's easy to forget poker existed long before the internet or even the first computer. Although some casinos charge players an hourly fee, the house usually covers its costs by taking a % out of every pot (just like online poker). The difference is that in a live game it's only the winner of the pot who "pays" the rake. No online poker site calculates the rake in this way.
Dealt Rake Method
This is the exact opposite of the rake method adopted in live poker games where the winner of the pot pays the full rake. Every player dealt into the hand is deemed to have contributed an equal share of the rake into the pot. This method favours tight players as they're being rewarded for paying rake that they're seldom really paying.
Average Contributed Rake Method
A step up from the dealt rake method, the average contributed rake method requires players to contribute to the pot. This means that all players who see the flop are deemed to have contributed an equal share of the rake. Although this is definitely more fair than the dealt rake method, it's by no means perfect and still doesn't take into account how much money each player contributes.
Weighted Contributed Rake Method
Also known as the paid rake method, the weighted contributed rake method is widely agreed to be the fairest of all the conventional rake methods. It calculates the percentage of the pot that each player has contributed and divides the rake paid accordingly.