Poker is the rare casino game where you play against people rather than the house. The house still gets paid, though. Every cash pot you win arrives slightly lighter than the chips that went in, and every tournament you enter costs a little more than the prize pool receives. That difference is the rake, and understanding it matters more than most players realise: at low stakes, rake often decides whether a decent player wins or loses at all. This guide explains what rake is, how it works in cash games and tournaments, and how to compare it between rooms.
What Is Rake in Poker?
Rake is the commission the operator takes for running the game. A dealer physically drops chips from each live pot into a slot in the table; online software deducts it automatically the moment a pot is awarded. The structure varies by room, but nearly every form of rake is one of four types:
- Pot rake: a percentage of each cash-game pot, up to a cap. The standard model in most cash games.
- Tournament fee: a fixed charge on top of the buy-in that goes to the operator instead of the prize pool.
- Time rake: a flat seat charge collected every half hour or hour, used in some live rooms at mid and high stakes instead of pot rake.
- Fixed per-hand rake: rare, but some fast-fold and short-deck formats charge a set amount per hand or per player.
Why Do Poker Rooms Charge Rake?
Because the room has no other way to earn from poker. In blackjack or roulette the house has a built-in mathematical edge; in poker the money simply moves between players. The rake pays for dealers, floor staff, the physical room or the software, security, and payment processing. Live poker rooms in particular are expensive to run relative to the floor space they occupy, which is one reason live rake runs higher than online poker rake and why some casinos treat their poker room as a marketing cost rather than a profit centre.
How Cash Game Rake Works
Cash game rake is taken from the pot, hand by hand. A typical structure has three parts:
- The percentage: commonly around 3–5% online and up to 10% in live rooms, though both vary by operator and stake.
- The cap: the maximum taken from any single pot, regardless of size.
- The trigger: most rooms apply "no flop, no drop", meaning a hand that ends before the flop pays no rake.
So in a live $1/$2 game raking 10% to a $5 cap, a $60 pot pays $5 (the cap), while a $12 pot pays $1.20. Online, a $40 pot at 5% with a $2 cap pays the full $2. The percentage gets the attention, but the cap usually matters more to your bottom line: it decides how much of your big pots the room keeps.
Want actual room-by-room numbers? Our Las Vegas poker room rake comparison lists the current caps, jackpot drops and comp rates at eight major rooms, with verification dates.
Some live rooms replace pot rake with time rake at higher stakes: a fixed collection, often somewhere around $10–$15 per half hour, charged to every seated player. Time rake favours players who play bigger pots, since the cost is flat no matter how much money crosses the table.
What Is a Rake Cap?
The rake cap is the ceiling on what one pot can be charged. Caps commonly scale with stakes and with the number of players dealt in: a micro-stakes online table might cap rake at $0.50, a mid-stakes table at $3, a live $1/$2 game at $4–$6. Two rooms advertising "5% rake" can cost you very different amounts if one caps at $1 and the other at $4, which is why the advertised poker rake percentage alone tells you little. Deep-stacked games with big pots are hit hardest by high caps; short-stacked games full of small pots barely reach the cap and feel the percentage instead.
How Tournament Rake Works
Tournament rake is simpler and more visible. It is charged once, as a fee on top of the buy-in, and usually written out directly: a $100+$9 tournament costs $109, with $100 going to the prize pool and $9 to the operator, a 9% fee on the prize-pool contribution. Once you are playing, no further rake is taken.
Fees commonly land somewhere near 5–10% online, with low-buy-in events often charged proportionally more and high-roller events less. Live tournament fees frequently run higher than online, and some also withhold a percentage for staff. The fee matters enormously for tournament profitability because tournament win rates are measured as return on investment: a player with a 20% ROI in $100 tournaments loses nearly half that edge if the fee rises from $9 to $18. Cash games and tournaments already reward different skills and bankrolls; they are raked differently too.
Online Poker Rake vs Live Poker Rake
Live rake is heavier per pot, essentially everywhere. A live room pays a dealer per table per hour; software deals thousands of tables at once. The common pattern: live rooms take up to 10% with caps of several dollars plus an expected $1–$2 dealer tip from each winner, while online rooms take roughly half the percentage with lower caps and no tipping.
Per hour, the comparison tightens, because live poker deals 20–30 hands an hour against 60–80+ per online table, so there are simply fewer pots to rake. The full picture, from hand volume and field strength through playing costs, is in our online poker vs live poker comparison. The short version for rake: per hand, live costs far more; per hour at one table, the gap narrows; for a multi-tabling online player, total rake paid per hour can actually exceed a live player's, spread across ten times the hands.
How Rake Affects Your Win Rate
Win rates in cash games are measured in big blinds per 100 hands, and rake comes straight off the top. At micro stakes online, rake commonly costs several big blinds per 100 hands, frequently more than a typical winning player's entire win rate. This is the honest answer to why so many solid players break even at the smallest games: they beat the table and lose to the fee.
The effect fades as stakes rise, because caps do not grow as fast as pot sizes. A $5 cap is enormous in a $1/$2 game and trivial at $5/$10. Live low-stakes games carry the heaviest rake in poker relative to pot size, yet stay beatable because the opposition is weak. The practical rule: the lower the stakes, the more rake-aware your game should be — fewer marginal small pots, more value from the hands that reach the cap anyway. Your bankroll plan should treat rake as a real cost, the same as a tournament fee or a dealer tip.
What Is Rakeback?
Rakeback is a partial refund of the rake you generate, paid back through a rewards program, VIP scheme, or direct percentage deal. If you pay $1,000 in rake over a month and your site returns 30%, you receive $300. For a break-even player, that is the difference between losing nothing and earning something. High-volume grinders often earn more from rakeback than from the games themselves.
Modern sites rarely call it rakeback. It arrives as missions, cashback tiers, leaderboards, or loyalty chests, and the effective percentage can be hard to pin down and can change without much notice. When you evaluate a site, translate whatever the scheme is into one number: what share of my rake comes back? Anything else is marketing. The same arithmetic applies to any poker bonus you are offered, since bonuses are also priced in rake and rarely pay their headline figure.
How to Compare Poker Rake
Comparing rake between rooms takes three numbers:
- Effective rake per 100 hands at your stake: the poker rake percentage, the cap, and table size combined. Player forums and tracking software publish these figures for most major sites.
- Net of rakeback: a 5% room returning 30% costs less than a 4% room returning nothing.
- The games themselves: the cheapest rake in the world does not help if the games are tough or barely run at your hours.
That third point is where rake comparison meets everything else that separates poker sites: whether the operator is licensed where you live, which games and stakes actually run when you play, how the rewards structure pays, and how quickly withdrawals reach your account. Two rooms with identical rake tables can differ by several big blinds per 100 hands once those are counted. Serious players compare rooms the way they compare hands — on the complete picture, not the headline number.
Poker Rake Examples
The table below shows illustrative structures. Real rooms differ, so check the posted rake schedule wherever you play:
| Game | Pot / Buy-in | Rake % | Cap | Actual rake |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Online micro cash ($0.01/$0.02) | $3 pot | 5% | $0.30 | $0.15 |
| Online low-stakes cash ($0.25/$0.50) | $40 pot | 5% | $2.00 | $2.00 (cap hit) |
| Live $1/$2 cash | $60 pot | 10% | $5.00 | $5.00 (cap hit) |
| Live $1/$2 cash, small pot | $12 pot | 10% | $5.00 | $1.20 |
| Live cash, folded preflop | $7 pot | — | — | $0 (no flop, no drop) |
| Online tournament | $100+$9 buy-in | 9% fee | — | $9 |
| Live tournament | $400 buy-in, ~$50 fee | ~12.5% fee | — | $50 |
| Live $5/$10 with time rake | Any pot | — | — | ~$12 per half hour, per seat |
Read the cap column against the pot column and the pattern is clear: small pots pay the percentage, big pots pay the cap, and preflop steals often pay nothing at all.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is rake in poker?
Rake is the fee the cardroom or poker site charges for hosting the game: usually a percentage of each cash-game pot up to a cap, or a fixed fee added to a tournament buy-in. It is the operator's income, since in poker the house does not play against you.
How much rake do poker sites take?
Structures vary by operator and stake, but online cash games commonly take around 3–5% of the pot with caps that scale by stake, while live rooms often take up to 10% with caps of a few dollars plus dealer tips. Tournament fees commonly run around 5–10% of the buy-in online and higher live.
What does "no flop, no drop" mean?
It means no rake is taken from a hand that ends before the flop. If everyone folds to a preflop raise, the winner collects the blinds untouched. Most cash games, live and online, apply this rule.
What is rakeback and how does it work?
Rakeback is a partial refund of the rake you generate, paid through rewards programs, cashback tiers, or direct deals. Pay $1,000 in rake at 30% rakeback and you get $300 returned. It can turn a break-even player profitable, and high-volume players often earn more from it than from winnings.
Can you beat the rake at low stakes?
Yes, but it is the hardest part of the game to beat there. At micro and low stakes, rake can cost several big blinds per 100 hands, often more than an average winner's edge. Beating it takes tighter preflop play, good game selection, and claiming every bit of rakeback available.