What's A Rake In Poker
The Netherlands and Amsterdam in particular, has long been known as one of the most progressive, liberal countries on Earth. Whether it’s legalizing marijuana before it was cool or being unashamed about one of its major tourist attractions, the Red Light District. When it comes to gambling, though, it was a country that was actually more cautious than others so while real-world gambling was permitted but regulated, online gambling, including online poker was prohibited under Dutch law.
Ironically, even as the Dutch government has unveiled plans to gentrify and clean up the Red Light District and that old Dutch liberalism seems to be under attack, major changes are afoot in the country’s laws towards online gambling – changes towards the more permissible. Rather than being banned, as of March this year online gambling will fall under the same regulatory body as its real-world, brick-and-mortar counterpart.
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This is huge news, of course, for poker fans. Poker has long been a big game in the country but soon it will be joined by online video poker in Holland. Online live poker has always been a bit of grey area as it wasn’t like online slots, for example, but was played between real players, just through the medium of the internet rather than face to face. As video poker games are legalized but regulated, this is all the more true for live poker gaming.
Rake 888 is the amount that the poker room charges the players for playing on real money on their site. In cash games, rake is credited from the pot, and in tournaments, it is taken from the buy-in. This is a kind of commission fee. It is charged in US dollars.
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What does regulation mean, though? It’s actually a fairly complicated process but it requires online gaming brands approaching the regulatory committee for a license to operate in the Netherlands. This license will include several safeguards to protect consumers from being exploited or ripped off by shady online gaming companies.
As such, the company in question will have to provide a brand name that makes it abundantly clear that what they’re offering are games of chance. Saying that customers are guaranteed to win, therefore would be strictly forbidden for online gambling companies. They are to ensure that people under 18 years of age are warned off the site and should not accept membership from anyone under the age of eighteen.
More generally, those applying for licenses need to prove that they are a legitimate business. This includes tax certification, high-level encryption standards and a legit physical address. These sites must offer the highest possible security when it comes to customers’ personal information and payment details. Extensive online support and a real-world phone number would be required for any gambling website looking to be certified by the Dutch Gambling Authority.
The gambling authority also takes gambling addiction extremely seriously. Unlike most gambling certificates given throughout the world, an online gambling company in Holland needs to provide extensive support for those who are addicted to gambling and to have mechanisms in place to ensure that their customers do not develop addictions. This means requiring an algorithm that allows the owners of these sites to spot any potentially addictive behavior by any of their clients and to intervene whenever possible and to offer them a variety of therapeutic options to deal with that addiction.
What Is A Race In Poker
These seemingly draconian measures may seem harsh but most reputable online casinos, bookies and poker games should have most of these measures in place in the first place. These are not measures meant to stop gambling in a country known for its permissiveness but are there to protect the end users from being needlessly exploited by amoral or just plain shady gaming companies. Casinos in most countries are usually held to the highest standards so why shouldn’t their online alternatives be as well?
How does this affect poker, though? The good news is that it doesn’t too much. Video poker sites will need to be licensed but if you’re a poker player who prefers the convenience of playing with friends or strangers online or even if you simply prefer playing against an artificial intelligence in colorful, theme-driven video poker games, all these regulations only really offer peace of mind if you happen to be playing online poker in the Netherlands or through a Dutch site. And that, really, is government regulation at its finest.
I travel a lot, visiting poker rooms all around the world — especially in the United States.
When I meet someone else who plays poker, one of the first things I want to know is where he plays and what his local card room is like. Invariably, our conversation follows a predictable arc — something like this:
Me: 'So, you're from Miami. Where do you like to play?'
Him: 'Oh, I play all over, but my favorite room is definitely the Hard Rock up in Hollywood.'
Me: 'Really, that's a great room. I've played there myself. Is there still a lot of action there?'
Him: 'Yep. They get a bunch of $2/$5 games. That's what I play.'
Me: 'I see. Are they raking the pots or taking a time charge?'
Him: 'I think they're raking. I don't remember paying any charge.'
Me: 'Raking, huh. Do you know what they take out of the pot?'
Him: 'I don't pay much attention. I think 10 percent or something like that.'
Me: 'Yes, it's probably 10 percent. But they usually have a maximum, like 10 percent up to $5. Do you remember what the maximum was?'
Him: 'I really couldn't tell you. I honestly didn't notice. It only came out when I won. And I was so happy to have won that I didn't pay attention.'
I must have had a hundred conversations that have gone just like that. They knew the house took something out of the pot, but they really paid no attention regarding how much.
Usually while I'm interrogating the poor soul, someone else overhears us. They sometimes weigh in with their thoughts about the rake. That conversation will often go like this:
Me: 'Well, I hope they're not charging $5. It does seem like a lot of rooms are going in that direction — or even more. Frankly, I'd rather pay a half-hour seat charge than pay a rake.'
Her: 'What, like that $5 every 30 minutes that they used to charge here before they started raking?'
Me: 'Yeah, that's better than paying 10 percent up to $5 every hand.'
Her: 'No way. I'd much rather have the pot raked. That way, only the winners pay. And if I don't win, I don't pay anything. What I really hated was when I wouldn't win one pot for a whole hour and I still had to pony up $5 a half.'
Him: 'I don't know. I never paid attention to it. I figure it's just some small tax, and it doesn't really matter'.
Other players: 'Shut up, will you!'
And so it goes.
What's clear to me is that most players need to understand how a card room makes its money. It may well be the difference between a player winning or losing, as I'll show you.
First, a little thought experiment.
Imagine you and nine other poker players get together regularly at each other's houses for a floating poker game. You play $1/$2 no-limit. You each usually bring around $200 with which to play, and everyone brings and shares beer and munchies. It's as much a fun social experience as it is a serious poker game. You've been doing it for a few years and you love it.
Then a casino with a poker room opens nearby. After hearing about how great it is, one of your buddies proposes that you all go over and play poker there one Saturday night. So instead of meeting for your weekly home game that week, you all meet up and travel to the new casino. You each bring a stake of $200 for your poker night out.
You get to the casino, find your way to the poker room, and ask for a table. There is no list, but there are just a couple of seats available. You speak to the poker room manager, explain that there are 10 of you who decided to play at the casino for a change, and would like to all play together on a table if possible. Eager for your business, the manager smiles, and then gets a dealer to open up an entire table for the 10 of you. You will have your own private game — with beverage and food service, a professional dealer, ritzy casino chips — the whole casino experience!
The casino doesn't do all of this for free, of course. But they'll give you the same rate as they charge everyone who plays in their poker room. As it turns out, they take a rake — taking 10 percent. That means taking $1 out of the pot when it hits $10, and then another for every additional $10 up to a maximum of $5 when the pot is $50 or larger. They also take $1 out for the bad beat jackpot (quad eights beaten by a better hand) that now stands at $350,000.
Your crew starts to play in the casino poker room at 2 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon. You've decided to get your money's worth for the trip and play 12 full hours of $1/$2 no-limit at your private casino table. Assuming that...
- you have good dealers who can consistently deal out 15 hands each 30-minute round;
- the average pot is $40;
- you each generously tip $1 per pot to the dealer; and
- you're all about equal in ability and luck is also evenly spread around for the session.
How much of your $200 stake will you walk away with when you go home at 2 a.m.?
The answer is that in this theoretical game at this theoretical casino, you will all leave cold dead broke! In fact, you went broke some time before your expected departure time of 2 a.m.
Here's the math. It's pretty simple — and sobering.
There was an average of $4 rake paid per hand (some pots were small and had a lower rake, most were $50 or more and took the full $5). At 30 hands an hour (15 hands for each 30-minute dealer round), that adds up to $120 worth of rake collected. The bad beat drop takes out another $1 a hand, for $30 an hour. And then, at $1 a hand, the tips account for another $30 an hour.
That means $180 is coming off your table every hour. You each brought $200 — $2,000 total among the 10 of you. By the end of 10 hours you've collectively given up $1,800, leaving just $20 each with which to play. After the 11th hour you're only left with $20 for the entire table — just two bucks each! And that goes down the chute well before the final hour is gone.
So by the end of hour number 12 there is no more money left for any of you. It has been entirely raked away — all $2,000 of it!
This is an extreme example, of course. No new blood comes into the game to infuse it with more money. Some dealers don't get out that many hands per hour. And you may play more tightly than normal. But you get the idea, yes? A rake can have an absolutely crushing impact on your bottom line.
Which makes it all the more interesting to me how seldom most players seem to think about the rake. In fact, they're often their own worst enemies when it comes to the rake. Players even ask for it! Maybe you're shaking your head. But they do!
I remember well when my home casino charged a $5 per half-hour fee to play $1/$2 no-limit — that is, no rake, just that time charge. The players demanded that the house rake the game instead. And the casino willingly complied. To this day, some players still insist that this move was in their interest, while most others have no opinion on the subject whatsoever.
In reality, all but the nittiest players almost surely cost themselves a ton of money with the rake instead of the time charge. Just do the math. The raked game described above has an average cost of around $12 an hour per player in rake ($4 x 30 hands an hour = $120 total, divided among 10 players). A $5 per 30-minute time charge would cost each player $10 an hour — i.e., the rake takes out $2 more per player per hour. (Tips and the bad beat jackpot drop would be the same for each.)
Not surprisingly, most poker rooms around the world charge a rake for the lowest stakes games where the players are the least sophisticated or rake sensitive. It is generally only as you reach games as big as $5/$10 no-limit or $30/$60 limit that the house may charge time.
Sadly, it seems that poker rooms — i.e., live 'brick-and-mortar' rooms — tend to increase the rake over time. Back in the 1990s and before, it was not uncommon to see rooms that raked no more than 5 percent up to a maximum of $3. Some even would charge time for the low stakes games, and as little as $2 or $3 a half-hour.
Today, with the exception of some rooms in Washington and New Mexico, it is highly unusual — rare indeed — to see any games raked at less than 10 percent up to a maximum of $4. Rooms that have opened in the last 10 years, outside of highly competitive areas, almost surely will charge 10 percent with a maximum of $5 or even $6.
On top of that, nearly every room that has a bad beat, high hand, or other promotional jackpot makes the player pay for it with an additional rake or 'drop.' What's amusing is that those rooms then make a huge deal over how big those jackpots and promotions are — as if the house were paying for them! Some even have the moxie of tacking on an additional $2 per hand for promotions — as if $5 + $1 weren't enough.
As you can see, these rakes can have a terrible impact on the game, with all players' bankrolls eventually getting sucked into the giant black hole of a rake. Of course, there's another side to this. It costs money to pay dealers (though most of their income comes from tips), floorpersons, brushes, managers, and electricity bills, not to mention provide complimentary beverages, food, and the like. Even so, it only hurts players to be oblivious and/or silent to the costs of playing.
One final note — this column has chiefly addressed live games in casinos and poker rooms in the United States. But the truth is that for players in other parts of the poker playing world, the U.S. can appear to be an oasis of rake reasonableness in an international sea of rake insanity. In some places, most notably Australia, players pay a rake on top of an hourly time charge. In other places outside of the United States rakes can be as high as $40 per hand.
What Is A Rake In Poker
It's no wonder that playing online poker can be more appealing for some. There rakes tend to be much lower, as little as 5 percent up to $3, reflecting perhaps the much lower overhead of an online poker room. But even they are subject to inflation if players don't make known their displeasure at increased rakes.
Ashley Adams has been playing poker for 50 years and writing about it since 2000. He is the author of hundreds of articles and two books, Winning 7-Card Stud (Kensington 2003) and Winning No-Limit Hold'em (Lighthouse 2012). He is also the host of poker radio show House of Cards. See www.houseofcardsradio.com for broadcast times, stations, and podcasts.
What Is A Rake In Poker Game
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