What is rake in poker, and why it quietly decides your win rate
Rake is the fee the house takes from pots or buy-ins for running the game. Here is how the main rake structures work, how much of your win rate they eat, and how to adjust your game and seat selection around them.
Rake is the fee the house charges for running the game: a slice of most pots in cash games, a time charge in some live rooms, or the fee bolted onto a tournament buy-in. It is how the room earns its lights, dealers and security, and it is also the quiet tax that decides whether a beatable game is worth playing. Every serious player should be able to say what the rake structure of their regular game is and roughly what it costs them per hundred hands. Most cannot, which is exactly why the ones who can have an edge before a card is dealt.
The main rake structures
| Structure | How it works | Where you meet it |
|---|---|---|
| Pot rake | A percentage of each pot, typically around 5%, up to a cap | Most cash games, live and online |
| No flop, no drop | Pot rake, but nothing is taken if the hand ends preflop | Common live rule, some sites |
| Time charge | A fixed fee per seat per half hour, no pot rake | Higher-stakes live games |
| Tournament fee | A fixed fee inside the buy-in, often about 10% | The 10 in a 100+10 |
| Membership or drop | Flat club fees, dealer drops, promotional drops | Home games, some clubs |
Two details matter more than the headline percentage. The cap decides what big pots cost: a 5 percent rake capped at 5 big blinds means every large pot pays exactly the cap, so the effective rate falls as pots grow. And the stakes decide what the cap costs you: a fixed cap is a far larger share of the money at 1/2 than at 5/10, which is why moving up in live poker often cuts the rake in half measured in big blinds, and why a table that straddles under a fixed cap is quietly buying a rake discount.
What rake actually costs
Rake is paid out of pots, which means it is paid by the players who win them. Your gross win rate and your real win rate are different numbers, and the gap at small stakes is brutal: at the smallest online stakes the rake commonly runs to several big blinds per hundred hands, which is more than the entire edge of a decent player. A 5bb/100 winner before rake can be a break-even player after it without making a single extra mistake. Live low-stakes games can be worse per hand and are only survivable because live opponents donate more.
That has a blunt consequence for bankroll planning and expectations: if you are grinding the lowest raked stakes and wondering why flawless-feeling play is not producing profit, the house's cut belongs at the top of your suspect list, right beside variance.
How rake changes correct play
A fee on played pots is a fee on participation, so the marginal hands go negative first:
- Tighten borderline preflop calls, especially from the big blind. A defence that is exactly break-even rake-free is a loser once 5 percent of the resulting pots goes to the house. Solver ranges computed with rake defend meaningfully tighter than rake-free ones.
- Value winning without showdown. Pots that end preflop are cheap or free under no flop, no drop, which nudges up the value of 3-betting over flatting in raked games.
- Prefer big-pot edges to small-pot edges. Because of the cap, your rake rate is highest in the small and medium pots and lowest when stacks go in. An edge that shows up in large pots keeps more of itself.
One honest disclosure, because the numbers on this site should be trusted for what they are: the preflop charts here are rake-free solves. They are the right baseline for learning structure, and directionally you should tighten the closest calls, not loosen, when applying them to a heavily raked game.
Reading a game through its rake
Before sitting, ask two questions. What is taken per pot, and what is the cap in big blinds? Then judge the lineup against that price. A soft game at a harsh rake regularly beats a tough game at a gentle one, but a mediocre game at a harsh rake beats nothing at all: the house wins that table no matter who else does. Rakeback, where offered, goes straight into this arithmetic as win rate you get back.
Bottom line
Rake is the house's fee: usually about 5 percent of the pot up to a cap, a time charge, or a tournament fee near 10 percent. It comes out of the winners, costs small-stakes players several big blinds per hundred, and shifts correct strategy toward tighter marginal calls and fewer thin participations. Know your game's structure, count the cap in big blinds, and treat the rake as an opponent that never tilts, never sleeps, and takes a cut of every pot you drag. The players who ignore it are subsidising the ones who do not.
Frequently asked questions
- What is rake in poker?
- Rake is the fee the house takes for running the game. In cash games it is usually a percentage of each pot, commonly around 5 percent, up to a fixed cap. Some rooms charge a time fee per half hour instead, and tournaments build the fee into the buy-in, such as the 10 in a 100 plus 10 event.
- How much rake is normal?
- Live cash games commonly take 5 to 10 percent of the pot capped at a few big blinds; online games take around 5 percent with lower caps. Anything much beyond that turns a beatable lineup into an unbeatable one, so the honest answer is: normal is whatever still leaves winners a positive rate, and you should check rather than assume.
- Why does rake matter for strategy?
- Because it is charged on pots you play, the marginal hands you were barely continuing with become losers once the house takes its cut. In heavily raked small-stakes games the correct response is tighter preflop calls, especially from the blinds, and more emphasis on winning pots without showdown.
- What is rakeback?
- A refund of part of the rake you paid, offered by sites and some clubs as a loyalty payment. For a regular player it is not a bonus but part of the win rate: two players with identical skill can differ by several big blinds per hundred purely on their rakeback arrangement.