Next Phase of Online Poker: New Rakeback Offers

Online Poker Rooms Compete Against Land Based Casinos

The motivation of receiving rakeback is something new to poker and certainly something alarming to land based casinos and poker rooms worldwide. Many top internet poker rooms have stepped up the old Las Vegas concept of "player comps" by giving away a percentage of their own take and profits through rakeback. In other words, poker players will receive a percentage of the house take each month regardless of their wins or losses.

When a player signs up to play poker online they have the option of either make a deposit to play cards with real players for real money or choose to play with free chips and allow themselves to become familiar with the game.

These two options for gaming are the standard for a majority of all online poker rooms. The introduction of rakeback is something new to many new poker rooms and certainly is a major deciding factor for many new players looking to make a deposit.

The Concept of Rakeback

The next stage in online player rewards is rakeback. As explained earlier this is the process where a player receives a portion of their contributed rake back at the end of the month.

The normal amount given is a medium of twenty five percent, however, some poker rooms have partnered with poker affiliates and offered as high as thirty percent.

The amount of money received back is allowing players to start their next months bankroll with cash never available to them before.

How It was Before

Before the rakeback offers began to make their way around the internet, poker rooms used several methods to reward players for their loyalty.

The first and most basic was the deposit bonus given by all poker rooms. Unlike playing poker at a land based casino, players were given extra chips based on the amount of their deposit and the hands they played. Online poker deposits are released upon a players "raked hand" and dollar amount played with.

In addition to this bonus, online poker rooms often offered freeroll tournaments for players who qualified. The tournaments were set a zero entry cost but had a real money prize pool for the top finishers. Poker rooms would host these tournaments in order to both allow players to preview the poker room software and reward existing players with a cash game free to them.

While these offers were very generous and exceeded what land based casinos were doing, the competition for players prevailed and poker rooms looked for new ways to attract and reward new members.

That is how rakeback became the most lucrative offer a new player is rewarded with.