New iPoker Rake System

On Jan 1, 2015 the iPoker network announced a new rake calculation system, intended to make recreational players last longer by increasing their rakeback, thereby improving the overall poker ecology for all players.

The actual rake structure – 5% of the pot, up to €3 rake cap and so on – remains unchanged. Players still pay the same rake, as an absolute value. What the new iPoker rake system does is assign players a higher or lower rake when calculating their rakeback.

The idea being net depositors will earn more rakeback than winning grinders (who cashout more than they deposit) because they were assigned a higher theoretical rake.

Casual, depositing players will receive higher than e.g. the advertised 75% rakeback on Winner Poker, whereas ‘sharks’ will receive less, although their bb/100 before rakeback should rise thanks to easier games.

New iPoker Rake Calculation

When rake is taken from a pot, credit for paying that rake is assigned as follows:

• 50% to the players in the pot, as per the usual weighted contributed method
• 50% to the players that originally deposited the money in the pot – this is known as source based rake (SBR)

The sum of these two parts is known as real player value (RPV).

Tracking Your Sourced Based Rake

iPoker has created a separate website pokerbills.com where players can view their SBR, RPV and compare it to their old rake.

Log in with your username and email to track your stats over any date range as shown in the example graph above. The site also has an extensive FAQ section on how the new sourced based rake iPoker rake system works.

Example iPoker Rakeback Change

On Winner Poker two players have 75% rakeback through Rakeback.com.

• Player A rakes $1000 and wins $5000
• Player B rakes $1000 and loses $5000
• Player A gets attributed $500 in rake and earns $500 x 75% = $350, for 35% net rakeback
• Player B gets attributed $1500 in rake and earns $1500 x 75% = $1050, for 105% net rakeback

The above are extreme examples, most players will fall somewhere between 45 – 100% rakeback.

Earning over 100% rakeback is possible however for high net depositors. In addition there is a delayed effect of ‘longtail payments’ whereby players receive rakeback after they have stopped playing, due to the money they’ve injected into the system being raked at a later date.