Rakeback vs Bonus

Rakeback Versus Deposit/Reload Bonuses

Many online poker players assume that taking advantage of a Rakeback deal means they will have to sacrifice those generous first-time deposit and reload bonuses. While there may be some deductions in the bonus department, depending on which online poker room you are signing up at, the advantages of Rakeback greatly outweigh the deductions – if you play your cards right.

First and foremost, there are a number of online poker rooms that do not even deduct bonuses from your Rakeback. Cake Poker, for instance, pays 33% Dealt Rakeback, plus Tournament Rakeback, while still paying full bonuses with zero deductions from Rakeback.

For those online rooms that do take a poker bonus deduction, we’ll describe the typical scenario and explain just how you can still take advantage of the situation.

Let’s say you join an online poker room, signing up with a 30% Rakeback deal and a welcome bonus of 100% up to $500. You deposit the full $500 to get the highest possible bonus. The bonus deduction should be the same as your Rakeback, 30%. Therefore, the first $150 you earn in Rakeback (30% of $500) would be paid to welcome bonus, rather than regular poker rakeback deals.

Sounds like a crappy deal, huh? Not really. The goal would be to earn Rakeback faster than you earn your bonus. Doing so would actually work to your advantage. Using a typical points system to earn your welcome bonus, we’ll say for every point you earn, you clear $0.06 of your bonus, released in $10 increments.

By this example, you would need to earn 167 points to release the first $10. Every $1 raked in a hand you participate in would be worth 1 point, with a maximum of 3 points earned per hand (requires $3 rake). So if you earn 3 points per hand, that’s $0.18 of your bonus cleared. The goal is to earn more than $0.18 in Rakeback for that hand. Or, more than $0.06 for each $1 raked.

So how do you earn that much Rakeback in a single hand? By playing heads-up. It takes a $20 pot to rake $1. If you’re playing heads-up and each player contributes $10 to the pot, your contributed rake becomes $0.50. your Rakeback pays 30%, so you would earn $0.07-1/2 per hand, or $0.15 for every two hands. That’s higher than the $0.06 earned in bonus cash, therefore accomplishing the goal.

Another benefit here is that you are clearing your bonus at an incredibly fast pace, which means you can use that bonus cash to keep your bankroll stocked, earning even more Rakeback on the virtual felt. Once your first bonus is cleared, chances are you’ll be able to get a reload bonus on your next deposit. Even if your bankroll is doing fine, making this deposit to get the reload bonus is just another way to further increase that bankroll.

As we said above, there are several online poker room that don’t take bonus deductions at all. That would, of course, be the most advantageous way to go. But if you prefer a particular online poker room that does take bonus deductions, don’t be swayed from Rakeback because of it. Take our advice and let it work for you!