Rake
In the case of casinos and card rooms, almost every table has to provide a commission to the house for hosting the game. The commission is around 5-10% of the total pot amount in each round of poker. However, this does not keep rising with the pot, endlessly. There is always a maximum limit to the commission that the house will take and beyond that point, irrespective of how high the pot rises, the house will not be entitled to anything more.
In certain cases, card rooms impose certain restrictions on taking the rake such as in a game of Texas Hold’em, if the round doesn’t reach the flop, then the house doesn’t pick up a rake. This format is called “No Flop, No Drop”.
Unlike other games such as blackjack, the house doesn’t compete against the player and therefore, the rake acts as the casino or card room’s way of making money from hosting the game. Since the buy in cost is given out in the form of chips which are eventually give out to the winners on each table, there is nothing that they can get out of each winning hand unlike other games where the house also beat the player as a competitor.
There are different techniques of collecting the rake. The first is the pot rake where the dealer manually picks out the rake from pot during the round. These chips are kept aside and dropped into a secure box once each round is completed.
Such a rake is also taken in online poker games where the cost of organizing the website and the game, online, is paid through these rakes.
Dead drop is another technique of collecting the rake however in this, one player is responsible for paying the house on each round. Basically, every time the dealer button lands on a player, that player has to pay the entire rake all by her/himself.
Rakes are also collected based on the elapsed time. In some casinos and card rooms, dealers collect the rakes at every half hour or so. Tournaments do not allow the collection of rake and therefore, the tournament entry fee acts as the rake for the organizing committee. Similarly, many online card rooms charge a rake in the form of a subscription fee. Following this, they do not charge each and every pot.
The rake is quite an important feature of poker and without this profit motive, it would be impossible to find a reason for casinos and card rooms to host poker tables and competitions live or online.
Forrige begrep: Raise, Neste begrep: Rakeback
