If you’re an experienced online poker player, you probably already realize the value of high rakeback. Rake is taken out of every single pot you play, in order for the online poker room to turn a profit. Even though each pot raked amounts to only a few dollars, those few dollars can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars over all the pots played on the site. The small amount you contribute to the pots you play add up, and that’s why rakeback can make such a difference in your online poker results.

If you’re shopping for the best rakeback deal, you’ll have to go to a rakeback site, and then sign-up with a poker room through that site. The online poker room then knows to return some of your rake to your online poker account. The amount credited to your account may vary from rakeback program to rakeback program and from site to site, so you may wonder what you should be considering when comparing two rakeback offers.

When Choosing between Two Rakeback Offers

The first thing you should keep in mind is that you may not need to compare. Rakeback programs are just to induce you to sign-up with a particular online poker site. It does not guarantee exclusivity, so you are welcome to sign-up with more than one site if you find two good offers. However, if you are only going to sign-up with one site, or you find yourself with rakeback offers from two different rakeback sites, there are a few things to look at.

The first is the percentage of rake you will get back. The average rakeback program returns about 30 percent rake to the player. However, some sites may return more, others less. Clearly, the higher percentage of rakeback you can get the better.

Dealt or Contributed Rakeback Method

You should also look at the method the site uses to calculate online poker rakeback. Some sites use a shared or dealt method, where the amount of rake you are credited with is shared equally among everyone dealt into the hand. Other sites use a contributed method, where whatever percentage of the pot you are responsible for decides what percentage of that pot’s rake you are credited with giving. If you are the type of action player who finds himself in many big pots, you may prefer the contributed method.

Tournaments or Cash Games

You should also look into what other restrictions the rakeback program may have. If you like to play tournaments, you want to make sure you can get full rakeback credit for tournaments. If you plan to collect online bonuses, you’ll want to see how your rakeback program handles other bonus offers. There are plenty of rakeback options out there, make sure to find the best ones before signing up for maximum value.

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