Dealt Rakeback vs. Contributed Rakeback

Online poker rooms calculate the amount of rake contributed by each player based on two distinct models. Some poker rooms use a Dealt Rakeback Method model and other poker rooms use the Contributed Rakeback Model.

Dealt Rakeback

Dealt Rakeback method (also known as shared rakeback) is the easier to understand and figure out of the two ways online poker rooms calculate rakeback. With Dealt Rakeback the total amount of rake taken from the pot is equally divided up amongst the players that were dealt into the hand. Each player is given the same credit for contributing to the rake.

A Dealt Rakeback example: a hand with 10 players dealt into it has created a $100 pot so the online poker room has raked $3. The $3 is equally divided up amongst the 10 players so $3.00/10 = $0.30. Each player in the hand has been credited with giving the online poker room $0.30 in rake. Any player earning rakeback would get a percentage of that $0.30 returned to them.

Contributed Rakeback

Contribute Rakeback is a bit more complex but is considered to be fairer to the players because it accurately accounts for the amount of rake each individual player has contributed to the online poker room. Each player is credited with the rake contribution they made during the hand based on the percentage of the pot they contributed. This means that during any given hand some players will get credit for contributing more rake than other players and some players may not get any credit at all if they folded before the flop and therefore didn’t add any money to the pot.

A Contributed Rakeback example would be if nine players created a $100 pot during the hand and the online poker room raked $3. If 5 players folded before the flop, two players put in $20 each, and two players put in $30 each then the rake contributed would be divided up amongst the 4 players who actually contributed to the pot. The two players putting in $20 each would have contributed 20/100 each or 20% of the pot each. The two other players putting in $30 each would have contributed 30/100 each or 30% of the pot each. Since $3 is raked from the hand, the first two players would have each given 20% of $3 = $0.60 and the other two players would have each given 30% of $3 = $0.90.

$0.60 + $0.60 + $0.90 + $0.90 = $3

The other five players did not contribute any money to the pot so they get $0.00 credit for rake paid during that hand. With Contributed Rakeback the rake is proportionally distributed based on each player’s action in the hand. In our example, only the four players contributing to the pot are going to earn rakeback on that particular hand.