Who pays the rake?
Hi all,
An argument just broke out in my local poker game about who pays the rake in poker. One side is arguing that only the winner of a hand pays rake, other side is arguing that many people contribute money to the pot, therefore many people pay rake - i.e. the losers of a hand, as well as the winner.
Which is it?
T
Gonna play the devil’s advocate.
Everybody pays rake.
Even the winner-of-big-pots, he is getting raked in those big pots, and stacking players that were raked before hands.
So there’s the money you can’t see, the same winner of big pots, would just have an even bigger win without rake.
If 9 players never puts more money on the table and play long enough, casino ends up taking everything.
So yeah, small games are getting raked a lot more than big games, proportionally speaking.
As the angel’s advocate
One player will be left actually. His stack will be substantially smaller than it would have been if not for the rake. 😏
Problem with the first metaphor (besides the math doesnt make sense) is there's no element of chance and no winner. And as we know, if everyone wins/loses equally then yes we all pay rake equally.
Problem with the second is, again, there's no winner. Now you have a false equivalency fallacy. If you're implying one guys 10% contribution was larger because he had more in his wallet then that would be because he represents the winner and we're back to 'winner pays rake'.
You're missing the point.
The winner always pays.
If 9 people sit down with 100$ each and one guy wins every hand dealt until he has all the money then he'll have less than 900$ and that difference was the rake.
The only mathematically interesting question is who pays more when you have a % + cap structure over a large sample size?
Here a guy winning one massive pot occaisonally will be paying less rake than a guy winning multiple small to medium pots all else being equal.
The problem with your "everyone paid 4$ to the wi
Can you explain more about the 'unseen pathways' and 'talking past the sale' fallacies?
In the hypothetical but unrealistic scenario that a player loses every chip every session played, rake will have no impact on that player.
How do you come to that conclusion? If there was no rake then such a played would still have some chips left at the end of his session, rather than being cleaned out.
How do you come to that conclusion? If there was no rake then such a played would still have some chips left at the end of his session, rather than being cleaned out.
A 'session' does not last a particular length of time. He means the guy always plays until he runs out of money. With lower rake he would play longer, but not have more money at the end.
What chillrob said 😉
Exactly!
Why are you all making this so damn complicated? Everyone who puts money in the pot pays. Simple.
So why is the rake less if there are less people in the pot? Surely that means that more people = more rake = each player pays the rake?
You pay blinds, which contribute some small percentage towards the rake.
You always pay the rake.
I don't think you read my comment you replied to if you think that has anything to do with it.
Anyway, you don't pay blinds every hand.
Really this argument can't be proven by any side; there is really no right or wrong answer, it just depends on how you look at it.
I think those of you who have played mostly online poker think of everyone contributing because that is the way the rakeback is calculated.
But for people who play higher limit live poker, this comes up when discussing whether rake or time charge is better for particular players.
The generally accepted opinion is that rake is better for tight players and time charge is better for loose players.
If you're playing live anywhere in the USA except the LV Strip, almost all raked games will also have a jackpot drop.
The jackpot itself isn't too far from 0 EV, though with insane variance. But most of the extra $2 goes to a "promo fund," not the actual jackpot. The casinos use it to entice people to show up and play during slow hours.
In many cases, if you play during popular hours, your EV from the "jackpot" is close to $-2 per pot. Your effective rake, net of jackpot, is then around $-8. About 75% goes to the house, and the remaining 25% mostly to retirees who show up weekday mornings to sit in the smallest games available. They limp their entire range, check it down, and only build the pot to the minimum size necessary to hit the "promos," which usually is lower than the point where the rake caps out.
So to answer the question, you and the fish you're trying to stack are both paying a lot of rake, about $2 per hand higher than you might think. The old guy who wakes up at 5 a.m., and expects his $100 buyin to last all day, is paying less than half of that. Have fun subsidizing his retirement!
I'm not reading 71 replies but the winner of the hand pays the rake lol
In a rake free heads up game let's say both players start with 1k
1st hand is dealt and each put 100 into the pot. Player 1 wins.
Rake free stack sizes:
Player 1: 1100
Player 2: 900
Now replay the hand but with $5 rake
Raked stack sizes:
Player 1: 1095
Player 2: 900
The losing player has the same amount of money. The winning player has $5 less. The winning player pays the rake
I'm not reading 71 replies but the winner of the hand pays the rake lol
In a rake free heads up game let's say both players start with 1k
1st hand is dealt and each put 100 into the pot. Player 1 wins.
Rake free stack sizes:
Player 1: 1100
Player 2: 900
Now replay the hand but with $5 rake
Raked stack sizes:
Player 1: 1095
Player 2: 900
The losing player has the same amount of money. The winning player has $5 less. The winning player pays the rake
No, they paid $2.50 each.
Looking at it from a backwards perspective, if only winners pay the rake, then we are also implying that winners pay for everything in a casino. Because rake pays for the free food benefits, the staff, and the casino operation. So if only winner pays the rake, then only winners are indirectly supporting an entire operation.
If that makes sense, what if we remove all the losers from the equation, then who pays for all the fees? The winners of course.
Are winners still winners if they are walking away with less money than they started?
And if you simplify all the runaround BS and define paying as "out of pocket," then it's pretty clear that only losers pay the rake.
And if you extrapolate this context to winning vs losing players as a whole, it's even more clear that losing players pay for everything. They are quite literally the only ones paying for anything. Winners are just the one cutting the checks.
I'm not reading 71 replies but the winner of the hand pays the rake lol
In a rake free heads up game let's say both players start with 1k
1st hand is dealt and each put 100 into the pot. Player 1 wins.
Rake free stack sizes:
Player 1: 1100
Player 2: 900
Now replay the hand but with $5 rake
Raked stack sizes:
Player 1: 1095
Player 2: 900
The losing player has the same amount of money. The winning player has $5 less. The winning player pays the rake
Right, player 1 paid the rake...with player 2's money. So who's actually paying?
