Contributed Rakeback

As you probably already know, having rakeback is incredibly important and increases your hourly profit for online poker. Many players don’t realize that most poker rooms calculate rakeback differently. It is important to know what method the poker room uses to calculate your rake contributed and your rakeback. This is because the method used affects how much rake you are credited with contributing.

Most poker rooms use MGR, which stands for Monthly Gross Revenue and is a formula used to calculate your net contributed rake for a month. Your net contributed rake is your total rake contributed minus all deductions. These deductions sometimes include deposit fees or bonuses earned. MGR is the number used when calculating how much rakeback is refunded to you. If you have a deal of 30% rakeback then, you receive 30% of your MGR back.

When you enter a sit-n-go with a $20 buy-in and a $2 fee; your MGR increases by $2. However, when you play ring games online, it is a little bit more complicated. As you may have noticed, the amount of rake that is taken from the pot is a percentage of the total pot. The rake taken is usually three to five percent of the total rake and is usually capped at $3. The amount of rake that you are credited with contributing to each pot depends on the methods used by the poker room.

The main three methods of calculating how much rake each player contributes each hand are the dealt method, the contributed method, and the weighted contributed method. The most common method used by the online poker rooms is the contributed method. A player’s MGR is only credited with rake contributed if they actually put money into the pot. The rake taken is then divided equally among any player that contributed to the pot and credited to their MGR. To calculate the actual amount of rake that you are credited with, simply divide the amount of rake taken by the number of players who contributed money to the pot. If there are ten players dealt into the hand, and you are one of four players who contribute money to the pot, you are credited with 25% of any rake taken.

For example, if there is $2 in rake taken and four players who contribute to the pot, then your MGR increases by $0.50. If you are receiving 30% of your rake back; then your rakeback increases by $0.15. Here are a couple of equations that show how to calculate this:

MGR Earned from each hand = (total amt raked) / (# of players who contributed)

Rakeback Earned = MGR * (Rakeback % Offered)

The contributed method is the better rakeback method for players who play looser than the average players at the tables. This is because you will be getting credited with the actual amount of rake that you are contributing and you put in money more often than other players. This is a more accurate method of calculating rakeback than dealt, but not as accurate as the third method weighted contributed. The only difference between the contributed method and the weighted contributed method is the percentage credited is based on how much money you actually put in the pot. If there are 3 players in the hand who put in $49, $49, and $2, they will be credited with 49% of the rake taken, 49%, and 2% respectively. This method is the most accurate of all, and the looser than average players will be credited with the most rake contributed because they are putting money in the most often.