I know it's a simple idea, so ppl have thought of it before and there's prob a simple reason I am missing but i cant find it atm.


Why could a site not operate on like 1-2bb/100 rake while charging a 1-2.5% fee on net withdrawing players cashouts?

Only minor thing I could think of is some bad PR when a rec binks a major mtt making him a net withdrawing player and has to give up 5 figs or smt, but i dont think that's a big deal.



btw i havent done any serious math of this, so my rake/fee may be way off what would be necessary but im just spitballing the general idea

One of the big reasons that rake is the most popular method for sites (and casinos) to make money from their games is because a lot of (if not most) recreational players actually don't notice it.

They aren't keeping track of pot size, they just know that their stack grew by some amount when they won a pot. However if they go to cash-out for $1000 but get less than that number coming into their account, they'll definitely notice it. If you've played live before, I'm sure you've encountered people who didn't notice rake was being taken; and even you might not have noticed it being taken when you first started playing.

I'm not sure about other sites, but when I withdraw from the site I play on (in BTC), they also cover any BTC network/transfer fees. They definitely aren't doing it out of the kindness of their hearts, and I'd imagine it's because they've done some research which suggests a lot of players REALLY don't like receiving less when they cash-out than what was deducted from their balance.

Thanks, it does make sense but i dont think many recs are net withdrawing players.

Either way im not even sure it;s something that would necessarily benefit players, i just thought shifting to burden towards the biggest winners could make some sense and was curious why it doesn't work

The biggest reason is simply rake is a lot more profitable than charging a withdrawal fee.

This, but I'd state it a little differently. There's nothing inherent in either one that makes one more or less profitable than the other - that lies in what is charged. So I think what you're getting at is the withdrawal fee equivalent of rake would be extremely high.

I don't have the data, and it depends on how players adjust, but I imagine the withdrawal fee equivalent of rake would be well over 50% of withdrawal amounts.

Player transfers would also have to be banned (or charged like withdrawals) which would lead to chip-dumping issues.

Withdrawal fees would be more likely to charge the winners which is an attractive feature. But its a non-starter because it exposes too clearly how much the house is taking out and because sites can't fully identify/prevent chip-dumping.

Thanks, sorry english is not my first language so it's hard for me to be clear.

I think you are right about the withdrawal fees, they would be massive to compete with 5-8bb rake.

I do think that net withdrawing players dont see a difference between paying rake and paying fee though, when i open pt4 i am aware of how much rake i have paid. I agree it may feel different mentally though seeing it go away in one large chunk.

The benefit i thought i saw was that recreational deposits would last much longer, but that is only beneficial to the site if they are taking table rake i suppose.

but in the end i agree, dead idea

There used to be a site called Betraiser with no rake and a 10% (if I remember correctly) withdrawal fee.

Withdrawing always hurt a little, although I knew it was cheaper than paying rake.

The site never got decent traffic.

Excellent post. I don't see any incentive to change it - the only thing that came to mind would be timed rake but for online poker you wouldn't want to discourage someone from sitting down and playing 10 hands.

online could charge time and just charge the exact amount

ie if it's 5 bucks half/hour and you play 6 mins you pay a dollar

Came in here to say this. It never took off.

Rake simply works (unfortunately). If you can come up with a better model, create the poker site yourself and prosper.