I'm sure this would be appealing to every aspiring poker player. A site where you don't pay any rake, but instead get charged, let's say 20%, of your deposit.
So if you deposit 1000$, you'll have 800$ to play for without having to worry about any rake or fees unless you deposit again. This would truly be revolutionizing for professional poker players, and also the most fair way of measuring poker success, not having to worry about beating the rake as well as your opponents.

Obviously the site would not earn nearly as much from every single player as they would do by charging rake. That being said, the growth potential of such a site would be enormous if done right, i.e good software, good marketing and just being all around a serious company. It could easily get a huge player base which would more than compensate for the fact of not making as much as they would by charging rake.

I can't believe that there's no such site existing already, so there's got to be a catch, right? I feel like otherwise it would be in everybodys interest, the players as well as the company who becomes first to apply this approach, which would have the opportunity to become huge.

Any thoughts?

This has failed in several versions every time.

Zerorake thought it could pull off a $20/month subscription service for real money games. It didn't get much action and failed with little fanfare.

WSEX/WPEX tried to attract sports bettors and casino players by doing 100% rakeback. It fared alright for a while but it couldn't afford to upgrade the poker software or hire competent security people. The entire company failed several years ago after a phantom echeck debacle and other mismanagement.

PayNoRake was an Action Poker skin that paid up to 100% rakeback based on your level of action for the day. The network struggled. The business model was tweaked but to no avail.

Rake = marketing money. You can't have affiliates or media buys without it.

Grinders don't want to play other grinders. It is why some people play live poker at $5 rake joints in Las Vegas when there are $3 and $4 ones. The recs don't know the difference but the pros do.

I don't think subscription where you're paying every month would be the way to go. That would not appeal the recs just playing a couple of times a month, and at the same time the fee for the players at the higher stakes would be ridiculously low.

On the topic of regs playing other regs I would say that you're correct - but that only applies as long as there is rake. Without rake you just need a tiny edge over another reg in order to turn profit. As it is right now you would both be losing players due to the rake if you only have a tiny or even small edge over another reg. Therefore you would be more motivated to actually work on your game and trying to get better than the regs on your level on a site without rake imho.

So the problem as I see it and from what you've said kind of seems to lie in getting enough traffic. That won't be easy without marketing money as you pointed out. Maybe if some high profile players got involved?

I don't see how a site makes money otherwise. I don't see a site taking 20% of a deposit ever flying. Who is going to deposit $100 and only get $80 to play with? I think that is a psychological stumbling block that many won't understand is a better deal than paying rake on every hand.

An established site going to 100% rakeback site becoming a loss leader for sports betting that had several hundred players at peak couldn't pull it off. I think that is all we need to know about the rake-free model.

Yup:

So how will they afford this with your model?

Me neither.

Some of the same people that the WSEX model attracted. And that worked out well, didn't it?

Fun idea, let the losing depositors pay the rake too

yeah, that was my first thought too. If it all charging a fee for withdrawels instead of raking hands could work, but i also can't see this happen.

Exactly what i thought Attract the tough grinder and discourage fish to ever deposit on your site (news flash: fishs don t care soo much about rake, specially online ...). Come on , even in the golden age of poker this couldn t have work.

Verry best case scenario, you get 20 to 50 big ego regs batling it out between them.

Casual players would freak out over this. I am sure many recs don't even realize they are paying rake and what effect does it have on the profitability. It is a lot more hidden right now.

don't tap the glass


@ OP ... every poker room tries to make depositors comfortable, so raking deposits is just insane (besides all the other arguments already mentioned itt)

Taking a % rake from deposits will never happen, but if it did it would be a dream come true.

Poker sites would lose to much. I recently deposited $100. Have ran it up to $1100. Have paid $500 in rake in the process.

Imagine if I only had to pay $20 rake on my deposit and then could keep grinding my 1k roll rake free for the rest of eternity.

A dream for me. But, poker sites wouldn't be making any money from me so it will never happen.

They don't make money on you now either.

bovada charges a % for every CC deposit.

current rake allegedly takes around 70% of an avarage deposit - why would they go down to 20%?

Do you have a source? Would be interesting to see some stats on this.
I thought it was even more actually.

I have played pro 2004-2010 200nl to nl1k and they have made a ton off of me probably like 1m+. I have had quite good wr about 4-6bb/100 and the rake paid was similar to the amount i was winning for the most part. I'd have twice as much money without rake.

To say they don't make money off guys like me is ridiculous. Regs are their best customers imo.

Charging tax on deposits and % fee on cashouts would be good, clear business model which aligns incentives of many entities:

1)countries have easy way to tax money coming from their citizens, just slap 23% VAT on deposits (aka buying chips on poker sites) the same way it's done for every other electronic service like selling ebooks to Europe, selling software etc.

2)poker sites don't need to trick anyone with rake schemes which seem invisible, killing games where regulars win too fast etc. they just focus on good experience for people

3)only winners pay which is easier to swallow for net depositors

The problem is that sites' cut would need to by like 80%+ to match current poker sites earnings and that just won't fly

ask blizzard to start subscription based poker site

they will probably add store where you can buy 'Joker card' and some cosmetics

So players would stop deposit if you quit?

I've been saying for years that poker sites should lower the rake and charge for withdrawels. But to do that and avoid players to sell their funds to other players, the sites would also have to charge for player to player transfers. And that would create some other problems.

Raking deposits is the worst idea for obvious reasons, but a system where only the withdrawers paid rake might be the best for the ecosystem.

Im thinking for a long time now they should charge cashouts and nothing else

Up to 100 usd 30%
Up to 1k 25%
Up to 10k 20%
Higher 15% or sth

Overall every site claims recs are their most important customers. So why let them pay any rake at all as long as they lose?
Also keeps money longer in the system bc people want to pay as little fees as possible

I think betfair does something similar to that and best bookmaking sharps are really unhappy with this system.

Great idea

this! but attention to the pokerstars guys/moneygrabbers:
this system WITHOUT RAKE. I think it's important to underline this, bc that lee jones guy or the other monkeys that are working on amaya my actually implement this together with the rake they have lol

they would have take 78% of deposits to match rake though.