When you’re looking at rakeback offers, you might notice that some offers say ‘bonuses deducted’ while other offers say ‘bonuses not deducted’.
It’s not a trivial detail – in fact, it’s a distinction that seriously impacts your earning rate with rakeback. Let’s take a closer look at the issue and what it means for players.
Bonuses being deducted from your rakeback essentially means that any bonuses you earn at the room – whether those be deposit bonuses, redeposit bonuses, freeroll tickets, promotional items – will be counted against the amount of rake you generate.
An example will help to clarify. Let’s say you’re playing at Full Tilt Poker, which has a rakeback rate of 27% and does deduct bonuses. Let’s say you get a $600 deposit bonus, and in your first month pay $1000 in rake.
At 27%, you’d expect to get $270 back, right? Not exactly – the bonus you earned has to be deducted first. So, FTP deducts the bonus ($600) from your rake ($1000) and determines your new rake total ($400). So, instead of getting paid 27% on the $1000, you get paid 27% on the $400.
Pretty big difference. It’s not all bad – you still get the deposit bonus and still make a nice bit on rakeback, but if you are a player who regularly chases bonuses, you might want to consider picking a room that doesn’t deduct the from your rakeback.
