what is a rake in poker

In poker, the rake is the scaled commission fee taken by a cardroom operating a poker game). It is the fee taken by the house to pay for its expenses and turn a profit at the poker tables. The rake is generally 2.5% to 10% of the pot in each poker hand, up to a predetermined maximum amount). There are also other non-percentage ways for a casino to take the rake). Rake is collected in tournaments as part of the buy-in cost and in cash games by the dealer dropping a percentage of each pot. There are three common methods used by cardrooms to collect rake: pot rake, timed rake, and dead drop. In pot rake, a percentage of the pot is taken by the house. In timed rake, a set amount of rake is placed on the dealer button each hand by the player in that position, which the dealer collects before any cards are dealt. In dead drop, a fixed amount is taken from each player at the beginning of the game). The prevalent method of collecting rake in online poker is to take it from the pot total before giving the rest to the winner of the hand). It is important to note that more rake is not better.