How high is the effective rake on GGPoker?

[kdmeteor]

By "effective rake" I mean rake if you subtract all bonuses and cashbacks. This is a super complex question because GGPoker is a giant dumb spectacle with a gazillion bonuses, and many of them are actually not insignificant (E.g., I think I've gotten around 2% rakeback on the ThanksGG tournaments so far, but ofc that doesn't mean much since the sample size is small). So I'm not expecting anyone to figure out the answer in the comments, I'm mostly wondering whether anyone has already done the work? Like, somewhere on the internet, has someone written a super comprehensive blog post digging into this question and finding the effective rake for different game types? If so I can't find it via google.

I think the raw rake is very high (6% uncapped I think plus a jackpot thing), the rake afer rakeback is high-ish (3.5-4.5% or sth?), but my guess is that the rake after rakeback and all bonuses is actually on the lower side, and the way the site makes money is because of the volume. But idk, and would love to know.

Edit: Bonuses I'm aware of when playing No-Limit Hold'em, not counting one-shot promotional programs, are (1) Rakeback, (2) ThanksGG Tournaments, (3) cash drops, (4) jackpots, (5) weekly leaderboards. All of these add some amount of effective rakeback, and it's very hard to say how much. (Like many I would much rather have zero bonuses and low rake, but then the site wouldn't be successful, so this is what we're stuck with.)

 

[Andyreas]

Interesting question and I do not have an answer to it.

And not even sure if it's actually even possible to calculate it since many bonuses are dependent on "chance" like the ThanksGG payouts.

But curious to hear the other opinions if someone even thought about it so far.

 

[hilary antonik filho]

I liked your question and very interesting what you exposed, but I will owe you an answer, because until todayI hadn't thought about it, especially at GG

 

[Station_Master]

It's a good question, I think the answer is to keep track of everything in a spreadsheet and work it out for yourself (and if you do please share results!)

Even then it's not easy, as some of the rakeback bonuses depend on luck, so you would need to consider over a long period, so the luck with respect to rakeback/leaderboards etc averages out. Also depending how you play can affect your rake and rakeback so it will vary from person to person.

I've not done the accurate calcs for pokerstars but reckon the cash bonuses etc have amounted to over 50% of the rake I have paid (at cash tables, not including power path tickets). So I reckon probably lower than GG overall.

 

[MK_]

I some threads on Reddit about how players cannot be profitable without rakeback due to how high the rake is,
think it was Mobious who tracked players... but no idea how high the rake is overall

 

[kdmeteor]

It's a good question, I think the answer is to keep track of everything in a spreadsheet and work it out for yourself (and if you do please share results!)

I will start doing it now, I love tracking random shit in spreadsheets.

It actually is better to not start after signing up I think because I've heard a lot of rumors that GGPoker initially gives you more GGFlipout rewards to lure you in, and that's a conspiracy theory I'm inclined to believe.

 

[kdmeteor]

I some threads on Reddit about how players cannot be profitable without rakeback due to how high the rake is,
think it was Mobious who tracked players... but no idea how high the rake is overall

I saw a bunch of that as well. Right now I still aspire to beat the game w/o rakeback (obviously I take rakeback, I just mean being + w/o counting it). Will post my results here at some point. (Or I never do, assume I failed and am too cowardly to own up to it ;))

One thing is for sure, which is that GGPoker's PokerCraft service showing you your results without rake is total BS. The entire site is trying to screw you over constantly; I've never seen another poker room whose presentation felt so whole-heartedly cynical and soulless. The only right move is to immediately download the hand histories and load them into pokertracker.

 

[Colbefc]

I agree, I have a GGPoker account and find the site to be soulless and makes no pretense that all they
want is your money, of course all sites do but there is something about GGPoker that stops me
playing there regularly .

 

[fundiver199]

I dont the answer to your question. But in general when sites have complicated reward programs, its definitely a good idea to spend some time figuring out, how they work and how to optimize, what you get back from them. I dont play on GG Poker, but using ACR Poker as an example, they have weekly leaderboards for SnGs and cash games. I play SnGs, and that leaderboard work in the way, that for each dollar paid in rake by someone playing any SnG, a certain number of prices worth $500, $250, $125 and $50 are added to the weekly leaderboard.

In order to get the lowest $50 price, you typically need something like 125 point, and each dollar in rake give you 1,25 points. However On Demand games give dubble points. So if you play On Demand games and just make it into the $50 prices, you basically get 100% rakeback from the leaderboard alone, and even playing other SnGs you get 50% rakeback. The next price of $125 typically require close to 400 points, so you clearly dont want to end up with either 100 points or 350 points during a week.