Poker Stars Rakebacks

The craze for online poker is definitely on the rise. Many new players who have never played poker in their lifetime are now trying to test their skills on various online poker sites. Hence, we can see new poker sites that have emerged successfully. Many poker experts claim that the best thing about poker site is that it allows you to play your game from wherever you want. You can sit comfortably in your home or take a break at work to enjoy some cool poker games on the web. However, many poker players feel that the best part about these sites is that they provide poker bonus.

When you are playing poker games in a real casino you never get any bonus, but you do get a poker bonus when you are playing poker games on the internet. There are different poker bonuses and they are really important to attract more players on the website. Poker bonus can attract many poker players from all over the world, and therefore these websites come up with various poker bonuses that can help them to get more players. These bonuses are really important to uplift the confidence of the players because they get extra money that they can gamble and try to win some more money out of it.

Most online poker and casino websites have welcome bonus for all those players who register and transfer their funds for the first time to their account. This means that when a new registered member transfers $100 in their account, the bankroll shows up as $200 straightaway. This really adds to the self confidence of the player because the player can now first gamble with the bonus money rather than using their own money. However, players can only use that bonus money to gamble on the website and they cannot withdraw that money because it is a bonus and not a winning.

Apart from that, there are reload bonuses available that encourages players to keep playing more and add little amount of money every time they run out of cash. This definitely helps the players as well as the poker website to get more funds that can be used for jackpots. Some of the new poker sites have poker bonus without deposit option. These websites are rare, but they allow players to get registered and get instant poker bonus. The players get additional welcome bonus when they transfer funds from their account for the first time.

There’s no doubt that PokerStars is the biggest poker site on the net. Most of the regular players at Stars also would argue that it’s easily the best site on the net. This is for several reasons. For one, their supports staff is second to none. They also have some of the best software available and make it pretty easy to multi-table. Although they don’t have a true rakeback program, their frequent player “VIP” program is among the best in the industry. Through this program players can get bonuses that can more than make up for a lack of rakeback. But there is another reason that is not so well known. Even many of the regulars can be confused by PokerStars Concierge Service.

The fact is that the concierge service is one of the best “rakeback” values available on any site, especially for US players. However, it is available only to players who have achieved a level of Supernova or better. So in order to take advantage of all the benefits of playing at PokerStars, you really need to be sure you will be able to achieve Supernova status.

Ok, so let’s assume you are a PokerStars Supernova and you’ve been saving up your FPPs for the bonus and now you hear about this concierge service. Why should you use this service instead of taking the bonus? Well, in a word…value. Let’s take a look.

The value of the merchandise in the VIP store ranges widely, but generally it costs between 80 and 100 FPPs per $1.

The $1,500 Supernova Bonus costs 67 FPPs/$1, plus it takes 10,500 base FPPs to clear it.

The $4,000 Supernova Bonus costs 62.5 FPPs/$1, plus it takes 28,000 base FPPs to clear it.

Tournament tickets are the best straight value, at 59 – 63 FPPs/$1, but unfortunately, PokerStars won’t guarantee that you will make the money.

The value of PokerStars Concierge is 62 FPPs/$1. Now you might say, well, there’s not a big difference between the $4,000 bonus and concierge, so I’ll just take the bonus. But look at not only the value of the FPPs/$, but also the value of time. It can take over a month for some players to earn 28,000 base FPPs (VPPs). That’s a long time considering that there’s basically no waiting period for concierge. It takes only the time for you to send in receipts, Concierge to approve it, and the Accounts Department to credit your account. About a week, often less. So that’s three extra weeks you would have to wait for the same amount of money.

Alright, so your convinced and now you’re looking for the fine print. Well, there’s not much of it, but there are a few things you cannot concierge. Don’t send them bills or taxes. They won’t pay it. Also, they will not accept receipts for gas, gold, groceries, stocks, bonds or gift cards. And you can’t concierge T$ so don’t even try. Other than that, there’s not much you can’t send in. Electronics, clothing, jewelry, household appliances, auto accessories (yes you can concierge a car), and travel expenses can all be sent in to Concierge.

Many poker players often miss out on the fact that poker rakeback deals are available on most rooms. Rakeback is simply a term which was invented back in 2003 allowing poker players to receive a part of the rake back when playing poker tournaments or cash games. Actually most players pay a substantial amount of rake life time and getting a rakeback deal could amount to several thousands of dollars on a yearly basis for players which play a lot. The rakeback deals offered from the poker rooms are currently between 27% and up to effectively 50% on some rooms when including the sign up bonuses. There is no reason at all to avoid a rakeback deals since it is 100% free of charge and is more or less automated from the very beginning. However it has to be noted that players can only receive rakeback when opening a new account on a poker room and that it is impossible to activate old accounts as rakeback poker accounts.

Another important thing today is that the term rakeback has evolved and are no longer the only term used to describe the level of retention or rake paid back to players. Cash back, loyalty program, poker bonus are all terms that is exactly the same as the term rakeback since each and every one of these terms are all about the same subject namely how much a player get when playing at a specific poker room. A lot of parameters have to be looked at when deciding where to play poker and the highest rakeback percentage should not be the overall decision factor at all. Below are the maximum deals outlined together with some comments that can help players choosing what the correct way to proceed is. If in doubt then feel free to contact us for advice. The more information we know about what you like to play the better we can guide in terms of choosing the best rakeback deal.

US players can apply for rake back at the following poker rooms and it is recommended to create an account on all the rooms since US players at this point in time have fewer options than players from Europe and Asia.

The world’s biggest poker room does not offer any deals to players but indirectly PokerStars rakeback is given to everyone creating a PokerStars account. Indirect mean that players are rewarded through bonuses, stellar rewards and FPP loyalty points which can be redeemed for cash. The benefit of playing at PokerStars is obvious since they have 40% market share the poker room have enormous with activity round the clock together with some huge guaranteed tournaments.

Full Tilt rakeback is offered to players and since day 1 the amount given back to players is 27% and Full Tilt will not at any point in time change this percentage upwards. 27% is a net offer which means that the poker room deducts bonuses, freerolls, points spent and transaction fees from the rakeback paid. This is common praxis for all USA player friendly poker rooms. Rakeback is paid directly to the player account on a weekly basis (Fridays). Read a comprehensive review about Full Tilt Poker rakeback.

Ultimate Bet rakeback pay players 30% and the poker room endorsed by Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke will on top of the deal give players automatic access to the loyalty program RAI$E where players redeem points for cash or are eligible to play in point tournaments where tickets to some of the bigger guaranteed tournaments can be won. This deal is one of the best deals in online poker and is a must for all serious poker players.

Cake Poker rakeback is also 30% but on top of these players get a deposit bonus plus access to the Gold Card and Gold Chip promotions worth an additional 15-20% making this effectively 45% -50% rakeback. This compensates a bit for the fact that Cake Poker is the poker room with least action of the ones accepting US poker players.

European players have plenty of places where they can get a rakeback deal.

Classic Poker is the sixth biggest poker room in the world offering players 30% rakeback and a €1000 bonus on top making the deal effectively 50%.

Betfair Poker give their players 30% – 40% depending on the level of play but with tons of inexperience players coming from the worlds biggest sport exchange this is a deal that all EU players should sign up for.

Rakeback is just part of online card rooms. Like multi-tabling and isolating limpers, it’s pretty much automatic to higher volume, regular players. PokerStars Rakeback can have a huge effect on your bankroll and winrate. Just how big of an impact? Many people don’t even realize the actual numbers. In fact, the rake can be nearly 5 big blinds/100 hands (even higher at the lower stakes)! To put that in numbers, if you are a 100NL player, every 100,000 hands, you could be paying more than $5,000 just in rake! So if you play 100,000 hands and let’s just say you run break-even against the players, you actually would end up down $5,000 because of the rake.

Now let’s say you have rakeback (or equivalent) of 30%, meaning, of course, that you get 30% of your rake given back to you. In this case you would get $1,500 back, which would only leave you down $3,500. This could obviously be a huge difference between being a losing player and breakeven, or breakeven and profitable. And if you are already a winning player, rakeback is just gravy. If you are a high volume player, you might as well be getting money back while you play.

Some might find it interesting and curious that the largest poker site in the world is one that technically does not offer rakeback. There are a lot of great reasons to play at PokerStars, however, those that don’t play at PokerStars would argue that they can’t get rakeback at Stars and they don’t offer many deposit or reload bonuses, so why would I play there? That’s where they are wrong. It is true that you can’t get third party rakeback like you can at many other sites. However, PokerStars realizes that their valued regulars need to get some value for their precious time. This is where their VIP Club comes in.

PokerStars Rakeback has six levels to their VIP Club.

BronzeStar – This is where everyone starts, no real benefits here, just the basics.

SilverStar – If you earn 1,500 VPPs per month, you become a SilverStar. At this level you earn 1.5 FPPs for every VPP.

GoldStar – When you earn more than 4,000 VPPs in a month you are bumped up to GoldStar. Here you get 2 FPPs for each VPP.

PlatinumStar – You get 2.5 FPPs for every VPP when you are a PlatinumStar. You get to this level by earning more than 10,000 VPPs in a calendar month. This is where the benefits really begin to come in.

SuperNova – This is really the goal when playing at PokerStars. You become SuperNova when you earn 100,000 VPPs in a calendar year. You keep SuperNova status at least through February of the following year. SuperNovas earn 3.5 FPPs for every VPP. There are also special bonuses that become available only to SuperNovas.

SuperNova Elite – Elite indeed. Very few players make it to SuperNova Elite. However, if you earn 1,000,000 VPPs in a year you can enjoy the benefits of SNE. They earn 5 FPPs for every VPP (among a number of other benefits and bonuses).