Rake in NLHE Cash
What rake is
Rake is the fee the cardroom, casino, or online poker platform takes from a cash-game pot for running the game. The dealer (or the software) drops a small slice of each raked pot into a separate slot before the rest goes to the winner. In some rooms, rake is charged as a flat hourly fee per seat instead of being skimmed from pots. Either way, rake is the price of admission for a cash game, and it sits underneath every call, raise, and check you make.
Related terms
- Pot: the gross figure on the table; rake is removed from this number before the winner is paid.
- Pot odds: the call-math that quietly shifts when the net pot shrinks below the gross.
- Expected value: the long-run scoreboard rake reduces line by line.
- Expected value (EV): sister entry framing EV as the action-by-action long-run scoreboard.
- Big blind: the standard unit rake is quoted in (e.g. 5% capped at 3 bb).
- Blinds: the seeded chips that contribute to many low-rake preflop pots.
- Preflop: the street where no-flop-no-drop rooms charge no rake at all.
- Value bet: the line where the gross-vs-net gap matters most when sizing thinly.
How rake is charged
Cash-game rake comes in three common forms. The first two are what most live and online cash players see; the third is included for contrast because tournament fees work very differently.
| Form | What it means | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|
| Percentage of pot, capped | A small percentage of the pot (often around 5%), removed once the cap (often 3-5 big blinds) is reached. | Most live cardrooms and online cash games. |
| Time charge | A flat hourly fee per player at the table. No money is taken from individual pots. | Some live high-stakes rooms; some short-handed games. |
| Tournament fee (for contrast) | Built into the buy-in and entry fee. Paid once before the event begins; no per-pot drop during play. | Multi-table tournaments and sit-and-gos; often listed as “$100 + $10”. |
A common live structure is “5% capped at $5”. That means the room takes 5% of every raked pot up to a maximum of $5. A $40 pot pays $2 in rake. A $100 pot pays $5. A $400 pot still pays $5, because the cap is hit. Once the cap is reached, the rake stops scaling with the pot.
Most rooms also follow a no-flop-no-drop rule: if the hand ends before a flop is dealt, no rake is taken. That rule is why aggressive preflop play in raked games often pays for itself even when it does not get called; winning the pot before the flop wins 100% of the gross pot, while winning a postflop pot wins 100% of the net pot.
Why rake bites small pots hardest
Capped rake is harder on small pots than on big ones, because the same percentage takes a larger share of a smaller gross. A $20 pot at 5% pays $1 — a fee that is 5% of what you win. A $400 pot at 5% capped at $5 pays $5 — a fee that is barely over 1% of what you win. That asymmetry is why small-pot calls and thin limp-call lines are the first to suffer in a heavily raked game.
Two practical consequences sit on top of that math.
- Marginal calls move from +EV to -EV. A line that is barely profitable at the gross-pot price stops being profitable once the rake is removed. Solver outputs for raked games show this effect directly: raising frequencies tend to go up, limping and flatting frequencies tend to go down, and folding frequencies tend to rise.
- Low-stakes games get tougher. A $4 cap at $1/$2 is a much bigger share of an average pot than a $5 cap at $5/$10. Players who switch up in stakes often find that similar results in big blinds per hour produce more net dollars per hour, because the rake-to-pot ratio gets smaller.
The general rule the books support: the higher the rake, the tighter the preflop ranges should be, and the more value there is in lines that take the pot down before a big rake hit.
Worked example: gross pot vs net pot
A $1/$2 6-max cash table runs 5% rake capped at $5. You open ♠Q♠J on the button to $6. The big blind calls, and you take the flop heads-up. The pot at that point is $13 (your $6, the big blind’s $6, the small blind’s $1). On a ♠T♠7♣2 flop the big blind checks, you bet $9 for value plus equity, and the big blind calls. The pot is now $31. Turn comes ♠5: you bet $20, big blind calls. River is ♣4: you check back with showdown value, big blind shows ace-high, and you win.
- Gross pot at showdown: $13 + $18 + $40 = $71.
- Rake taken: 5% of $71 = $3.55, under the $5 cap.
- Net pot you scoop: $71 - $3.55 = $67.45.
The $3.55 is the part most live players never count. Run that same line forty times an hour and you have given back $142 to the room over a session, before you have folded a single hand or paid a single tip. That is the number you have to beat — not just your opponents at the table.
A second case shows the cap behavior. A $5/$10 game, same 5% cap at $5. You win a $300 pot. 5% of $300 is $15, but the cap kicks in at $5; you pay $5. The same percentage rule produces a much smaller share of a much bigger pot.
Common mistakes when ignoring rake
1) Paying for thin marginal calls without rake-adjusting
A flop or turn call that breaks even at gross pot odds is a small loser at net pot odds. The gap is small per hand and devastating across thousands of hands. The fix is straightforward: when a call is borderline, lean toward folding in a heavily raked spot and toward calling in a less-raked or tournament spot. The math does not care that the difference looks small.
2) Limping into multi-way raked pots with junk
Open-limping with weak hands is already a marginal habit; in a raked game it is worse, because the small pots you tend to win after limping are the ones the cap takes the biggest percentage of. Tight, position-aware preflop play earns a quiet bonus in raked games: it shifts you toward bigger pots when you do play, and bigger pots get a smaller share taken at the cap.
3) Using tournament strategy assumptions in cash games
Tournaments charge their fee up front and let you play freely from there; cash games charge per pot. That difference shows up in solver ranges: rake-adjusted cash ranges 3-bet a little more, limp a lot less, and fold a little more often than the same situation modeled with no rake. Treating cash-game preflop ranges as if they were tournament ranges drifts you into too many small pots that get raked.
4) Ignoring time charge math when the room offers both
A time-charge game has no per-pot drop; you pay a fixed hourly fee and keep 100% of every pot you win. That structure rewards playing more hands and more pots. A percentage-rake game rewards playing fewer, bigger pots. If you sit in a time-charge game and play your normal raked-game strategy, you are paying for hours you did not use.
FAQ
Is rake taken on every hand?
In most rooms, no. Most cash games follow a no-flop-no-drop rule: if every player folds before the flop, the winner takes the pot with zero rake removed. Once the flop is dealt, the room takes the percentage up to the cap. Time-charge games are the exception — the fee is per hour at the seat, not per pot, so it does not depend on whether a flop comes.
How much rake is normal in a low-stakes cash game?
A common live cap is around 5% capped at $4 or $5 in $1/$2 and $2/$5 games. Online cash sites often run lower percentages (around 3-5%) with caps quoted in big blinds (often 3 bb). At low stakes the cap is the part that matters most — a $4 or $5 cap is a meaningful share of the average $40-$80 pot at $1/$2, which is why the rake-to-pot ratio shrinks as you move up in stakes.
Does rake change my preflop strategy?
Yes, in cash games. Rake-adjusted solver outputs raise a little more often, limp a lot less, and fold a little more often than the same spots solved without rake. The size of the adjustment depends on how heavy the rake is. The rough heuristic: heavier rake means tighter, more aggressive preflop play. Tournament ranges do not need this adjustment because the fee is paid once before play begins.