The trend of major live poker tournament festival prize-pools not matching what is advertised (or expected) has been apparent to some eagle-eyed members of the poker community for the last few years.
Usually a poker tournament has a fixed entry fee, plus “rake” – for example a $100+10 tournament with 10 players would usually have a $1,000 prize-pool, with $100 (10%) kept by the house.
This transparency is important for consumers, so their expectations are met, and they know how much they stand to win should they come in first place in a tournament after putting up their hard-earned cash, and battling through the field of other players registered in the tournament.
Many live poker-festival operators have decided that taking a fixed % from the prize-pool, without advertising the fact in their terms and conditions is fair (and legal). This is effectively hidden rake.
Others operators do mention this money-grab, often burying the information deep in their terms and conditions – not “up front” (as a dollar amount, in addition to the buy in) as poker players are accustomed to.
This duplicity impacts the advertised guarantees for tournaments.
Take for example a tournament advertised with a $1,000,000 guarantee. In this age it seems that doesn’t actually mean that at least $1M will be paid out to entrants – rather this “guarantee” applies to the prize-pools BEFORE a (variable) % deduction by the organizers. A guarantee of $1M (with 5% deducted from prizepool) is effectively just a $950k guaranteed tournament (not as glitzy as a MILLION for PR or marketing purposes, but it has been said that “all marketers are liars”).
Estimated Prize-pool Deductions from Major Live Poker Tournaments / Poker Series
In recent years, industry players like Unibet, 888, Pokerstars and Grosvenor Poker have started taking money from the prize-pool itself. Many players in the poker community are unaware of this until it’s too late.
Estimated “hidden rake”:
- Unibet Open: ~3% withheld
- Battle of Malta: ~5% withheld
- Dusk Till Dawn WSOPE: ~3% withheld
- Pokerstars events / Hippodrome London: ~3% withheld
- Grosvenor GUKPT events: ~4% withheld
- Aspers London: ~3% withheld
- 888 Poker Live events (in various casinos): ~5% to ~10% withheld
- Irish Open: ~2.5% withheld
(source: The Reddit Poker Community)
While some poker operators insulate themselves from legal action from irked/surprised consumers yelling “SCAM”, by declaring such deductions in their terms and conditions, other operators obfuscate this deduction in the (often unread) teeny-tiny small-print on their tournament schedules, blindsiding players who expect to see binding terms in the terms and conditions associated with a given tournament or tournament series.
Malta Poker Festival 4% hidden Rake – not mentioned in Terms and Conditions
Profit Trumps Transparency?
When it was pointed out to the organizer of the Malta Poker Festival (MPF) that their 4% deduction wasn’t visible on the terms and conditions on the event website (the information is buried in tiny text on the tournament schedule footer), Ivonne Montealegre stated “I will add it more clearly tomorrow” (7th of March).
Curiously, 5 days later the website has not been updated to show this deduction. MPF Terms and Conditions – Last updated October 2023).
The Fix
The obvious and easy fix for transparency would be for operators to simply increase the advertised rake, increasing it by 5% or so, and for casinos to pay their own dealers, rather than passing that buck onto their customers.
In the meantime, poker players should always do their own due diligence, because let’s face it – more rake is not better.
An experienced iGaming commentator and analyst based in New York City - Jenny reports on regulation and gambling industry news and events.