TonyBet Poker, which bills itself as the “first-ever global Open Face Chinese Poker site” launched a new rakeback system this week, making an interesting change to how we normally look at rake rebates.
As everyone reading this likely knows, online poker players are often able to receive a portion of the rake they pay back in the form of a cash deposit into their account (hence the term “rakeback”). Sometimes, players must sign up through an affiliate for rakeback, other times the poker room gives it to them without a middle man. Sometimes the rakeback is straightforward (you get x% per week), sometimes it is indirect via loyalty point store purchases.
Regardless of the system, the more someone plays, the more rake they generate and therefore the more rakeback they receive. Thus, the high volume grinders – and especially those who play at high stakes – benefit the most. The best players become even more profitable with rakeback, break even players become profitable, and some losing players can at least break even.
In TonyBet’s new system, which took effect Monday, while it appears that volume is a factor in how much total cash a player will receive in rakeback, what determines the rakeback percentage is how much a player wins or loses. Losing players will actually receive a higher rakeback percentage than winning players, a feature clearly designed to keep recreational players on the site longer.
Everyone is eligible for rakeback, but players must make two deposits before it kicks in. The first is their initial deposit; the second is a reload deposit using the bonus code “REFILL1000.” It is that reload that initiates the rakeback; it also comes with a 100% bonus up to €1,000.
Note: We knew this sounds weird, needing a second deposit to get rakeback started, but we checked with TonyBet on this and they said this is how it works. As they said in an e-mail, “this promotion is only available to players who already made their deposit to TonyBet account before.” We’re still a little confused, as they did not mention rakeback in their response to us, but we’ll just take it at that for now.
So, after making that reload deposit with the code, everyone gets 25% rakeback. After that, weekly rakeback percentage is based on how a player does at Hold’em and PLO cash game tables (so we guess Chinese poker and tourneys don’t count?). Players who lose more than €100 on average per day (again, the site isn’t all that clear – it uses the terms “daily balance” and “daily winnings”) will get an extra 55% rakeback for a total of 80%. Those who lose less than €100 but also win less than €100 will earn 50% total rakeback. Players who have “daily winnings” of more than €100 just get the 25%.
Yes, it is a little convoluted – it would be nice if TonyBet Poker was more specific with the details – but in the end, players who lose money will get a bigger percentage chunk of their rake returned to them each Monday than those who are winning.
