MMM: Negative rakeback?

Yo Sushi,


I was checking my rakeback account and noticed that I had negative rakeback for one of the days. I'm no accountant and maybe there's a good explanation but that seems pretty screwy to me. How does that happen?


Rakebackless,
Seattle WA

Dear Rakebackless in Seattle,

Negative rakeback can seem surprising the first time you see it but there is a very simple explanation. You can end up with negative rakeback because of deductions taken by your poker room. A couple reasons for this are freerolls and bonuses. In the case of a freeroll the overlay provided by the poker room is evenly divided among all participants. For example, I played in a freeroll yesterday which had a $5000 prize pool and 2173 players. Since no money was contributed by any of the players the entire $5000 was overlay. Five grand divided by 2173 players is $2.30 per player which counts against your rakeback. If you earned less than $2.30 in rakeback for that day then you would register negative rakeback for that day. There is indeed no such thing as a free freeroll...at least not with rakeback. I assume that players without rakeback accounts actually do get a true freeroll. Similarly, if you are playing through a bonus amount then that is deducted from rakeback as well. You still end up ahead because of your bonus, just not as far ahead as you would if you got the bonus and the rakeback but the poker room is not going to want to let you double dip like that and since they are setting up the bonus rules they can call the shots.

I hope that explains it for you,
Sushi Cowboy