Poker rake explained

In poker you play against the other players, not the casino. The rake is how the room gets paid for the table, the dealer and the game.

Rake is the room's fee

In a cash game, the room takes a portion of eligible pots according to its rules. The usual way is a percentage of the pot up to a cap. A structure written as "10% to a maximum of $20" means the rake grows with the pot until it hits $20, then stops.

Here's what a 10% rake with a $20 cap looks like on real pot sizes:

Notice that the cap only helps in big pots. In the $600 pot the rake is about 3%. In every pot under $200, it's the full 10%.

Some rooms use a different method, such as a time charge, where each player pays a set amount per half hour or hour instead of the house taking a share of pots. This is more common at higher stakes. The method can depend on game, stakes and venue, so don't assume one Ontario room uses the same cap or percentage as another.

Why the cap isn't the whole story

The percentage and cap are the headline. You also need to know when the rake starts, whether there's a no-flop-no-rake rule, and whether a separate jackpot contribution is taken from pots.

"No flop, no rake" means that if a hand ends before the flop, for example you raise and everyone folds, the room takes nothing from that pot. Great Canadian Toronto currently publishes "No Flop No Rake" and a minimum $2 rake after the flop in its house rules.

What Toronto-area rooms publish

Great Canadian Toronto and Pickering currently publish 10% rake to a maximum of $20 for the listed games on their poker pages. Always verify current rules at the room, since rake structures can change. You can compare rooms on the room comparison database and see which stakes each one spreads on the stakes and games matrix.

We record rake only when a venue publishes enough detail to support it. If a cap or collection method matters to your decision, check the room's official poker page or call the poker desk before you travel. See our data methodology for how room data is sourced.

Why rake hits low stakes hardest

Rake takes a bigger share of small pots, and at low stakes most pots are small. At $1/$3, a typical single-raised pot that goes to the flop might be $30 to $60. At 10%, that's $3 to $6 out of every one of those pots.

Here's a simple illustration. Suppose a table plays 30 hands an hour and 20 of them see a flop with an average rake of $5. That's $100 an hour leaving the table, split across nine players. Before anyone's skill enters the picture, the game as a whole is losing about $11 per player per hour. A player has to be meaningfully better than the table just to break even.

This is also why you can't judge live results by the hands you remember winning and losing. The fee comes out of every raked pot, including the ones you win.

What rake means for how you play

• Win bigger pots, play fewer small ones. Marginal calls that lead to small, raked pots cost more than they seem to.
• Tighten up slightly preflop. Hands that are barely profitable with no rake, like weak offsuit hands from early position, often become losing hands with it.
• Raise-or-fold helps. Winning the pot preflop in a no-flop-no-rake game means no rake at all on that pot.
• Count it when choosing a game. Headline blinds alone aren't enough to compare two cash games.

Tournaments work differently

Tournaments don't rake individual pots. Instead, part of the entry goes to the house as a fee, often shown as something like "$200 + $30" or folded into the total price. See tournament buy-ins and fees for how to read those numbers.

Sources

• Great Canadian Toronto, official poker page
• Pickering Casino Resort, official poker page

Common questions

By the TorontoPoker.org editorial team · Updated September 2026 · 19+ · Play responsibly