fulltilts rake on small stakes is insane

i remebered when i started playing on full tilt their rake seemed resonible but if u look at it now it is $.20 rake on a $1 game if u want to play with 9 people that is 20% extra money going into rake to just get the game started and for a $1 heads up u r paying $1.10 that is 10% extra money going into rake i am not 100% sure but i believe it used to be .05 rake heads up at .10 for 9 people tourneys so now if u r going to play low limit u got to wait for the fergision or the daily dollar if u want to not spend an extra $.20 on rake

Try the $2 SnG's the rake is the .25 (12.5%) and the payout is better.

Yes pokerstars heads up are $2.20. FT are only $2.15 The $5.25 heads up are the same and so are the $5 + multi tables from there on up. Either way you look at it i agree the rake is to high. I can understand them having to make $ also.

rake kills. But they have to make money somehow.

I agree, a 20% rake at a $1 SnG is way to high. They created the super micro stakes for players to get their feet wet and to learn poker. A rake like that will destroy a micro bankroll. It's not like they're hiring a dealer for every table. It's all electronic. The rake should be lowered to the standard 5%.

I totally agree, and unfortunately, Full Tilt is not an exception...

Many rooms apply 20% rake on their microstakes games.
I think the best way we have to see these rakes lower is to boycott them

JEP712 said:

I agree, a 20% rake at a $1 SnG is way to high. They created the super micro stakes for players to get their feet wet and to learn poker. A rake like that will destroy a micro bankroll. It's not like they're hiring a dealer for every table. It's all electronic. The rake should be lowered to the standard 5%.

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Where is 5% standard?

OzExorcist said:

Where is 5% standard?

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Sorry, I did my math wrong. I use to play the $5.00 SnG that would have a rake of $0.50. It's 10% I think. At the micro-stakes, in opinion, it should be even lower than 10%.

JEP712 said:

At the micro-stakes, in opinion, it should be even lower than 10%.

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Obviously we feel that way, we're players.

From the site's perspective though, overheads (servers, power, bandwidth, maintenance, support staff wages, etc) are the same whether you're playing $5K NL or $2 NL, $100 SnGs or $1 SnGs.

So I can see why they'd want to charge more at the lower stakes - their costs are the same but their income is substantially lower.

But there are many many more players at the lower limits that more than make up for that.

Actually Full Tilt lowered their rake on SnGs not that long ago. Before it was 25cent fee on a $1 SnG. Get rakeback and the fees aren't really that bad.

sammyfive said:

But there are many many more players at the lower limits that more than make up for that.

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Erm... no.

Let's use STTs as an example. A $1 + 20c STT generates $1.80 revenue for the site. An $10 + $1 STT generates $9 in revenue, and a $100 +$10 STT generates $90.

The thing is, none of those STTs is substantially different to any other in terms of running costs. Each one needs the same amount of server processing power, the same internet bandwidth, needs the same support staff and a bunch of other stuff besides.

Let's say those things add up to 90c per STT*. I don't work for a poker site, I've got no idea what the actual figure is and 90c is probably high. But it'll do for the sake of argument. If you take that as the figure and reduce rake on the $1 STT to 10c, all of a sudden you're only breaking even - why bother offering the tournament?

If the site cut the rake to 10c they'd need to double their volume in those games to make up the lost revenue - anyone really think that's going to happen?

Lastly, you're ignoring probably the most imporant fact: The high volume of players you're referring to proves that 20c rake on a $1 STT is a price the market is willing to pay. The market has spoken, what's the incentive for the site to change?


* for anyone who's thought that hard about it yes, I'm aware that any figure would come down slightly at high volumes as fixed costs are accounted for and only the variable costs remain. Again, I'm just illustrating and the point remains that lower stakes games contribute much less to overall profit despite their similar costs**

** OMFG I can't believe I just made a semi-serious business post on here