Rake

Rake is the only thing the house takes from a game. It is a percentage of what is won, never of the buy-in you get back, and the rate depends on the tier. This page gives the rule, then works it through with real numbers.

#The rate for each tier

The rate is flat per tier and falls as the buy-in rises. The other columns show the result at six players, in USDG.

"Wins" means the net gain on top of getting your own buy-in back. Oligarch and Tsar are VIP tiers: see How a game works.

#The rule

All amounts are whole millionths of a USDG (6 decimals), and rake is always rounded down.

Classic. One buy-in S is forfeited by the shot player. The rake is the rate times S, rounded down. The survivors split the rest equally, and each also gets their own buy-in back. Any leftover from the division, called dust, is added to the rake.

rake0  = floor(rate x S)
pool   = S - rake0
share  = floor(pool / (k - 1))        paid to each survivor, on top of their own buy-in
dust   = pool - share x (k - 1)
rake   = rake0 + dust

Last Hood Standing. The winner takes everyone else's buy-in. That winnings pool is W = (k - 1) x S. The rake is the rate times W, rounded down.

W      = (k - 1) x S
rake   = floor(rate x W)
winner receives  S + W - rake         a net gain of W - rake
everyone else loses S

In both modes, the net results of all players plus the rake add up to exactly zero. Nothing appears or vanishes. See Classic and Last Hood Standing for a full game.

#Worked examples

Kopek, Classic, six players. Buy-in 0.25 at 5%.

• —Rake: 5% of 0.25 is 0.0125.
• —The pool for survivors is 0.25 minus 0.0125, which is 0.2375. Split five ways that is 0.0475 each.
• —The shot player loses 0.25.
• —Check: 5 x 0.0475 + 0.0125 = 0.25, which is exactly what the shot player lost.

Babushka, Last Hood Standing, six players. Buy-in 5.00 at 4.5%.

• —The winnings pool is 5 x 5.00 = 25.00.
• —Rake: 4.5% of 25.00 is 1.125.
• —The winner receives 5.00 + 25.00 - 1.125 = 28.875, a net gain of 23.875.
• —The other five each lose 5.00. Check: 23.875 - 25.00 + 1.125 = 0.

Tsar, six players. Buy-in 500.00 at 3%.

• —Classic: rake 15.00, each of the five survivors wins 97.00.
• —Last Hood Standing: pool 2,500.00, rake 75.00, the winner nets 2,425.00.

Dust, four players at Ruble. Buy-in 1.00 at 5%, Classic. Rake0 is 0.05, so the survivors share 0.95 three ways. That is 0.316666 each with 0.000002 left over. The leftover goes to the rake, so the rake is 0.050002.

Heads-up. Two players at Ruble, Classic: the rake is 0.05, and the single survivor wins 0.95.

What the screen shows. The table, your history and the leaderboard print money in cents and cut off the rest, never rounding up, so the app never shows more than you have. The Kopek survivor's 0.0475 above shows as +$0.04, and the Ruble survivor's 0.316666 as +$0.31. Your stash is credited with every millionth, and /verify prints the exact amounts.

#What rake costs you on average

If every player clicks once per turn, every seat has exactly the same chance, so each player's average result per game is minus their share of the rake: the rake divided by the number of players. As a share of your buy-in, at six players:

Last Hood Standing costs more per game because the rake is taken on the whole winnings pool, which is k - 1 buy-ins, not on one. The winner also gets a bigger prize. It is the same fair spin either way: the rake is the only edge. Rakeback returns part of it to you.

#When no rake is taken

• —A game cancelled at the start because fewer than two players remain.
• —A game the server aborts after a fault.

In both cases every buy-in is released and nobody pays anything.

#Where the rake goes

1. 01Rakeback first. Part of the rake you generate is credited back to you. See Rakeback.
2. 02Net rake is swept to the rake router. Net rake is gross rake minus the rakeback credited. The vault can send rake to one place only, the router, and anyone can trigger the sweep.
3. 03The router splits it, in shares that are fixed when it is deployed:

For 100 USDG of net rake that is 12.00 to stakers, 10.00 to the jackpot and 78.00 to the house.