Understanding tournament rake
Percentage vs. flat fees, and how each one changes the prize pool.
Poker Hawk gives the house three separate ways to take money off a tournament. They are not interchangeable — two are charged on top of the buy-in and never touch the prize pool, and one comes out of the pot. Knowing which is which keeps your payouts honest and your players unsurprised.
The three knobs
- •Membership fee: a flat amount added on top of each paid entry. Never part of the prize pool. Individual players can be marked exempt.
- •Rake (per entry): a second flat amount, also added on top of each entry and also kept out of the prize pool. Use it when you want to separate, say, a dealer fee from a room fee on the same event.
- •Rake (% of pot): a percentage of the collected prize pool, taken out before payouts are calculated. This is the only one of the three that makes the prize pool smaller.
What a player actually hands over
The door price is the buy-in plus the membership fee plus the per-entry rake. The percentage rake is invisible at the door — it comes off the pot later, so the same buy-in produces a smaller prize pool.
On a 50 buy-in with a 10 membership fee and a 5 per-entry rake, each player pays 65 and 50 goes to the pot. Add a 10% pot rake and 20 players, and the 1,000 pot pays out 900.
Guarantees
If you run a guaranteed prize pool, the percentage rake is taken before the guarantee is applied — so a guaranteed event always pays at least the number you promised, never the guarantee minus the house cut.
Picking a rate
A 5–10% pot rake is typical for professionally-run tournaments. Anything above 15% is aggressive and tends to push recreational players away over time. Flat per-entry charges are easier for players to reason about, since the number is visible when they pay.