Whenever a rookie reaches a level when he’s going to start wondering about the impact the rake has on his online poker performance and he starts viewing the sign-up bonus as a realistic source of revenue rather than an unbeatable hurdle, he’s inevitably going to bump into the question: should he go for rakeback or for a good yield bonus deal instead. In some situations, the answer to that question is extremely simple. There are poker rooms out there which do not subtract bonuses from rakeback. What this means to you is that you’ll get both a bonus and rakeback if you join the room through the right channels. In such cases, comparing the two makes no sense at all.

Most poker rooms however will subtract bonuses from rakeback and because many poker rooms offer no rakeback at all, the choice will often come down to which poker room you sign up to. In such cases, knowing what you give up for something else is extremely important.

Poker rakeback refers to a percentage of the rake you generate via your real money actions, a percentage which finds its way back to your real money account, thus effectively taking the bite out of the poker rake. A rakeback deal never expires: you’ll be earning extra money on it for as long as you play, even if your poker room happens to discontinue offering rake back to new players. Square rakeback deals offer around 30% to their players but special rake rebate deals known as poker prop deals can even offer more than 100%.

A bonus is a form of rakeback as well. Upon sign-up, you have your bonus transferred to your bonus account, from where you’ll have to unlock it in order to have it transferred to your real money account. Once you’ve done that, you can use that money at the tables or you can cash it out. The bonus redemption process is similar to how rakeback works. You generate rake, and your bonus is released into your real money account depending on how much rake you generate. At the end of the day, your bonus is in fact a percentage of your rake which finds its way back to you.

The bottom line: while a sign-up bonus will yield you a bigger rakeback % for a limited time (if you’re playing small stakes), a rakeback deal will offer you a revenue source for as long as you play.