Poker Rake, Time Fees and Tournament Fees: What Card Rooms and Sites Charge

The short answer

Poker is unusual among casino games because the house does not usually bet against you. In most card rooms you are playing against the other players, and the room takes its money from the game itself. That money comes in three shapes, and you will meet all three if you play in more than one place.

The first is rake: a slice of each pot, taken by the dealer before the winner is paid. The second is a time fee or session fee: an hourly charge for the seat, collected whether you win or lose. The third is a tournament fee: a portion of your buy-in that never reaches the prize pool.

Which one applies depends on where you are and what you are playing. Cash games in most rooms are raked. Some rooms, particularly in Europe and a few Asian clubs, prefer time fees because they are simpler and more predictable. Tournaments almost always use a fee built into the buy-in, because there is no single pot to rake across a multi-hour event.

The practical effect on you is the same in all three cases: the game costs something to play, and the cost is set by the room, not by the players. Knowing the shape of the charge tells you whether a long session at a small table is cheap or expensive, and whether a tournament with a low buy-in is actually good value.

What the law says

This is not a page about whether poker is legal where you are. That varies enormously across Asia, and the country guides cover it. What matters here is that the fee structure itself is regulated in some places and not in others, and that affects what you are quoted at the desk.

In Macau, the games offered in casinos are set out in published rules, and those rules cover the mechanics of the games rather than the rake. Texas hold'em, for example, has a published rule that a raise must be at least equal to the previous bet or raise in that round⁵. Omaha has a published rule that players may not agree to share the pot, and that identical hands split it equally, with any indivisible remainder going to the first active player to the dealer's left⁶. These are game rules, not fee rules, but they tell you the room is operating under a published framework.

In Canada, the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake licenses poker rooms under its own regulations, and those regulations state plainly that offering or participating in a poker game within the territory is prohibited except as permitted by the regulations⁷. Licensed rooms there operate under that permission.

In Vietnam, poker is licensed only in tournament format, run under the association's tournament rules, with players paying an entry fee that covers organizing costs and prizes⁸. That is a fee structure written into the license itself: the buy-in is the funding mechanism, and cash games are not part of it.

In Japan, poker appears in the list of permitted casino game types under the enforcement rules, including the following⁹:

• Caribbean stud poker
• Three card poker
• Texas hold'em bonus
• Mississippi stud poker
• Let it ride
• Omaha poker
• Texas hold'em poker
• Poker tournaments

That list matters for fee purposes because house-banked poker games and player-versus-player poker are charged differently, and the rules distinguish them.

The practical takeaway: in a licensed room, the fee you are quoted is part of an approved operating model. In an unlicensed room, it is whatever the operator decides, and you have no published figure to check it against.

Who it applies to

The fee structure applies to everyone who sits down, but the way you pay it can differ depending on who you are and where you are playing.

Visitors to a jurisdiction often play in the tourist-facing rooms, which tend to be the ones with the highest rakes and the most polished service. In South Korea, for example, the Seven Luck Casino COEX branch is arranged specifically for the convenience of foreign visitors¹⁰. If you are a visitor, you are usually in the room that has priced for visitors.

Foreign residents often have access to the same rooms as citizens, and sometimes to club rooms that visitors do not use. Club poker in several Asian countries runs on a membership or tournament basis rather than a raked cash basis, which changes the cost entirely.

Citizens in some countries face restrictions that visitors do not. In Vietnam, poker is licensed in tournament format with a buy-in that covers organizing costs and prizes, and personal income tax and corporate income tax are paid on it⁸. That is a structure aimed at the domestic club scene.

Online players pay rake to the site regardless of nationality, but the rate depends on the stake level and the number of players at the table, not on who you are.

One more distinction matters. In a raked cash game, a player who folds every hand pays nothing. In a time-fee game, everyone at the table pays the same hourly charge whether they play or not. If you are a tight player who folds a lot, rake is cheaper for you. If you play a lot of hands, a time fee can be cheaper. That is the real decision, and it is the same for citizens, residents and visitors.

Penalties and enforcement

This section is short because it is not really about rake. It is about the fact that in some places, the game itself is the problem, not the fee.

Playing poker for real money in a cash game, or buying chips and converting them back to money, is treated as illegal gambling and prosecuted criminally in Vietnam⁸. In China, participating in gambling with relatively large stakes can lead to detention or a fine¹¹, and providing conditions for gambling for profit, or participating with large stakes, carries detention of up to five days or a fine of up to CNY 1,000, rising to detention of 10 to 15 days and a fine of CNY 1,000 to 5,000 in serious cases¹². Participants in cross-border gambling face administrative penalties of detention and fines, and criminal liability if a crime is constituted¹³.

There is a carve-out worth knowing. In China, relatives playing mahjong or poker with money stakes without a profit motive are not punished, and non-relatives playing with small money stakes are not punished¹⁴. Normal chess and card games played for leisure in chess and card rooms, without a profit motive, are lawful entertainment protected by law¹⁵.

The practical point for a reader thinking about fees: if the game is not legal where you are, the rake is not your main concern. If it is legal, the fee is a published or quoted number and you can compare it.

What is legal and licensed

Where poker is licensed, the fee structure is part of the license. That gives you something to check.

In the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake, the Kahnawà:ke Gaming Commission publishes its licensees. River Run Poker, Playground Poker Club and The Office Poker Club are all listed as poker room licensees¹⁶. Playground also holds an electronic gaming device license¹⁶. If you are playing there, the room is operating under a published license, and the regulations governing poker rooms in the territory set out what is permitted⁷.

In the Philippines, the gaming regulator publishes a list of poker operators with issued gaming licenses, and that list includes rooms such as Red Dragon Poker Room, Supreme Poker Club, Voyager Poker Club and Masters Poker Club¹⁷. If a room is on that list, it is licensed. If it is not, it is not.

In Macau, the games and their rules are published by the regulator. Texas hold'em requires a minimum of two players to start a round⁵. Omaha deals four cards face down to each player, one at a time⁶. In limit Omaha games there is a maximum of three raises per betting round, with no limit in unlimited games and no raise limit when only two players are heads up⁶. These rules shape how often the pot is raised, which in turn shapes how much rake a room collects.

In Japan, the permitted casino game types include poker tournaments alongside the house-banked poker variants⁹. That distinction matters for fees: a tournament has a buy-in with a fee component, while a house-banked game has a fixed house edge built into the pay table.

For house-banked poker games, the fee is not a rake at all. It is the house edge. In Caribbean stud poker, if the dealer qualifies with a lower hand than the player, the player wins even money on the ante and wins according to a pay table on any raise bets¹⁸. That pay table is where the house makes its money, and it is a different model from a raked pot.

What it means for visitors and expats

If you are visiting or living in Asia and want to play poker, here is what the fee side looks like in practice.

Cash games. You will usually pay rake. The rate is a percentage of the pot, often around 10%, and it is capped¹. The cap is the number that matters most to you, because it decides how much a big pot costs. Online, caps are published per stake level. On one site's short deck tables, the caps are as follows:

Notice the pattern: the cap rises with the stakes, but measured in big blinds it often falls.

Pot-limit Omaha. The same site publishes a 5% rake on its PLO tables, with caps expressed in big blinds: 1.25BB at a $10/$20 high stakes table with five or more players, 0.313BB with two players, 0.625BB with three, and 0.938BB with four³. At a $5 blind table the cap is 1.5BB with five or more players³. There is also a timing rule: ordinary preflop raises are not raked, only reraised pots are raked before the flop, and rake applies after the flop³.

Time fees. Some rooms charge by the hour instead of raking. The official guidance is that house fees may include a rake or a session fee, and that in some games an ante is contributed by each player before the hand starts¹. If you are in a time-fee game, budget for the hourly charge as a fixed cost. A three-hour session costs three hours of fee no matter how many hands you play.

Tournaments. Your buy-in splits into a prize pool portion and a fee. In Vietnam, the licensed tournament format has players paying an entry fee used for organizing costs and prizes, with personal income tax and corporate income tax fully paid⁸. That is the fee made explicit. When you register for a tournament anywhere, ask what portion of the buy-in goes to the prize pool and what portion is the fee. A tournament advertised as having a guaranteed prize pool is guaranteeing the pool, not your share of the fee.

Government levies on chips. In some jurisdictions there is a tax on top. At Deltin Casinos in India, GST applies at 28% on the amount paid for the purchase of chips or playing coupons, under Notification No. 51/2023 issued by the Ministry of Finance⁴. Critically, the GST paid at the time of every purchase of chips or playing coupons is not refunded if you return or encash them⁴. So if you buy INR 10,000 of chips and cash them back in without playing, you do not get the tax back. That is a real cost of sitting down, separate from the rake.

What to bring and what to ask. Bring photo ID, because licensed rooms check it. Ask three questions at the desk before you buy in: is this a raked game or a time fee, what is the cap, and does the buy-in include a fee. Those three answers tell you the true cost of your session.

A worked example. Suppose you sit at a $1 blind online table with a $0.50 to $1.50 cap². You play 200 hands in a session and the pot reaches the cap on 60 of them. That is $30 to $90 in rake across the session, taken from pots you may or may not have won. If instead you played a time-fee game at $10 an hour for four hours, you would pay $40 flat. Which is cheaper depends entirely on how many capped pots you are involved in. That is the calculation worth doing before you choose a table.

Where the games are. Licensed poker rooms in the region include the Kahnawake-licensed rooms in Canada¹⁶ and the Philippine-licensed rooms such as Red Dragon, Supreme, Voyager and Masters¹⁷. In Macau, the published game rules cover Texas hold'em, Omaha and the house-banked variants⁵. In Japan, poker tournaments are among the permitted casino game types⁹. In South Korea, foreign visitors have dedicated casino facilities such as the Seven Luck Casino COEX branch¹⁰.

If you want the wider picture of where poker is played and under what rules, start with Poker in Asia. If you are working out what a session actually costs you in winnings terms, Tax on Poker Winnings in Asia covers the other side of the ledger. And if you are choosing between a raked cash game and a tournament, Poker Cash Games vs Tournaments explains how chips, buy-ins and payouts differ.