Cash games
Non GamStop Online Poker
Online poker outside GamStop is a cash-game market first: most traffic sits at no-limit hold'em tables with blinds between 1p/2p and £1/£2, and the room's real price is the rake it takes from each pot. The best site is the one with games running at your stakes, at a rake you can see.
Stakes set the size of everything else
Cash games are described by their blinds, and the blinds determine the buy-in, the rake cap and the variance. A 1p/2p table with a £2 buy-in is a different game from a 50p/£1 table with a £100 buy-in, and the two rarely share a player pool. Decide which one you are actually going to play before looking at a bonus.
At the micro end the rake is proportionally brutal. A room that takes 5% of a pot with a £1 cap charges the same percentage at 1p/2p as at £1/£2, but at micro stakes the cap almost never binds — every pot is small, so every pot is raked at the full percentage. That is the main structural reason micro-stakes players find it hard to win, and it has nothing to do with how they play.
At higher stakes the cap starts to matter. Once pots regularly exceed the cap threshold, the effective rake as a share of the pot falls, and a room with a lower cap becomes measurably cheaper for the same game. That comparison can be made from a published rake table without playing a hand.
Reading a rake table
Most rooms publish rake as a percentage with a cap, sometimes weighted by the number of players dealt in, and often with a “no flop, no drop” rule that means a hand folded before the flop costs nothing. Three things are worth extracting:
- The percentage. Typically somewhere between 4% and 6.5% at micro and low stakes. The difference between the ends of that range is a real cost over a session.
- The cap. A low cap rewards bigger pots; a high cap means the rake keeps climbing. Compare the cap at the stake you actually play, not the headline percentage.
- The no-flop rule. Where it exists, folding pre-flop is free, which changes how much a tight player pays compared with a loose one.
None of this requires inside knowledge. It requires reading a page most players skip.
Rake is charged on every pot you contest, while a welcome bonus is paid once. A room with a generous sign-up offer and a 6% rake can cost more over a month than a plain room at 4.5%. Compare the rake first and the bonus second.
Liquidity is the other half of the price
A rake table describes the cost of a game you can get into. Liquidity decides whether the game exists. At off-peak hours, a small network may have one table at 5p/10p and none at 25p/50p. At that point the rake comparison is academic: there is nothing to play.
Judge it unglamorously. Log in at the time you would normally play, on the day you normally play, and count tables at your stakes. Do it twice, a week apart. A room that holds thirty tables at 8pm on a Tuesday is a functioning market; one that holds four is a hobby. Neither is dishonest, but only one is what most players mean by a poker site.
Fast-fold changes the arithmetic
Fast-fold variants — where folding sends you instantly to a new table — compress hands per hour dramatically. That is good for volume and bad for the rake-per-hour figure, because you pay rake on far more pots. A player who moves from a standard six-max table to fast-fold at the same stakes will usually see their hourly rake cost rise, not because the percentage changed but because the number of raked pots did.
That is not an argument against fast-fold. It is an argument for measuring cost per hour rather than cost per pot, which is the number that actually leaves your balance.
What the ten operators do offer
Welcome bonus£1,500 across three depositsMin deposit £20
- Wagering
- 35x
8.8/10★★★★★★★★★★Welcome bonus€1,000 + €600 + €400 across threeMin deposit £20
Our Top PickPublishes its 30x wagering in the promotion terms
- Wagering
- 30x
8.6/10★★★★★★★★★★Welcome bonus€4,500 total across depositsMin deposit £20
- Wagering
- 30x
8.4/10★★★★★★★★★★Welcome bonus€10,000 across deposits, not oneMin deposit £20
- Wagering
- 30x
8.3/10★★★★★★★★★★Welcome bonus€4,000 stage 1, €6,000 stage 2Min deposit £20
- Wagering
- 30x
8.2/10★★★★★★★★★★Welcome bonus€1,000 stage 1, codes publishedMin deposit £20
- Wagering
- 30x
8.0/10★★★★★★★★★★Welcome bonus€1,000 cap — €30,000 to clearMin deposit £20
- Wagering
- 30x
7.9/10★★★★★★★★★★Welcome bonus€1,000 single stageMin deposit £20
- Wagering
- 30x
7.8/10★★★★★★★★★★Welcome bonus€5,000 at 1000% — €150,000 turnoverMin deposit £20
- Wagering
- 30x
7.7/10★★★★★★★★★★Welcome bonus€5,000 across the ladderMin deposit £20
- Wagering
- 30x
7.6/10★★★★★★★★★★
Why the ten casinos here have no cash game lobby
The ten operators compared on this site publish slot libraries of roughly 3,000 to 4,000 titles, live dealer tables and, in five cases, a sportsbook. None advertises a poker room or a rake schedule. A cash game lobby is a marketplace that needs continuous liquidity, and these brands were built around products that work one player at a time.
So the cash-game advice here is for evaluating rooms you find elsewhere, not for picking among these ten. If you want to play at one of them, the relevant products are slots, live dealer and, at half of them, sports betting.
Four figures to pull before you sit down
Before joining any cash game room, pull the rake percentage and cap at your stake, the number of tables running at your usual hour, the minimum buy-in, and the withdrawal terms. Those four answer almost every practical question. The sign-up offer answers one, and it is the least durable of them.
- Poker overview Networks, skins and why liquidity rules
- Poker sites The checks before you deposit
- Wagering How casino bonus maths differs from rake
- Payouts Processing time and bank time
Frequently Asked Questions
What stakes are typical in online cash games outside GamStop?
The bulk of the traffic sits at no-limit hold’em with blinds between 1p/2p and £1/£2, and the deepest pools are at the micro end, because that is where a small bankroll can still get a seat. Above £1/£2 the player count thins quickly and the same game becomes harder to find. Exact liquidity varies by room and by hour, which is why counting tables at your usual play time tells you more than any published figure — a room is only useful at the stakes you can actually sit at.
How much rake do poker rooms charge?
Most charge a percentage of each pot with a cap, commonly between 4% and 6.5% depending on the stake and the room. Some use a no-flop-no-drop rule, so a hand folded before the flop costs nothing. The cap matters more at higher stakes, and the percentage matters more at micro stakes, where the cap is rarely reached.
Why is rake proportionally higher at micro stakes?
Because the cap almost never binds. A room that takes a fixed percentage with a ceiling only starts to feel cheap once pots are large enough to reach that ceiling. At 1p/2p every pot is small, so the full percentage is charged on all of them and the cap never applies. At £1/£2 pots regularly cross the threshold, so the same rule produces a lower effective rate. The structure is identical; what changes is pot size, which is why the micro end is the most expensive level to beat.
Does fast-fold poker cost more in rake?
Per hand, no: the percentage and the cap are unchanged. Per hour, usually yes, and by a wide margin. Fast-fold sends you to a new table the moment you fold, so the number of hands you see in an hour rises sharply and you pay rake on far more pots even though each one costs the same. The figure that actually leaves your balance is rake per hour, which is why a move to fast-fold at identical stakes often raises the real cost of a session.
Can I play cash game poker at the casinos on this site?
No — the ten operators here run slot libraries, live dealer tables and, at five of them, a sportsbook, and none of those products seats players against each other. A cash game lobby is a marketplace that only works when enough players are at the same stakes at the same hour to fill tables; a slots lobby works with a single player. That is a different business to run, which is why these brands have not added one, and why the cash-game guidance on this page is for evaluating rooms found elsewhere.
What is a realistic bankroll for micro-stakes cash games?
A common rule of thumb is twenty buy-ins for the stake you play — £40 at 1p/2p with a £2 buy-in, or £200 at 5p/10p with a £10 buy-in. That is a variance guideline, not a guarantee, and rake makes the micro end harder than the rule suggests. Treat any bankroll as money you can lose without it affecting anything else.