Rake is the term for what poker players pay to play poker on a poker site. Rake is how poker rooms make money. The poker sites deducts a certain amount from every cash game pot, or have the player pay an extra fee on top of the buy in for every tournament and Sit and Go. The poker sites average a 5% rake across all their games. With the volume of players and hands, that accumulates into a tremendous amount of money. Rakeback is simply a discount you receive back from the rake you pay in.