CoinPoker Retires 15% Rakeback: We Test the July 1 Reward Update

How CoinPoker's Rakeback Works After July 1st

Before, when we reviewed CoinRewards, the headline was “$1.5 million each week.”

Now, on July 1st, it’s changed to “Over $7M in CoinRewards each month.”

We’ve done the complex math already. That’s over a million dollars more a month, or $250,000 a week.

The main thing that changes with CoinPoker’s rewards after July 1st is the removal of 15% rakeback. The site says that they’ve funneled those rewards into other areas (which we confirmed in our test).

The reinvestment of 100% of micro-stakes rake back into the micro-stakes player pool also continues.

Let’s look at each of the four reward mechanisms on CoinPoker and do some analysis.

CoinRaces: Cash Game Leaderboards

CoinPoker’s cash game leaderboards are called CoinRaces. They pay $1,200,000 a week now, up from $1,000,000 before July 1st.

Here's a little breakdown for anyone unfamiliar:

• Formats: Texas Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha (PLO, PLO5, PLO6) on separate leaderboards.
• Leaderboard Time Before Reset: One hour at micro-stakes, two hours up to $25/$50.
• Prize Payout Time: Almost instantly to each player’s balance as the leaderboard resets.
• Prize Calculation: Based proportionally on rake. For example, if you rake 5% of the total rake at a certain leaderboard level, you collect 5% of the prize pool.

The good part about CoinRaces is that the competition is quite light. For example, at the $0.05/$0.10 to $0.25/$0.50 Hold’em leaderboard, up to 600 players get paid each reset. Slightly less coverage on the PLO leaderboards, thousands are able to collect prizes each reset.

🖳 Our Test:
Even playing a single table at $0.25/$0.50 for short portions of the two-hour leaderboard, we were able to get a very healthy return from the new CoinRaces.

We did a little checking of our pre-July 1st returns from CoinRaces to compare.

These figures are from playing PLO5 at $0.25/$0.50 before July 1st:

So, after July 1st, with the new CoinRaces, we saw an average rakeback increase of 19.2% across a small sample of leaderboards.

Without factoring in any of the other rewards, this completely nullifies the loss of the 15% rakeback.

Let’s move on to Splash Pots.

Splash Pots: Cash Drops

Random cash drops sound great, and everyone loves scoring the big ones, but they are unreliable in nature. Nobody on earth can tell you how many you’re guaranteed to hit or how much you’ll win.

CoinPoker has two different versions of Splash Pots:

• Infused Splash Pots: Funds added from CoinPoker juice the prize pool at stakes up to $0.25/$0.50 (previously this figure was $125,000 a week added by CoinPoker). This allows Mega Splashes to be activated, which can drop up to 1,000BB onto a table. Before July 1st, CoinPoker listed these as $125,000, which we assume has not changed.
• Non-Infused Splash Pots: There are the regular ones, funded by players through a “0.1BB fee per hand on tables where Splash Pot is an active feature.” That fee is per pot, not per player. 100% of the fees get put back into the pool and randomly distributed through RNG-based Splash Pots.

When a Splash Pot arrives, everyone instantly gets a portion of the drop, and the rest goes into the pot. The ratio of instant prizes to pot prizes fluctuates, but it’s usually around 60:40.

🖳 Our Test:
Unfortunately, Splash Pots aren't something you can easily quantify. In the last couple of days, we had one Mega Splash and about a dozen Regular Splashes.

In some sessions, you’ll get lucky enough to see Splash Pots frequently, perhaps even a Mega Splash. In other sessions, you’ll see one or two, and not really feel the impact.

But to be honest, this class of reward is not something players should rely on. Nobody should join a cash game and factor in Splash Pots to their winnings. See them as lottery tickets that get scratched on every hand.

Poker Missions: Tasks That Unlock Rewards

CoinPoker’s Missions were actually rolled out in June, but needed some optimization. At first, they required far too much rake for the prizes they unlocked. Now, they’ve become a meaningful part of the rakeback system.

Missions work like this:

1. You get awarded a Mission for cash games or tournaments.
2. Requirements vary, and could be rake generated from cash games, rake from tournament entries, or other objectives.
3. An expiry date is set, usually a week or more.
4. Complete your Mission requirements, and claim the reward.
5. Rewards unlock instantly after you claim them, and some Missions can be done multiple times.

These might feel like hoops CoinPoker is asking players to hop through, but the hoop is one you’re already hopping through, and there’s a small pot of gold on the other side.

Also, Missions exist separately from CoinRaces, so anything you collect here is extra.

🖳 Our Test:
We received a Mission for cash games. The stakes and formats were the same we already played, so there was no need to move up to higher limits or swap formats.

There were two options presented to us:

The idea here is clear. Play more, collect a higher prize (13% more rakeback in our case). Of course, this will encourage some players to spend more time at the table. For grinders who are there already for longer sessions, absolutely nothing changes.

We were able to claim the prizes from Missions multiple times within the expiry period.

Add this to another consistent reward like CoinRaces, and we can see our rakeback is actually stacking up. About 60% from CoinRaces in our two sessions, and let’s say you took the lower of the two Missions during that time. That’s 80% rakeback. Not too shabby at all.

Bankroll Boosts: Support Payments

Of the four reward mechanisms, Bankroll Boosts are the most elusive. There’s very little information about them, and personally, we haven’t received one yet.

What we know about Bankroll Boosts:

• Available for cash game players at $0.50/$1 and above.
• They offer support “during downswings or stretches of negative variance.”
• Bankroll Boosts can be MTT tickets, Missions, or other rewards.

That’s all so far.

This reward is not for micro or low-stakes players, and it’s only for those who are running bad. Like Splash Pots, this reward shouldn’t be something you count on in each session.

If you play at $0.50/$1, then it might swoop in to help you a little during a rough stretch. But at this point, we aren’t sure how much it will offer or how badly one must run to collect it.

CoinPoker's July 1st Rakeback Changes in a Nutshell

There’s already been plenty of uproar about the 15% daily rakeback removal on Twitter. The thing that players liked about it was the reliability. It was always there, no matter what. The morning after a day of poker, it was waiting for us in our wallets like a good friend.

🟩 Positive Changes: But from what we’ve already seen, the CoinRaces adjustment has already had a positive effect, and Missions take things even further in the right direction. In our test case, the rakeback on July 1st was higher by about 24%, even without the 15% daily rakeback.

CoinRaces are for everyone, but it’s less clear who will get Missions. So the question is, without Missions to add a little extra rakeback, is the new CoinPoker rakeback better or worse?

So far, it is. CoinRaces gave us around 20% more rakeback than it did before July 1st. We’ll keep tracking the numbers, but if it continues to deliver ~56.6% average rakeback (as we saw in our small test), that’s a huge improvement.

🟥 Negative Changes: Tournament players are the ones who’ll be most unhappy after July 1st. Their only rakeback from the new CoinRewards system is from Missions, but we aren’t sure if these are rolled out across the player base.

We’ll do further testing to see if the July 1st changes were good or bad for our bankrolls.