Allen Josh

If you’ve ever played an online poker game, you know it’s more than just cards and chips. It’s a full entertainment experience with bright tables, smooth shuffles, chat with other players, and that rush when the river card flips over in your favor. But behind the scenes, these games are also carefully designed business ventures. And just like a real casino, the platform has to keep the lights on, pay the staff (or in this case, the developers), and still make a profit. Monetization the art of turning gameplay into revenue isn’t about squeezing every dollar out of players. Done right, it’s about offering players enough value and excitement that they’re happy to pay for extra features, premium experiences, or bigger tournament stakes. The online poker industry has been growing steadily for years, boosted by mobile devices, faster internet, and the increasing comfort people have with online payments. Whether you’re looking at creating a game from scratch or upgrading an existing platform,...

Whether you’re launching a real-money poker app or a free-to-play version with virtual chips, there are several proven ways to generate revenue. Each model comes with its own pros, limitations, and technical needs. In this blog, we’ll walk through the most popular poker monetization strategies and how they work without getting too deep into jargon or theory. This article will also be helpful for studios, indie creators, and businesses working with poker game developers and trying to figure out how to make the numbers work behind the scenes. 1. Rake The House’s Share of the Pot The most well-known and widely used monetization method in real-money poker is the rake . It’s the poker version of a service fee; the house takes a small percentage of each pot as compensation for hosting the game. Typically, rake is: Around 2.5% to 10% of the pot (with a cap) Only taken from hands that go past the flop (in some games) Applied differently depending on cash tables vs. tournaments This model work...