money
Poker and money.
Three questions that decide more about a poker year than any hand does, and all three are usually answered by someone with a stake in the answer. These pages have no stake. Pokiq takes nothing from any operator, links to none, and is a place where nobody plays for money at all, so what follows is arithmetic and sources rather than recommendations.
pick a topic
Start from the question you actually have.
One of these is a calculation you can finish this afternoon. One is a search you have to do at your own tax authority, because nobody can do it for you. And one is the question that comes before both.
Arithmetic
Rakeback
What is my rakeback actually worth?
Rake paid times the percentage, converted into big blinds per hundred hands so it sits next to your win rate. Worked through with real arithmetic, and no operator named.
Sourced
Poker taxes
What does a tax authority expect from a winner?
Which question your own authority is actually asking, who files the return, and how losses are treated. Three authorities quoted with the date we read them, and nothing invented.
Method
Where you can play
Am I allowed to play for money at all?
How to check the rules where you are sitting, what a licence register is for, and how self exclusion works. No country named, because the answer differs inside them too.
Agreement
Poker staking
Someone else puts up the money, so who owns what?
What belongs in the agreement before a single hand is played, what makeup quietly does to a player earnings, and the six ways these deals break between people who trusted each other.
how these pages are written
Sourced where it matters, calculated where it can be.
The split runs straight down the middle of this hub. Rakeback is arithmetic: rake paid times a percentage, and every figure on that page is a sum you can redo yourself in a minute. Nothing there depends on trusting us, and no poker room is named with a percentage attached, because a percentage we have not verified at the source is worth nothing to you.
Tax and legality are the opposite kind of problem. They cannot be calculated, only looked up, and they differ by country and sometimes within one. The taxes page therefore quotes three tax authorities with the date we read them and names no other country, and the page on where you can play names no country at all. Neither is advice, and both say so.
Two things sit next to this hub rather than in it. What a stake is affordable in the first place is a bankroll question rather than a money-side one, and the bankroll calculator turns a win rate and a swing into a risk of ruin. And if any of this has stopped being about a game, the responsible play page comes before all of it. If you are here for the other kind of poker evening entirely, hosting a poker night needs none of this.
next step
Start with the one you can finish today.
Rakeback is a single multiplication, and the answer is usually larger than players expect. Work it out in big blinds per hundred hands and it lands next to your win rate, where it belongs.
money questions
Does Pokiq take money from poker rooms?
No. There are no affiliate links on this site, no poker room pays us, and we do not rank or recommend operators. That is why these pages tell you where to look rather than where to go: we have no interest in the answer.
Can you tell me what I owe in tax on my poker winnings?
No, and any page that offers to is worth closing. It depends on where you are tax resident and often on your own circumstances. The taxes page explains which questions to put to your own authority and quotes three of them with the date we read their guidance.
Is rakeback the same as a bonus?
No. A bonus is money added to your account, usually with conditions attached. Rakeback is a share of the rake you already paid, coming back. You cannot get back more than you paid, which is why the size of it is a multiplication rather than an offer.
Do you play for money on Pokiq?
No. There are no buy-ins, no prize pool and no payouts. Pokiq is a training platform, so these pages are about the other half of your poker: the game people play elsewhere, and the money side that comes with it.
Where should I start if I only read one of these?
Rakeback, if you already play online for money, because it is a number you can work out today and it is usually larger than players expect. Taxes, if you have started winning and have not yet checked what your own authority publishes.