Rake- (aka juice, vigorish, or vig)-

A term used in poker to describe the money removed from each pot by the house. Typical casino card rooms rake 10% of the pot up to a maximum of $3 to $5. $4 per pot is the most common rake (in 2001). The chips are normally placed in a box through a hole in the table called the alligator.

The rake can often make a game unbeatable, particularly low limit games. For example, if your table is dealt 35 hands per hour then the table is losing $140/hour to the house (at $4 max/hand). At lower limit games the entire table might have less than $1,000 so we can only expect to play 7 hours or so and everyone will be broke! It's often hard to notice because broke players rebuy chips and new players bring fresh money to table.

In games that employ a rake tighter players are rewarded. The strategy is to enter fewer pots and to win a higher percentage of them by playing only high quality starting cards.

Some establishments use different methods to separate poker players from their money. At the Foxwoods casino in Connecticut there is a time charge where each player must give the house money at regular intervals to continue playing. Other places employ a button charge instead where the player with the dealer button must pay a certain amount before the hand. When playing with these alternate methods players can play more hands (of slightly less quality) than in a similar game with a rake.

Rake (?), n. [AS. race; akin to OD. rake, D. reek, OHG, rehho, G. rechen, Icel, reka a shovel, and to Goth. rikan to heap up, collect, and perhaps to Gr. to stretch out, and E. rack to stretch. Cf. Reckon.]

1.

An implement consisting of a headpiece having teeth, and a long handle at right angles to it, -- used for collecting hay, or other light things which are spread over a large surface, or for breaking and smoothing the earth.

2.

A toothed machine drawn by a horse, -- used for collecting hay or grain; a horserake.

3. [Perhaps a different word.] Mining

A fissure or mineral vein traversing the strata vertically, or nearly so; -- called also rake-vein.

Gill rakes. Anat. See under 1st Gill.

 

© Webster 1913.


Rake, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Raked; p. pr. & vb. n. Raking.] [AS. racian. See 1st Rake.]

1.

To collect with a rake; as, to rake hay; -- often with up; as, he raked up the fallen leaves.

2. Hence:

To collect or draw together with laborious industry; to gather from a wide space; to scrape together; as, to rake together wealth; to rake together slanderous tales; to rake together the rabble of a town.

3.

To pass a rake over; to scrape or scratch with a rake for the purpose of collecting and clearing off something, or for stirring up the soil; as, to rake a lawn; to rake a flower bed.

4.

To search through; to scour; to ransack.

The statesman rakes the town to find a plot. Swift.

5.

To scrape or scratch across; to pass over quickly and lightly, as a rake does.

Like clouds that rake the mountain summits. Wordsworth.

6. Mil.

To enfilade; to fire in a direction with the length of; in naval engagements, to cannonade, as a ship, on the stern or head so that the balls range the whole length of the deck.

To rake up. (a) To collect together, as the fire (live coals), and cover with ashes. (b) To bring up; to search out an bring to notice again; as, to rake up old scandals.

 

© Webster 1913.


Rake (?), v. i.

1.

To use a rake, as for searching or for collecting; to scrape; to search minutely.

One is for raking in Chaucer for antiquated words. Dryden.

2.

To pass with violence or rapidity; to scrape along.

Pas could not stay, but over him did rake. Sir P. Sidney.

 

© Webster 1913.


Rake, n. [Cf. dial. Sw. raka to reach, and E. reach.]

To inclination of anything from a perpendicular direction; as, the rake of a roof, a staircase, etc.

; especially Naut.the inclination of a mast or tunnel, or, in general, of any part of a vessel not perpendicular to the keel.

 

© Webster 1913.


Rake, v. i.

To incline from a perpendicular direction; as, a mast rakes aft.

Raking course Bricklaying, a course of bricks laid diagonally between the face courses in a thick wall, to strengthen.

 

© Webster 1913.


Rake, n. [OE. rakel rash; cf. Icel. reikall wandering, unsettled, reika to wander.]

A loose, disorderly, vicious man; a person addicted to lewdness and other scandalous vices; a debauchee; a roué.

Am illiterate and frivolous old rake. Macaulay.

 

© Webster 1913.


Rake, v. i.

1. [Icel. reika. Cf. Rake a debauchee.]

To walk about; to gad or ramble idly.

[Prov. Eng.]

2. [See Rake a debauchee.]

To act the rake; to lead a dissolute, debauched life.

Shenstone.

To rake out Falconry, to fly too far and wide from its master while hovering above waiting till the game is sprung; -- said of the hawk.

Encyc. Brit.

 

© Webster 1913.

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