Online poker rooms are extremely different from casino poker rooms, and one big reason is because online sites have so much less overhead costs.
Live poker rooms need to actually build a casino, get a gambling license, hire tons of dealers and pit bosses, pay the electric bill, pay taxes, and so on.
However, online poker rooms can basically run with just a server and a few techies to keep everythign running smoothly.
This leads to massive profits for online poker rooms, and tons of competition for poker sites to retain players.
One way that many online poker rooms have attempted to lure more players to their site is through offering rakeback, which is essentially giving players a percentage of their rake back when they play at the poker site.
With the lower overhead costs, online poker rooms can afford to offer 30, 40, or even 50 percent of each players' rake back.
For big time online players, this is a huge deal.
Many online poker whales generate five figures of rake a month, and getting a portion of that back leads to more profit for the players.
For the casual player it is not as huge of a deal, but they could still get a few hundred dollars back a month, which adds up over time.
One problem with rakeback in the online poker world is that tons of existing players get poached by rakeback affiliates.
A rakeback affiliate is a webmaster who offers players rakeback at major poker sites, but the issue is that they often poach players from the poker room, offer them rakeback, and then start making money off of them.
This hurts the poker rooms, because they are now paying rakeback to a player who should not have it.