World Poker Exchange Goes Rake-Free

World Poker Exchange (WorldPx.com) today announced that it will no longer keep rake or tournament fees collected from its online poker players.

Under World Poker Exchange's "No Rake" program, the rake for both cash games and tournament play will be eliminated across the board. At the end of each week, World Poker Exchange will refund the rake and tournament fees back into the player's account.

"It's completely free, there are no strings attached," said Haden Ware, World Poker Exchange's managing director.

World Poker Exchange will make no money from its site.

The site's able to offer free, real money poker because its parent site, the online sports betting portal World Sports Exchange, has a large, loyal customer base and does so well. The company doesn't depend on poker as its main revenue stream, therefore it's able to offer the rake-free poker room as an incentive to customers to visit and play at both sites.

"We're in a unique position to do this," Ware said. "Our hope in this, and the business logic behind it, is our poker players who enjoy other wagering products will enjoy our other products as well."

That's the business logic behind the decision to go completely rake-free, but there's another reason Ware says the site decided to refund players' rakes weekly.

World Sports Exchange is one of the oldest sports betting sites on the Internet. It launched its poker room in 2001 not to just enter the lucrative world of online poker, but because its sports bettors asked for one, said Ware.

The room was opened simply to give the bettors who asked for a place to play poker somewhere to do just that. By going rake-free, it keeps up with the spirit that helped bring the poker room online in the first place.

"It was really all designed around being a community," Ware said. "We figured why not just give it to (the players)."

And so they did. Although he doubts it will happen, Ware would like to see this rake-free policy spread to other online poker rooms, but he knows it will be tough for sites that depend solely on poker as revenue.

"We consider ourselves pioneers and trend setters, so we're hoping this will take off," he said.

The World Poker Exchange can be found at WorldPx.com.

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