This article assumes that you already know about rakeback and poker prop deals and as such, you fully understand the value offered by these loyalty deals. If you do not know what rakeback, rake rebate and poker propping is, please take a detour to best-poker-rakeback.net where you’ll find more than enough information on these concepts.
The bottom line about rakeback is that it is always a percentage of the rake you generate. With that in mind it’s obvious that the rakeback you receive is pretty much entirely dependant on the way the online poker room calculates your rake contribution. Because of the way these rake calculation methods work, your playing style will also have a direct impact on the amount of poker rake you generate and thus on the rakeback you earn too.

Some poker rooms use the dealt rake method (Full Tilt Poker is one of those rooms). The dealt rake method allots rake contribution to all those who are dealt into the hand. While this may seem unfair, it is a fairly simple and easy method of keeping track of contributions, one that offers an advantage (only as far as rake contribution is concerned) to tight/passive players. In the long run, because it does encourage tight passive play the method actually offers an edge to tight/aggressive players. In a poker room which uses this method, all a player has to do to earn rakeback is to sit around and get dealt into hands. Never forget though that in most cases (in Full Tilt Poker’s case too), the rakeback only represent a relatively small percentage of the rake you generate (around 30%) so using such square rakeback deals for anything more than damage control doesn’t really make mathematical sense.

Other poker rooms use the contributed rake method. This method only credits contribution to those who put money into the pot one way or another. Those sitting around and waiting to blind out will only get credit for generated rake when they ay one of the blinds. The problem with this method is that it does not uphold a proportionality between the amount of money contributed to the pot and the amount of credited rake contribution.
For that, players will have to sign up to a poker room which calculates rake contributions through the weighted contributed rake method. This method is 100% accurate. If a player is responsible through his direct contributions for say 30% of the pot, he’ll get credit for exactly 30% of the rake resulting off that pot.

Before you sign up to a rakeback deal, always make sure the poker room of your choice features a rake calculation method that suits your style.