Staking a Poker Player

In poker you hear that someone has a percentage of another player? How do they fiqure what the percentage is and the cost?

If I were to stake a cash player 100%, what percentage is the going rate?

Bob

Dear Bob:

When you hear that a person is staking a player, it means that they are putting up a percentage of the player's buy in. For example: The tournament has a buy in of $10,000. Player A can't afford the whole buy in, so he solicits another person to stake him the money. You decide to contribute $2,000 to the player, so you have a 20% stake in him. If it is a perfectly fair deal, player A should give you 20% of any money he wins.

Usually the percentage of the money being staked is the percentage of money the backer will want from the win. I say usually because it is totally up to the player and his backer to settle on a price that is fair.

However if you stake a player 100% you cannot expect the player to play for nothing and give you all of the money. The backer wants a fair return on his money, but the player is doing all the work and needs to be fairly compensated for his time and his skill and poker ability.

There is no "going rate" that you can assume. I have heard of players making deals to give 90% to a person backing them but never 100%. This is the most I know of for a major tournament that can last for several days. The more common splits are 75/25 or even 60/40. It all depends in how confident you are in the player that you stake.

There are also deals where players will stake each other and split any winnings that they make. If either one of them gets in the money, they split with each other. These types of deals do happen but are usually kept quiet because it borders on collusion. If the players find themselves in a hand against each other, they certainly don't want to knock out a player they have a stake in. Unfortunately it happens.