Should You Play Staked? A Pro – Con For Players

Chris Grove : June 27th, 2009

Staking – one person giving another person money to play poker in return for a share of any profits – has undergone a massive and rapid transformation in the pokerverse over the last few years. What was once a collection of largely private agreements mentioned primarily in rumors has evolved into a standard, public part of the poker landscape – especially for tournament poker. Several private staking consortiums exist, alongside websites that offer staking or (like ours) match players with stakers and a large collection of individual players who may stake a small team of other players as a way to generate additional income from their poker winnings.

With so many camps vying to back good players, it’s essentially inevitable that any quality player with a reasonable history of success (more so online than live, more so tournament players than cash players) will be offered the opportunity to play backed at some point. Should they accept? As with most things in poker, the answer is: it depends. As the largest staking site online, we have a pretty informed perspective on the issue, so below we’ve outlined the most important pros and cons to entering into a staking arrangement. Since the majority of staking takes place for tournament play, our article is written from a tournament player’s point of view, but most of the core concepts are still relevant for cash players.

Drawbacks

Potential Loss of Profit
The biggest drawback of staking is the most obvious one – as a player, you’re giving up part of your profit to your backer (usually around half, although it can vary wildly. The riskier the investment is for the backer, the higher their cut usually is). While there are certainly advantages to being staked that offset or exceed that loss, the bottom line is that, in real terms, you’re risking some of the profit you’ve become accustomed to earning in the status quo simply by entering into a staking arrangement.

Impact on Game
Any significant change to how you approach poker risks a negative impact on your game (and therefore, your results), and staking is certainly no exception to that rule. Different players respond in different ways to playing on someone else’s dollar. Some respond favorably (we’ll discuss that path in more detail below); some feel a pressure that didn’t exist when they were playing with their own money, especially if they go on a losing streak. This pressure may cause an otherwise reasonable player to starting making unnecessary adjustments in their game in a misguided attempt to show better short-term results to their backer, a plan that almost always produces the opposite of the intended result.

Reliance on Backer
Relying on another person for critical things like buy ins or approval to play a certain event can be a terrible hassle, even when that person has the best of intentions and is generally on top of their game. Even the best backers are subject to the same whims of life – forgetfulness, accidents, crises and the like – that cause people to frequently skip out on simple responsibilities. It’s not something that will likely occur frequently with a competent backer, but it’s still a reality that you should be prepared and account for, especially if you’re of a personality type that is bothered by snags of this sort.

Logistical Complications
Backing arrangements bring with them a range of tasks. Some players may not be bothered by the basic tasks (bankroll reporting, tournament result reporting) involved in simple staking arrangements, but as the arrangement gets more complex (or involves multiple investors), the player may have to calculate payouts, make multiple transfers on a regular basis, and so on. There’s certainly a substantial segment of the poker playing population that is no fan of the spreadsheet, so if you’re one of those averse to record-keeping you might want to keep this one in mind.

Make-up
Most staking arrangements include some sort of provision for makeup. If you’re not familiar with makeup, it’s actually a pretty simple concept. Makeup is simply the amount of the staker’s money you’ve gone through without making a profit, an amount that generally has to be accounted for before any profit split occurs. So let’s say you’re on a 10k stake with a 50/50 cut and you’re down 3k. Then you win a tournament for 6k. You generally wouldn’t just split the 6k with your backer – instead, 3k would go to paying off your makeup (basically bringing the bankroll for the stake back to even) and then the remaining 3k would be available for profit sharing. Makeup can be annoying psychologically as well – knowing you need a big score just to get yourself even can cause many players to engage in more reckless behavior. Also, makeup generally follows a backed player from one backer to another – essentially, it’s a thing you’re going to want to pay off before you end the stake or move to another backer, which can result in you feeling a bit trapped in a situation that may no longer be as favorable to you as it used to be.

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