RakeTheRake
Challenge
A poker affiliate platform operating since 2004 with over 250,000 members needed to scale their rakeback tracking and payout systems while integrating with dozens of poker rooms and gaming sites. Security and accurate financial tracking were critical.
Solution
Built robust tracking and payment systems capable of handling high transaction volumes. Implemented secure integrations with multiple gaming platforms and automated payout calculations. Added community features including freeroll tournaments and leaderboards.
Result
Platform has distributed over $190 million in rakeback to members since 2004.
Background
RakeTheRake has been one of the larger poker affiliate platforms since its founding in 2004, with over 250,000 members who receive cashback (rakeback) from their online poker play. The platform integrates with dozens of poker rooms and gaming sites, tracking player activity and calculating payout amounts based on complex, room-specific commission structures.
After nearly two decades of operation, the platform needed a refresh. The existing website had grown organically and was difficult to maintain. Content management required developer intervention for even basic updates. The rakeback calculation engine, while accurate, was tightly coupled to the frontend. The platform also needed a modernized public presence that reflected its credibility and the scale of its operation, with over $190 million distributed to members.
Technical approach
We rebuilt the public-facing website on CraftCMS, chosen for its developer-friendly architecture and content modeling capabilities. CraftCMS gave the editorial team full control over pages, promotions, poker room reviews, and blog content without requiring technical skills. Its Twig templating system allowed us to build custom layouts that matched the brand while keeping the code maintainable.
PHP powered the backend business logic. MySQL handled the transactional data: player accounts, rakeback calculations, payment histories, and affiliate tracking. Redis was introduced as a caching layer to handle the high read volumes on poker room listings, leaderboards, and member dashboards without putting excessive load on the database.
JavaScript enhanced the frontend with dynamic features like real-time leaderboard updates, interactive poker room comparison tools, and responsive search and filtering across the catalog of partner rooms.
Implementation details
The content architecture in CraftCMS was structured around custom entry types for poker rooms, promotions, and news articles. Each poker room entry included structured fields for rakeback percentages, bonus offers, supported games, payment methods, and detailed reviews. A relation system linked rooms to their active promotions and tournaments.
The rakeback tracking integration consumed data feeds from partner poker rooms via scheduled imports. Each room had its own data format and commission structure, so we built a normalization layer that translated room-specific reports into a unified internal format. The calculation engine processed these normalized records against each player's agreement terms to produce accurate payout amounts.
The member dashboard provided players with a view of their rakeback earnings, pending payments, and playing history across all linked poker rooms. Payment processing supported multiple methods including bank transfers, e-wallets, and cryptocurrency. An automated payment scheduler handled monthly distributions, with manual override capabilities for special cases.
Community features included freeroll tournament listings exclusive to RakeTheRake members, a leaderboard system that ranked players by activity and rewarded top performers with additional bonuses, and a FAQ and support system. The tournament integration pulled real-time data from poker room APIs to display upcoming freerolls with registration links.
SEO mattered given the competitive nature of the iGaming affiliate space. We implemented structured data markup, optimized page load performance through Redis caching and asset optimization, and built a programmatic internal linking system that connected related poker rooms, promotions, and content.
Outcomes
The rebuilt platform modernized RakeTheRake's digital presence while preserving the tracking and payment infrastructure that members depend on. Content updates that previously required developer time now happen directly through the CMS. Page load times improved with the Redis caching layer, and the SEO improvements drove increased organic traffic to poker room reviews and rakeback guides. The platform continues its track record of reliable payouts, having distributed over $190 million to members since 2004.