When a poker room calculates the amount of rakeback you should be paid, they will use the contributed, dealt or shared rakeback method.
Contributed rakeback.
Contributed rakeback is calculated by looking at how much money you have put in to the pot by yourself. If you are on a 30% rakeback deal and you have put $20 in to a $100 pot, you will receive 30% rakeback from the rake taken from the $20 you put in to the pot (30% of $1 rake = 30c).
In a nutshell, you get rakeback from the rake taken from your money only.
Dealt rakeback.
In a dealt rakeback deal, you receive an equal share of rakeback from the total amount of rake paid in each pot. You will receive a share of the rakeback even if you do not play in the pot, you just need to be dealt a hand.
So if there has been a $100 pot with 5 players at the table, $5 rake will be taken and you will have effectively contributed $1 rake ($5 / 5 players = $1 each). You will then receive 30% of that $1 shared rakeback amount, which will be 30c.
In a dealt rakeback deal, you do not have to even play hands to generate rakeback.
Shared rakeback.
Shared rakeback is just like the "dealt rakeback" method, but the difference is that you actually have to enter the pot to get a share of the rakeback. Therefore you will not receive any rakeback if you do not put any money in to the pot.
So if there are 6 players at the table and only 3 player actually play a pot, the rake will be shared equally between those 3 players in the shared method as opposed to it being shared between 6 players in the dealt method.
The shared rakeback method is very rare, if ever used at all these days.
