Coin Poker Continues Player Rewards Clawback

After a great deal of hype and speculation, Coin Poker went live on April 1, 2026 with its new and highly anticipated rewards program, called “CoinRewards.” However, it appears that this new system represents a reduction in the actual value given back to the players. In this respect, it continues a trend that has been evident at Coin Poker for a while now.

About the CoinRewards Program

The new CoinRewards system delivers value to players in three major ways. First, there's $1 million in weekly CoinRaces Leaderboards, which are active in cash games up to the $25/$50 level. Then there are splash pots, to the tune of $500,000 per week, which add as many as 1,000 bbs to randomly selected cash game pots. Finally, everyone gets Daily Guaranteed Rewards, which is basically 15% flat rakeback on the rake and tournament fees they pay.

However, there's more to this story than Coin Poker generously handing back millions of dollars per week to its users. We have to consider how the new CoinRewards compares to the old way things were done at CoinPoker.

Backstory

The reason we're even discussing this topic right now is because Coin Poker has made big changes in its operations. Toward the end of February 2026, the firm started hinting at a brand-new platform to come and a March filled with amazing rewards.

Coin Poker Promised Big Improvements

The new software turned out to be very divisive with many players preferring the old poker client. Coin Poker promised 100% rakeback for the month of March, but this was not exactly what was delivered. Players did get 100% traditional rakeback for the first half of the month, but then in the latter half, the “rakeback” was provided through leaderboards, splash pots, and other promotions.

As March came to a close and these promotions were ending, Coin Poker announced that it would be debuting the new CoinRewards program in April. It is this new system that we're evaluating today and comparing to the old Coin Poker from before the March and April “upgrades.”

Significant Rake Increases

While CoinPoker may indeed be giving back a high percentage of the rake it's taking from the games, the reality is that this rake is much higher than it used to be as recently as February 2026. The rake changes appeared one day on the Coin Poker website without any public announcements being made about them.

For instance, the old Coin Poker rake in 6-max NL50 was 5% up to $2. The new rake is 5% up to $4. In NL100 heads-up games, the rake used to be 5% up to $1.25, but it has now increased to 5% up to $1.50. Six-player NL1,000 games used to rake 5% up to $6, and under the new rake schedule, this has become 5% up to $10.

Almost every combination of number of players and blind level has seen its rake cap increase even while the percentage of rake has remained constant at 5%. In many cases, the maximum rake has doubled.

Therefore, Coin Poker's announcement of a new rewards program after raising the rake is akin to a store raising its prices, in some cases to double what they were before, and then announcing a 30% off sale.

Poker coach Frankie Carson did the math and found that CoinPoker's new rake put it among the highest-raking online poker sites in existence. There are plenty of offshore Coin Poker alternatives that run games with lower rake.

Flat Rakeback Decreases

Of the three components of the CoinRewards program, the one that's easiest to understand and likely to appeal to the most players is the Daily Guaranteed Awards, which deliver 15% rakeback paid directly to each user's account every day. Unfortunately, the previous rakeback amount available at CoinPoker was 33% paid weekly. Therefore, direct rakeback payments have been cut by more than half.

The old system did rely upon a complicated mechanic of holding CHP tokens, which were then used to pay a portion of the rake, with rakeback paid out in USDT later on. The newer model requires users to simply click a button every day to receive their rakeback. However, the increased convenience of the Daily Awards is certainly not worth losing 18% rakeback.

Confusing New Mechanics

Coin Poker is now distributing $1,000,000 per week across various CoinRace leaderboards, broken down by stake and game, as well as $500,000 in Splash Pots. The problem is that it's very hard to understand how this impacts the results of each individual player.

CoinPoker has replaced a single – admittedly convoluted – system of flat 33% rakeback with several opaque mechanisms that deliver value that's difficult to quantify. Nevertheless, most observers believe that the sum total of these new rewards, when coupled with the higher rake now levied by Coin Poker, delivers substantially less value to players than the way things were before.

Bonus Clearance Rate Reduced

One area in which it is obvious that the new system is inferior to the old is in the first deposit bonus. The amount of this bonus, which is 150% up to $2,000, has not changed at all, but what is different is the rate of bonus clearance. Under the old system, the bonus was worth 50% rakeback, but now it's only equal to 33% rakeback.

Under the old rules, the bonus released in increments of 10%. Nowadays, the bonus funds are released immediately as a player generates rake at the tables. This is definitely an improvement but surely not worth the reduction in effective rakeback percentage. There's another way in which the new bonus is worse: It cannot be cleared through tournaments, only ring games.

CHP Tokens Disappear

Almost from its inception, Coin Poker was proud of its bespoke crypto-currency, the CHP token. CHP was at first a way to invest in the platform as well as a currency used at the tables.

Over the years, CHP's role at CoinPoker diminished until it became nothing more than a rather roundabout way for the room to distribute weekly rakeback. However, even this limited role has now ceased, and the token has been retired.

Rather than converting CHP into another crypto-currency or even offering fiat refunds, Coin Poker has transformed CHP balances into bonus funds. These bonuses must be cleared at the same 33% rate as normal Coin Poker bonuses.

Coin Poker Has Turned CHP Balances Into Pending Bonus

That's right – CoinPoker is insulting some of its most ardent supporters over the past few years by making them earn back their “investment” through continued play. Certainly if CHP was a “real” currency with the full backing of management, as had been stated for a long time, then those who held a balance of CHP when it was retired should have been made whole without having to jump through hoops to claim what was theirs by right already.

Poker Community Chimes In

We're not the only ones who believe that Coin Poker has made a disastrous series of missteps. Check out the comments below, written by actual human Coin Poker players and posted on various forums on the internet:

You Can Play Elsewhere

There are a number of online poker rooms that happily accept Americans, so you're not tied to Coin Poker by any means. Among the sites with the lowest rake is ACR Poker. When you sign up for ACR Poker, you'll get a 100% up to $2,000 first deposit bonus, and you can even get $10 for free with no deposit required through our exclusive ACR promo code PRB10FREE.

To learn more about this cardroom before signing up, head over to this comprehensive ACR Poker review. You might instead be interested in one of ACR's sister sites although the $10 no deposit offer is not available with them: Black Chip Poker, Ya Poker (non-US). For other trustworthy options for Americans, check out this guide to offshore poker USA.

April 3, 2026 – by Max Golden, Editor-in-Chief