Updated · MergeConverter team
The club economy in one paragraph
Club apps don't hold player money the way a licensed online room does. A player buys chips from an agent, the agent's club sits inside a union that pools traffic across many clubs, and the union settles balances with its clubs on a fixed cycle, usually weekly. Everything the player sees, from chip loads to rakeback and cashouts, passes through the agent's own books. The poker is in the app; the money is in the agent's ledger.
Deposits: loading chips
Agents take deposits on whatever rails their players already use: local bank transfers, mobile wallets, P2P payment apps, stablecoins such as USDT, and in some regions cash at a physical desk. The agent then credits the equivalent chips to the player's club account.
- One ledger per player. Record every load and cashout with date, rail, reference and chip amount. Weekly union statements are only reconciled against this ledger.
- Fixed rates. Publish one chip-to-currency rate per rail and stick to it. Shifting rates are the most common source of disputes.
- Credit is a loan. Many agents let regulars play on credit. Treat it as exposure with a limit per player, not as a favour.
Rakeback: where the margin is made
The union returns a share of the rake generated at its tables to each club, and the club or agent passes part of that to players as rakeback. The agent's margin is the gap between what the union pays and what players receive, so rake has to be counted correctly.
That's where hand data matters. Every converted hand history records the rake taken from the pot. Import a week of converted hands into Holdem Manager 3, PokerTracker 4 or Hand2Note and you can check the union's rake statement per player and per table, instead of trusting a screenshot. Agree with your players up front whether rakeback is paid on dealt or contributed rake; for players who see a lot of flops the two can differ a lot.
Cashouts: the liquidity problem
Here is the core tension of the agent business: unions settle weekly, players want their money now. A winning player cashing out on Tuesday is paid from the agent's own float, money the agent only gets back at the next union settlement. A few big winners in the same week can drain a small agent completely.
- Size the float to your worst week. Look at the largest weekly net win of your players over the last few months and keep at least that amount liquid.
- Split rails. Keep part of the float in fast fiat rails for local players and part in stablecoins for cross-border settlement with the union.
- Set payout windows. Same-day for small amounts, 24–48 hours for large ones. Make the rules visible before a player deposits, not after they win.
- Net before you pay. Offset a player's outstanding credit against their cashout before sending money.
Multi-vertical operators
Few agents run poker only. The same players who load club chips also bet on football, and the same local cash desk can serve both. Managing liquidity across multi-app unions requires reliable cash-in cash-out infrastructure. Just as poker union managers maintain localized P2P player desks, many multi-vertical operators run dedicated sportsbook terminals via the 1xBet cash agent network, leveraging low starting float balances ($25 USD) and mobile POS software to handle regional player cashouts and crypto settlements alongside their poker cashiering.
The advantage is a shared float and one customer base; the risk is mixing books. Keep a separate ledger, and ideally separate wallets, for each vertical, so that a bad poker week never decides whether you can pay a sportsbook winner.
Risk controls that keep a desk alive
- Identity. Know who your players are, especially before large cashouts or credit lines. Chargebacks and disputed transfers almost always come from players you can't identify.
- Chip dumping and collusion. Sudden transfers of chips between linked accounts are a common way to launder money or cash out stolen funds. Hand histories in a tracker make unusual win/loss pairs easy to spot.
- Records. Keep transaction logs and union statements for years, not weeks.
- The law. Rules on poker clubs, payment agents and betting terminals differ by country. In many places, taking deposits or bets requires a licence, and money transfer is regulated on its own. Check local regulations and tax obligations before you scale.
Weekly agent checklist
- Export and convert the week's hands; reconcile rake per player against the union statement.
- Reconcile your deposit and cashout ledger against wallet and bank balances.
- Calculate and pay rakeback, net of any outstanding credit.
- Review players with unusual results or chip transfers.
- Rebalance the float between fiat and stablecoin rails before the next settlement.