How Poker Staking Works

Staking is the act of one person buying shares of a player’s action. On IStakeU, a player puts up an offer in our Request a Stake section. A player can ask for basically any type of stake for any style of game play. Once the player has requested his stake, it is posted in our “Buy a Share” section. Members can scan over all of the different stakes to choose from. At that time, members can Buy a Share (BAS) of the action.

Standard Membership Access

It is FREE to be a Standard Member of IStakeU.  Standard members have access to everything on the site with the exception of being able to “Request a Stake.”  If you would like to be able to request stakes you must then send a monthly or annual membership fee to player/screen name, “istakeu”, via PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker to become a Premium Member.  See below area for details on Premium Membership.

As an introductory price for premium membership, there is a $10 monthly, or $100 annually membership fee to become a premium member.  Please ship the proper fee amount to player/screen name, “istakeu”, via PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker to become a Premium member.  The monthly membership is based on 30 days from the time of your premium membership activation. Premium members have access to the entire site, including being able to “Request a Stake.”  Please note that during your time as a premium member, you can request as many stakes as you would like (Example: Player A is a premium member and request a stake for $200 to play $10 SNGs for two weeks.  Player A can also request a stake to play Nightly Mtts as well, each and every night if he/she would like, with no addition charge; all is included in the monthly membership fee).  Memberships will be activated within 24 hours from the time in which we receive the membership fee.

How to Request a Stake

1.  The player requesting a stake MUST be a Premium Member.

2.  Once you decide you would like to request a stake, click on the “Request a Stake” link from our home page.

3.  You will then be cued to fill out our “Request a Stake” form of information that must be filled out completely.  Once completed, click “Post.”

4.  At this time your stake request will be posted in our Buy a Share (BAS) section.

5.  You will receive a private message when somebody has reserved or purchased shares. It is up to you to approve or deny the reserves. If the staker has chosen to pay for the stakes up front, you will choose the “Sell Shares” button. If the staker is reserving shares to be paid later, you will click “Reserve Shares”. If you for whatever reason do not want to deal with a certain member, click “Deny”.

6.  Once all Shares are sold and all funds are received by the player, the player can then begin running his/her BAS (DO NOT BEGIN UNTIL ALL FUNDS ARE RECEIVED).  To begin running your stake, just click on the “Start this BAS” button.  Also, you may edit your stake request at any time before the stake begins, but please note that you MUST let all stakers/backers know before doing so.

How to Complete rail and End BAS/Stake

1.  Once you have finished your games played, whether it be one game or more, please fill out the rail section after each day/night played (This helps stakers/backers keep track of how you are playing at the time, there are other ways to check, but this makes it lots easier.)

**The Rail consists of Date (which is automatically set), Tourney/Description, Position/Profit, Bankroll, and Link.

In the Tourney/Description space provided, key in the Tourney ID # for which you have played.  In the Position space, key in the position in which you finished the tournament (unless it’s a cash game stake, which you would leave this section blank).  In the Profit  space, key in the profit in which you won, if $0, key in $0.  In the Bankroll space, key in the current bankroll for your stake for that particular entry (Example: You start with $200 and you profited $30 in your first game, your bankroll after that particular entry would be $230.).  In the Link section, key in the exit hand, using www.pokerhand.org or whatever link you prefer to show investors your exit hand.

2.  Once you have completely filled out your rail and are ready to end the stake, click the “Mark Completed/Finalize” button at the top right of your BAS.  Make sure bankroll is correct before doing this.  This will take you to a Payout screen, where you will then send all stakers/backers their final value of money back to them.  Please note that 5% of YOUR  profits, not the total profit for the BAS/Stake, will be sent to istakeu on either PokerStars or Fulltilt.  This helps us with the cost of the site and any updates we may do to make this site best for all it’s members. 

How to Buy a Share

1.  Once you have decided that you want to Buy a Share of a player’s action, you will click on the “Buy a Share” link on the main page.

2.  You DO NOT have to be a premium member to Buy a Share.

3.  Once you have reviewed the Stake Request by the player and want to buy into the bas, click on, “Click Here To Buy A Share”.

4.  You will be asked how many shares you would like to purchase.  Key in the number of shares you would like and then click “Reserve Shares”.

5.  The shares you reserved will not show up on the BAS until the player has approved the reserved shares.

6.  You can transfer the funds at any time.  Once the BAS is sold out, the stakers will receive a private message to send funds immediately if they haven’t already.  At this time it is vital to ship the funds right away.

How to “Find A Horse”

Steps to posting a Stake in the Find a Horse section

1. Click on the button “Add Find a horse entry”

2. Fill out the Title and in the body describe what type of horse you are looking for and how the amount you will be staking as well as the backers cut.

3. Press submit and your request will then be posted.

Applying to be a horse

1. Read through the different stakes that are being offered

2. Once you find a stake that fits your game, click on the “Apply to be this Horse” button and describe why you should be chosen to run the stake. Your experience and statistics play a big role in getting chosen.

3. If the staker chooses you as their horse then you will receive a private message that you have been chosen. Once you accept the stake you will start playing for the amount of time stated in the original post. Please keep your rail updated after each session played.

Selecting a horse

1. Once you have found a horse that you would like to stake. Click on the “Select a Horse” button.

2. Key in the amount you are staking the horse in the "Amount invested in horse" and key in the backer's cut % in the "My Cut" section and then hit the Activate Horse button.

3. The horse will then receive a private message asking them to accept the stake.

4. Once the horse accepts the stake they will begin running the stake for the amount of time stated in the original post.

Ending a stake

1. Once you have completed all the game(s) for the stake, you will need to make sure the bankroll is correct and hit the "Mark Completed/Finalized" button.

2. Select "View Payouts" and ship the amounts due to your staker (Please remember that istakeu recieves 5% of all player's profits so that we can continue to make improvements to the site and help grow our community.)

3. Once you have shipped all funds due, the staker will recieve an email to confirm that he recieved correct funds.

4. Once the staker confirms that he recieved funds due, he/she will select Close out and the stake will be completed.