Markup vs makeup - and why Pebel skips makeup

If you spend any time around staking, you will hear two words that sound almost identical: markup and makeup. They are completely different things, and the difference matters a lot.

Markup

Markup is a premium on the buy-in. A player with a real edge charges a bit more than face value for a piece of their action, because over the long run that edge is worth paying for. A 1.2× markup means you pay 120% of the buy-in cost for your percentage. It is a clean, upfront number: you know exactly what you are paying and why.

That is the model Pebel uses.

Makeup

Makeup is something else entirely, and it belongs to long-term backing deals. In those arrangements, a backer funds a player across many events, and the player carries a running loss forward — the "makeup" — until future winnings clear it. The player does not see a profit split until they have dug themselves out of the hole.

In theory it aligns incentives. In practice, makeup is where most staking relationships go to die.

Why makeup turns sour

Picture a player buried in makeup after a cold stretch. Every session now feels like working off a debt rather than playing their own game. Motivation drains. Meanwhile the backer is sitting on an IOU with no clear end date, watching for a profit that keeps receding. Resentment builds on both sides. Deals that started as a handshake end in arguments about money that was never quite clearly defined.

The whole structure depends on a long, trusting relationship and a lot of goodwill. When either runs out — and over enough events, one usually does — it gets ugly.

Why Pebel leaves it out

Pebel uses markup instead, and every listing is a clean, self-contained deal. You buy a percentage of a specific tournament or series. You win or lose on that alone. When it settles, you walk away — no running tab, no debt carried between events, no makeup to argue about.

That is a deliberate design choice, not an oversight. The point of Pebel is to know exactly where a deal stands the moment it is over. A self-contained deal can be settled, recorded, and closed. A makeup balance is an open-ended relationship that has to be managed, trusted, and eventually disputed.

We think the simpler model is also the healthier one. You get the upside of backing a skilled player without signing up for an indefinite financial entanglement. When the tournament is done, so is the deal.