The limit hold'em and no limit hold'em bad beat jackpots should be separate pools in most/all poker rooms -- because they are different games with different player pools.

1) They are different games. No limit and fixed limit hold'em play very differently. So different, that they are essentially different games. Although not as different as, say, Omaha is different from Hold'em, still they are significantly different and deserve separate BBJ pools.

2) They have different player pools. Although there is some crossover, the vast majority of players tend to play in one game or the other. Beyond this, the LHE tables will hit the BBJ more often than the NLHE tables (my purely anecdotal estimate is that the LHE games hit the BBJ at a 3:1 or higher clip compared to the NLHE games). Therefore, the LHE pool receives more than they put in while the NLHE players subsidize the LHE player pool.

Separate jackpots would be fair.

Where do you get the 3:1 from? Are you in a market where the majority of eligible games are actually LHE?

Purely anecdotal seat-of-my-pants guess based on watching the jackpots get hit over past ten years.

I would say that LHE and NLHE games run in about equal numbers in my market.

While it might be fair ... it would not serve the interests of the poker room in running the jackpots and it presents logistical problems.

Why would fair have anything to do with it?

LHE runs more hands/hr than NL so they get raked more. Is that fair?

They also drop the BBJ money more often. A fact NL players seem to forget.

The only really reasonable justification I gave seen is that NL hands make it to the river less often per hand dealt, decreasing the chances of hitting somewhat out of sync with the speed and drop timings.

ITT, op admits to making up 3-1 and uses it as justification...

I think there would be an even bigger difference between, say, a 2/4 LHE game and a 20/40 LHE game. The smaller game is way more likely to hit a jackpot.

In order to accommodate your 'wish' you would have to pull the drop boxes every time you end a game or have some sort of (non-existent right now) electronic monitoring of the drop.

The last thing casinos want to do is increase their efforts (labor/record keeping) into a poker room that produces the least amount of revenue per square foot in their buildings.

Some places do have an Omaha BBJ but I don't think there is any effort into actually trying to track the 'promo dollars' that actually belong in that pot.

To add another twist ... Soaring Eagle casino in Michigan has daily straight flush jackpots for 'every' (5-high to royal) possible combo. I don't see the NLE players complaining that the Omaha players can hit those hands even though they have twice as many hole cards. The casino does this just to try and get more players into the Omaha game.

Promos are promos ... each casino can set up their own rules for what they perceive is their best benefit (and maybe the players too). Do you really think it's fair to start a BBJ at quad 8s losing? Head over to Milwaukee this weekend for the HPT and take a look!! GL

Not as much as you may first think. The hands that are most likely to make jackpots are the hands most often played, even at higher stakes; and the faster speed of the higher limit games at least partially offsets the decrease in VPIP.

So while you do miss out on some T7s v A6o on 98666 jackpots because people fold T7s and A6o, you see more AKs v 98s on QJTxx jackpots (statistically the most likely jackpot because of the wildcard combos) and nobody ever folds AKs or 98s.

No reason to take into account the faster speed of the 20/40 game, because the jackpot drop is being taken out faster as well. I'm concerned about the payoff for the investment, the chance of hitting per hand, not the chance of hitting per hour.

1. Unless your jackpot starts at $0 and goes to infinity, the game speed matters because you pick up more house-funded jackpots at high speeds.

2. Personal utility is extremely non-linear at large sums. There's not a huge utility difference between a BBJ drop EV of -0.2 and -0.4, but a very large utility difference between a $100,000 and $200,000 payout.

I'm talking about games where they drop a dollar from each hand. While I have heard of a few (temporary) house-funded jackpots, those are very rare, and not what people are talking about here as far as I can tell.

My personal utility curve values the $1 taken out of each pot much more highly than each dollar of the difference between $100K and $200K. In general each additional dollar is worth less to most people as a prize gets bigger, so I'm not sure what your point is there.

Well in that case there's no reason to take into account that there are less showdown in NLHE (I'm assuming that's the reason you're making your agrument....)

More chances for a showdown in LHE but more hands per hour. Less showdown in NLHE, less hands per hour. Seems fair to me.....

I think the odds of four of a kind over 4 of a kind (the usual minimum to trigger a BBJ) is something like 1 in 4,823,963. And for rooms that require quad 6's and better, It's prolliy close to 1 in 15,000,00.

With those odds, we should converse about something else. Something that has a better chance of happening. **** hitting 5 numbers in the powerball lotto is 1 in 5,153,632.65. That gets you a cool million!

I think the OP is correct in theory, if he is comparing, say, a 2/4 LHE game with a 1/2 NLH game. I just think the difference in BBJ may be evn worse in a 20/40 LHE game.

The BBJ does not reset to $0 when hit.

Based on comments you've made in SSLHE, I guarantee that your personal utility does not flatten out.

Personal utility is not what you feel, the pain of seeing the dollar taken versus some intangible notion of getting a reward you've convinced yourself you're never going to see. It's a mathematical construct to valuate different objects, which in this case is confusing because we're comparing money to money.

The marginal value of each dollar does drop at first, but then drastically increases past the point at which you can reasonably earn the money otherwise, then flattens again.

The Bike and Hustler Casinos in LA have different BBJs for each limit and no limit game- save for games of similar limits being lumped in together (2-4, 3-6 limit) ( 40 max and 80 max), etc. General consensus is the players sort of like it. When one BBJ gets larger, the daily players will start playing that game more.
About a year ago the 8-16 limit game had a BBJ of over 40k, and got very popular.

Just because a BBJ doesn't reset at $0 doesn't mean the house is contributing. I know in Atlantic City they hold back 20% of receipts for the next two jackpots. When they added the BBJ, they were funded with house money, but it was explicitly loaned by the house to the jackpot fund then later paid back from receipts.

I understand the theory of marginal utility, but I still don't get what point you're trying to make about BBJs here.

Yes, I have seen this as well. It's easier to do this in CA than in some other markets, because there is no transparency regarding the size of the player promo funds and what the money is used for. They can pick arbitrary amounts for each jackpot and not worry about what tables the dollars came from.

Most casinos have at least a 'back up' BBJ growing along with (but maybe not at the same rate) as the 'current' BBJ.

Firekeepers in Michigan keeps 3 pots going since they are an AAAJJ getting beat by quads or better house. I certainly don't know their formula but the BBJ got hit 3 times in 2 weeks a while back and the 3rd payout was pretty small ... and the players showed it in their picture!! GL

I'm trying to do you a favor by pointing out all the reasons it's not as bad as you think.

BBJs are never good good EV wise. But do MSLHE players have it the absolute worst? No. Is the world conspiring to bust you one dollar at a time? No.

While you're bemoaning all the ways you get screwed by the BBJ, you're missing on the all-night games generated by 3/6 BBJ winners who decide to take $50,000 and go play 100/200. That is, a month after the BBJ hits, the money disproportionately ends up at high stakes tables and in strippers' bras.

Midstakes NL players almost certainly get screwed by the jackpot the most - if for no other reason than people actually fold straight flush draws and sets in NL which would have been snap called at LHE to make a rivered jackpot. SSLHE players probably get screwed the least. MSLHE and SSNL are somewhere in the middle.

My experience has been that higher stake games usually don't participate in the bad beat promotion.

They don't participate if the players are given a choice; in many places they are not though. I think all 20/40 games in CA are in the jackpot pools, where they exist.

I think some people just look at BBJs the wrong way. Some people (wrongly) see rake as theft just as they (wrongly) see tax as theft and see a bad beat drop as an extension of the rake and something that takes a bite out of their potential profit.

I see it as someone forcing me to make a bad bet, like saying I can only play poker if I also buy a lottery ticket each time I win a pot. The lottery ticket is -EV, and I wouldn't choose to buy it even if it was neutral, or even slightly +EV.