I am going to be adding a nightly side pot to my home league and would like opinions on qualifying hands. What are the pros/cons of requiring a qualifying hand be played down to the river? My initial thought is to require that there be multiple live hands at showdown for the hand to qualify, similar to a casino bad beat jackpot but I recently saw someone comment that they do not require jack pot hands to make it to the river. One of my thoughts in adding this side pot is to give some of the losing players an opportunity to “Win” something and keep them coming back.

In case is matters, $40 buy-in, $30 to nightly pot, $5 to season pot, $5 to nightly side pot. The side pot “game” is going to be one of four games and will be randomly selected at the beginning of the tournament. The four games will be Knock-out, High winning hand, low winning hand and high losing hand. The buy-in was $30 last season with $25 to nightly pot and $5 to season pot.

Thoughts?

Jackpot qualifiers seem unnecessary to me in a home game with a fixed bonus. Cardrooms seem to like adding qualifiers because it allows the progressive jackpot to get larger before someone wins it, thus drawing more players eager to hit it. But in a home game where such a rule has no effect on how much is collected, you'd do just as well to allow any hand to qualify even if it doesn't go to showdown. I think I would require at least one and possibly two hole cards to play, though, just to avoid the possibility of many-way split jackpots.

The major downside to requiring minimum players and/or a showdown, of course, is that it will affect the actual play of hands. People will be even more inclined to play their possible jackpot hands more passively. (This may also be the case with your "highest losing hand" jackpot, though that's an inherent issue with the jackpot.) It may also be less preferably to, say, semi-bluff with a straight flush draw.

Some of this can't be avoided as a natural consequence of a jackpot, but you can minimize it by having as few qualifiers as possible. As long as the rule is uniform across everyone, it is fair and thus okay in my book.

Are we discussing something like "Best hand of the night" lotteries or jackpots here? If so we have a very simple minded one in our game.

Bad Beat Jackpots need to go to river showdowns by their nature of course so you can determine winner/loser. How else can that work? Otherwise it would be a fold by one or more and not a beat. Or maybe I am missing something.

Mostly this. No qualifiers, but both hole cards must play. I play with an occasional group that does exactly this for a nightly HHJ, and it works just fine.

I would require a showdown for low winning hand, otherwise whoever gets 23o first is going to shove preflop and take it. I would also require it for high losing hand, since you really need to get to showdown to lose a pot (as opposed to giving up on a pot by folding).

No showdown needed for high hand, though - otherwise the guy who flopped quads and got no action is going to be pissed.

I agree with Schmendr1ck