[Jimbo]

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It may be legal, but it certainly destroys any zero sum claims.

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The notion of jackpots being zero sum came from players, not from the casinos. Certain promotions may be zero sum, but most jackpots will be negative.

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Unless every jackpot ever hit had a full table sitting in at the time the jackpot was hit it can still be +EV. The winner of a jackpot taking the money and running did not effect the chances that you might have won the money. People talk about a so called "poker economy" like some sort of closed loop system exists. Poker is an "open market", for every tourist that stays in Vegas for a weekend then leaves his contributions have added to your EV after the fact if the jackpot did not hit while he played.

Jackpots being +EV is so obvious (even after administrative expenses) I do agree that they are not zero sum but actually that becomes irrelevant. Poker with any rake at all has never been a zero sum game, why should the BBJ be any different? That said since I am a pretty tight player it becomes even more +EV for me. Not just because I will play less pots but also because the type of hands I play are more likely to be a part of the large portion (winners hand or losers hand) than the random loose player who does become more likely to hit a bad beat jackpot in general but will contribute a great deal more to the BBJ than I.


Jimbo

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There is something you are leaving out of the calculation. If the current bad beat is sitting at $90k there is probably another $60k in a back up jackpot. Losing players would have kept this money and lost it to the winning players if they had been able to keep it. I will not pretend to be able to calculate the EV of this, but poker does not exist in a vacuum. Any change to the rake/jackpot structure will change the entire dynamics of the game.

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Randy, I understand you have forgotton more about poker room management than I will ever learn but I've never sat down at a poker table that had no losers in it. For every two that go busted there are three more on the waiting list. Money that goes into a bad beat jackpot is not money I can't win because a poker player I never played with would have lost ten more dollars in his poker session. I think you have listened to one too many tight regulars complain about this subject. One crabby dealer will cost me more money than all the money I might ever lose by a player quitting poker forever because the BBJ drop busted him.


Now to address the backup BBJ, that changes nothing as long as you are still able to win it someday, it is not like it went down a blackhole or something. In fact this is preferable since it would be more frustrating to win a BBJ reset to $1000 seeded with all house money than one reset to $60K seeded by the BBJ drop.

Jimbo