Bad Beat Jackpots = Zero Sum?

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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.