Updated November 30, 2025
A bad beat jackpot is a prize you can win even when you lose a hand, as long as you had incredibly strong cards. It's basically insurance for those nightmare moments where your massive hand gets crushed by something even bigger.
The losing player gets the largest payout, but here's the twist: the winner gets paid too, along with everyone else who was sitting at the table!
It's one of the most exciting poker promotions since everyone’s a winner when lightning strikes.
Understanding the Bad Beat Jackpot
Bad beat jackpots cushion the blow of those soul-cracking poker hands in which you had a monster but still lost. Typically, losing with quad kings to quad aces is a nightmare that you will only recall years later, but when there’s a bad beat jackpot in play, it’s a payday and a great story to tell in the future.
The hard part is meeting the specific requirements to trigger the jackpot. You can't just lose any hand; it needs to be an exceptional situation where both players hold powerful cards.
Poker Jackpot Rules: Hand Strength Requirements
Most rooms want you to lose with at least four-of-a-kind in most poker games. The exact minimum depends on where you play, though. It could be four jacks, four tens, or sometimes a full house of aces-full-of-tens (that's three aces and two tens).
For Omaha games, requirements are typically higher. You might need to lose with four deuces or better, or in some high-stakes variations, a straight flush losing to a royal flush.
There's another crucial rule in Texas Hold’em: both hole cards must play in your hand.
This restriction prevents the jackpot from triggering whenever the board shows quads (like KKKK2), even though everyone technically makes four-of-a-kind.
By requiring both your hole cards to matter, poker rooms ensure that only genuine coolers qualify.
What is a Rolling Bad Beat Jackpot?
A rolling bad beat jackpot grows over time until someone finally hits it. Once someone wins, the pool either resets to zero or starts again at a predetermined base amount.
- The jackpot builds through small contributions taken from cash game pots.
- Once a pot reaches a specific size (usually around 30 big blinds), a bit of money goes into the jackpot fund.
- Give it a few weeks or months, and those small contributions turn into serious money.
These jackpots can get seriously big. Payouts typically fall somewhere between $50,000 and $500,000, though the most significant online bad beat jackpot on record hit over $590,000 in 2025!
2025 Updates and Current Trends
The landscape of bad beat jackpots has changed quite a bit lately. Some poker rooms have lowered their requirements, so jackpots hit more often. Even if that means smaller individual payouts, players prefer seeing them triggered regularly rather than waiting months for a massive hit.
You can now follow these jackpots on your phone, too. Mobile apps have caught up with desktop versions, giving you access to the same pools and rules wherever you play.
The format has branched out beyond Hold'em cash games as well. Pot-Limit Omaha, Five-Card Omaha, and Short Deck Poker now feature bad-beat jackpots, each with adjusted requirements that reflect how hands play out in those variants.
Also, one interesting 2024 controversy involving some of the best poker players of all time helped clear up any rule confusion. A disputed hand raised qualification questions when the winning combination came together across multiple streets.
That prompted several rooms to spell out their rules more clearly, especially for Omaha, where the timing of hand formation gets trickier.
Summary and Key Takeaways
Bad beat jackpots provide a safety net for those brutal hands when everything goes wrong. Lose with a monster to an even bigger monster, and you could walk away with serious money that's been stacking up for weeks!
The main things to remember are as follows:
- Your losing hand needs to be four-of-a-kind or better.
- Both hole cards must be used to form the final hand - this applies to both winner and loser.
- When it hits, everyone at the table gets a piece, not just the two players in the pot.
- Each room has its own rules, so take a minute to read them before you play.
The person who lost gets the biggest payout. The winner takes a decent chunk, too. Folded pre-flop? Doesn't matter! If you were dealt into the hand, you're getting paid.
There aren't any GTO poker situations where just sitting at the table counts for more than what you're holding.
Want in on the jackpot action? See what poker promotions we're running now!
Bad Beat Jackpot FAQ
What is a bad beat jackpot in poker?
It's a prize paid out when you lose with an incredibly strong hand to something even stronger. You get the largest payout, but the winner and other players at the table split the rest.
How does a rolling bad beat jackpot work?
It keeps growing until someone wins, then resets. Small amounts from larger pots (usually one big blind from pots over 30 big blinds) feed into it. Let that run for a while, and the prize can hit anywhere from $50,000 to $500,000, sometimes more.
Do bad beat jackpots require both hole cards?
Yes, and this is one of the most critical rules for poker jackpots. Both players need to use both their hole cards. Otherwise, every time the board showed quads, everyone would qualify. The hand also has to reach showdown - fold your monster early, and you're out of luck.
Where does the jackpot money originate?
The money originates from small pot contributions, separate from the regular rake. When pots reach a specific size, a fixed amount gets added to the jackpot fund.
All monies go directly into the prize pool, with some poker rooms adding their own daily contributions in jurisdictions with rake restrictions.
