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Bad Beat Jackpot Poker Sites

I like winning money. There’s only one thing better in my mind: winning obscene sums of money. I’m talking 6-figure, mind-blowing, retire-right-now amounts of cash. And one way to win that kind of coin is to play at bad beat jackpot poker sites.

Bad beat poker jackpot poker sites basically pay you for being unlucky. So if you have a history of river beats and losing to suckouts, this could be your chance to win. Playing at a bad beat jackpot poker site is one way to make your bad luck a positive thing.

How do bad beat jackpots work? Do all poker sites have them? And what are the top bad beat jackpot poker sites online? If you’re thinking about making a run at the run-bad, read on. Everything you need to know about bad beat jackpot poker sites is all right here including where the best bad beat jackpot poker sites are.

Reviewing Bad Beat Jackpot Poker Sites

Rank help Poker Room help USA help Mac help Bonus help Match help Code help Player Trafic help Room Review help
1Intertops Poker Lock Poker   This Site Accepts USA Players   mac-icon $750 150% N/A 8,000+ Lock Poker
2Party Poker Party Poker      mac-icon $/£500 100% NETPOKER500 50,000+ Party Poker
3Carbon Poker Carbon Poker   This Site Accepts USA Players   mac-icon $1100 110% N/A 5,000+ Bodog Poker

The Top Online Poker Sites With Bad Beat Jackpots

What are Some Bad Beat Jackpot Poker Sites?

There are plenty of sites with a bad beat jackpot, but not all are created equal. We’ve sourced out the cream of the crop to save you some time. We ranked all sites based on average bad beat jackpot size, fairness of bad beat requirements, and overall gameplay. Three came out on top: Lock Poker, Party Poker, and Carbon Poker.

Lock Poker Offers Huge Bad Beat Jackpot + Accepts USA Players

Offering a huge 150% to $750 Exclusive Poker Bonus

Lock Poker is a new site on the Merge Poker Network, where it shares a player pool with a few other sites. Because of this player-sharing, traffic figures are pretty high at Lock. This makes finding a game easy, and ensures that a wide variety of games are spread at any given time. The Lock Poker software is quite good, although a bit simpler than PartyPoker’s. You’ve got access to a few unique features – rabbit cam and player spotlight, to name two – that you won’t find anywhere else. The client runs fast and is free of serious bugs, which makes gameplay easy and smooth.

The bad beat jackpot at Lock Poker is run by Merge Gaming, so every site on the network pays in. This means you’re often looking at high six-figure pots by the time one gets hit. To put things into perspective, a player took down the prize at $1.2 million in 2009.Lock’s payout structure is similar to PartyPoker’s, but the hand strength requirements are a bit different. At Party, the losing hand must be quad eights or better to qualify for the bad beat jackpot. At Lock Poker, the losing hand can be quad sevens or better. 

Party Poker Offers The Biggest Bad Beat Jackpot for Euro / Canadian Players

Receive 100% up to $500 Bonus - Deposit in AUD &
Must Use Our Exclusive Bonus NETPOKER500

Party Poker comes in at #1 because it’s a great overall site for BBJ chasers. Party is one of the few BBJ sites with not only great prize potential, but great software as well.

Party Poker’s reputation speaks for itself when it comes to security and customer service. You can always be sure that your money is safe at Party Poker, as it’s a publicly traded company bound by UK law. You can be equally sure that when you win a massive jackpot, you will be paid out with 100% certainty.The payout structure at Party Poker is more than fair. Of the full jackpot, 30% goes towards seeding the next jackpot and paying some administrative fees (this is standard for bad beat jackpot poker sites). Of the remaining 70%, the loser of the hand takes a full 50%. The winner of the hand takes 25%, and the remaining 25% is split among all other players who were involved in the hand. Since the jackpot at Party Poker is usually astronomically high, this payout schedule ensures that everyone involved takes home a nice score. As an example of the sums we’re talking about, consider that on March 11, 2011, a player took down a main prize totaling $479,101. The total jackpot payouts that day came close to $1,000,000.

This Poker Room Does Not Take USA Players

Carbon Poker Accepts All USA Players and Offers a Bad Beat Progressive

Receive a 150% up to $600 First Deposit Bonus
Must Use Our Exclusive Bonus Code 600GOLD

Carbon Poker is also a Merge Network room, so you’re trying to hit the same bad beat jackpot as you would be at Lock Poker. Whether you sign up here or at Lock will be largely a matter of personal preference.

Bonuses and promotions tend to be a bit better at Lock Poker, hence why Sportsbook is ranked slightly lower. However both are great bad beat jackpot poker sites, and you’d do well to check each of them out. You can choose which one you like best once you’ve clicked around a little bit.

What is a Bad Beat Jackpot?

A bad beat jackpot is pretty much what it sounds like: a bonus prize paid out to a player who takes a bad beat. The jackpot builds over time as money from the raked jackpot tables flows into the pot. Most jackpots grow indefinitely, increasing 24/7 until some unlucky player takes it down.

Most bad beat jackpot poker sites have hand rank requirements that govern when the jackpot is paid. Most of the time, the winning hand and the losing hand have to be pretty strong in order to qualify for the bad beat jackpot.

The majority of bad beat jackpot poker sites consider losing with four of a kind or better sufficiently unlucky to trigger the jackpot. The standard rule is that if you’re beaten while holding four of a kind eights, you win the prize.

How Can I Win a Bad Beat Jackpot?

In addition to holding a hand with a high enough strength requirement, you need to be sitting at a jackpot table in order to win. Most bad beat jackpot poker sites clearly label these tables in the poker lobby. They’re pretty easy to find.

The main difference between a jackpot table and a non-jackpot table is that the poker site will charge more rake on the jackpot table. By sitting in, you’re basically agreeing to pay the poker site a little bit more from each pot in exchange for a chance at the jackpot.

You’re also paying that little bit extra for the chance to win a partial jackpot even when you aren’t the one who gets beat. Most bad beat jackpot poker sites divide the payout between every player dealt into the hand, which increases your chances of winning a prize.

Of course, the loser of the bad beat hand takes down the majority of the pot. But at some sites you could win as much as 10% of the jackpot just for having been dealt in.

In sum, you can win a bad beat jackpot by:

  • Sitting in at a bad beat jackpot table and paying extra rake
  • Losing with a really strong hand
  • Being dealt in to a hand where someone else loses with a strong hand