- Ocean KO combines progressive knockout with random bounty multipliers.
- GGPoker is first to offer the format outside France and Spain.
- Multipliers range from 0.4x to 400x, with more chances for big wins than previous versions.
- Players progress through 14 bounty tiers, with special legendary levels for large bounties.
GGPoker has launched Ocean KO, its own version of the Jackpot PKO (JPKO). The format combines the progressive knockout with the random prize multipliers of jackpot sit and go games like Spin & Gold.
GGPoker is only the third operator to offer the format, and the first to bring it outside France and Spain. It could become one of the defining new poker formats in online poker’s history, joining the likes of fast-fold poker and the original PKO in terms of industry-defining innovations.
As first reported by Poker Industry PRO on Monday, the first Ocean KO tournaments ran as part of the Bounty Hunter Series, with three Sunday events on October 4 carrying a combined $1 million in guarantees. All three comfortably beat them.
Ocean KO Debut: Sunday Turnouts
| Buy-in | Guarantee | Entries | Prize Pool |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10 | $200K | 23,443 | $215,675.60 |
| $100 | $400K | 5,926 | $545,192 |
| $1,000 | $400K | 692 | $657,400 |
Two more flighted Ocean KO tournaments kicked off their opening flights on Friday.
How Ocean KO Works
Ocean KO starts out like any PKO. Half your buy-in goes on your head as a bounty, so in a $10 tournament, everyone starts with a $5 bounty. The rest goes to the regular prize pool ($4.20) and the fee ($0.80).
The twist comes with each knockout. Instead of collecting a fixed amount, you get a random multiplier applied to the bounty, anywhere from 0.4x to 400x. As in a regular PKO, the result is then split: half is paid to you as cash, and half is added to your own bounty.
So if a $5 bounty lands a 10x multiplier, it’s worth $50. You pocket $25, and your own bounty jumps from $5 to $30. Hit the 400x and that $5 bounty becomes $2,000: $1,000 in cash, plus a now $1,005 (your original $5 plus the $1,000) bounty on your head, possibly within the first few hands of a $10 tournament.
Ocean KO Pay Table: $5 Bounty
| Multiplier | Bounty Value | Cash Paid | Probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 400x | $2,000 | $1,000 | 0.002% |
| 100x | $500 | $250 | 0.08% |
| 10x | $50 | $25 | 2.40% |
| 2x | $10 | $5 | 2.50% |
| 1.5x | $7.50 | $3.75 | 2.70% |
| 1x | $5 | $2.50 | 20.00% |
| 0.7x | $3.50 | $1.75 | 22.00% |
| 0.5x | $2.50 | $1.25 | 26.228% |
| 0.4x | $2 | $1 | 24.09% |
On average, the multipliers work out to exactly 1x, so in the long run a bounty is worth exactly its face value. In the short run, it’s a different story. Almost three-quarters of knockouts pay less than face value, and the 400x comes along just once in every 50,000 bounties.
To show who’s carrying what, GGPoker has also added 14 “evolution tiers.” Every player starts as an Egg and evolves through Fry, Fish and Shrimp up to Shark as their bounty grows. Beyond that are four Legendary levels, starting at a $10,000 bounty, where the pay table gets much flatter. At the very top, the Legendary Shark (a bounty of $1 million or more) only ranges from 0.8x to 1.5x.
A Different Pay Table to the Originals
Until now, the jackpot PKO has been an entirely French affair. French poker giant Winamax debuted Space KO in December 2024, and it quickly became the most popular tournament format on the site.
For more than a year, no one copied it. Then, in March 2026, Betclic launched Smash KO. Betclic is better known as one of France’s biggest sports betting brands. For years, it ran its poker room on the iPoker network, before launching its own in-house software in 2025. Smash KO was a near-exact copy of Space KO, tweaked to make it slightly less volatile.
Neither format is available outside ring-fenced European markets: Winamax operates in France and Spain, and Betclic in France alone. That’s why, until now, most of the poker world hasn’t had the chance to play a JPKO.
Mechanically, Ocean KO is almost a carbon copy of Space KO, right down to the 14 levels. The pay table, however, is very much GGPoker’s own.
The original formats lean heavily on the 0.4x multiplier, which lands on 60% of knockouts at Winamax and 49.85% at Betclic. At GGPoker it’s just 24%, but there are new 0.5x and 0.7x multipliers in its place. GGPoker has also dropped the 3x multiplier and cut the 2x right back.
What that buys is more big hits. A 10x or better lands roughly once every 40 knockouts on Ocean KO, compared with about once every 167 on Space KO and Smash KO. The top prize is 400x, against 100x at Winamax and 50x at Betclic.
Jackpot PKOs Compared
| Metric | Winamax Space KO | Betclic Smash KO | GGPoker Ocean KO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top multiplier | 100x | 50x | 400x |
| Chance of 10x or higher | 0.60% | 0.60% | 2.48% |
| Chance of less than 1x | 60.00% | 49.85% | 72.32% |
For players, that means more small knockouts, a better shot at a big one, and less in between. It’s the most top-heavy version of the format yet.
The Format Everyone’s Watching
The French formats have already shown what a JPKO can do. Last month, a €100 Space KO with an €80,000 guarantee paid out more than €1 million, including a record €838,000 bounty from a single knockout. The first-place prize was just over €5,000.
Results like that are why GGPoker won’t be the last to take the plunge. iPoker and WPN, home of ACR Poker, are both developing their own progressive knockout formats with randomized or mystery bounties.
New to the format? Our Jackpot PKO guide covers everything you need to know, from the pay tables and levels to basic strategy.
- Or get up to $100 worth of rewards
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