- Full Tilt Poker has introduced a $50 buy-in level for its Jackpot Sit and Gos—and with it, the lowest rake for the variant so far.
- When Full Tilt first introduced the format, it spread $1, $2, $5 and $10 buyins only.
- Big brother and online poker behemoth PokerStars is also getting into the lottery SNGs game—it launched the Spin & Go format in Spain last month, and it will go live on dot-com within the next few months.
Full Tilt Poker has introduced a $50 buy-in level for its Jackpot Sit and Gos—and with it, the lowest rake for the variant so far.
Jackpots are a new format of online poker tournament, known as lottery sit and gos. Players are automatically seated in three-handed, winner-takes-all tournaments with a turbo structure.
The twist: The prize pool for winning the tournament is randomized when the game starts—to anything from 2x the buyin to 1000 times or higher.
When Full Tilt first introduced the format, it spread $1, $2, $5 and $10 buyins only—the same as Winamax, who invented the format under the name Expresso, and iPoker, who aped the game with Twister.
However, Full Tilt innovated in three important ways—first, it set the top multiplier at 2000x, double than the norm. Second, it substantially reduced the rake—from a standard of around 7% to 5%. And finally, it introduced an “everyone wins” payout (split 75/15/10) for the top prizes.
The new $50 buyin tournaments go one better with an effective rake of only 4%. It achieved this by increasing the middle of the paytable—the 6x, 10x and 20x payouts trigger slightly more frequently, and the lower 2x and 4x a touch less frequently.
And with the 2000x payout, it means a player can find himself competing for a $100,000 prize pool.
Big brother and online poker behemoth PokerStars is also getting into the lottery SNGs game—it launched the Spin & Go format in Spain last month, and it will go live on dot-com within the next few months.