Apparently, there’s a new sort of poker match that’s set to take over the net ecosystem. It’s a type of progressive knockout (PKO) with a lottery-style payout ingredient, much like spin-and-gos.
Poker Industry Pro’s Nick Jones, whose tweet first introduced these to my consideration, referred to as them “one of the most pivotal new poker products we’ve seen.” He labeled them “Jackpot PKOs.” Another trade stakeholder predicted “a completely huge shift to this format:
There’s going to be a completely huge shift on GG to this format over the following 6-18 months. Pokerstars and different opponents will seemingly be rolling it out as soon as they see how profitable they’re.
The shift will probably be much like that from non-bounty MTTs to PKOs a number of years again.… https://t.co/W3w2XTK2r1
— Standard Backing | Pro Backing Poker Team (@StandardBacking) October 5, 2026
My first response to that is to be glad that 95% of my quantity is reside lately. My second is to be skeptical. Is this actually going to grow to be the predominant poker format within the coming weeks, months, or years? Is this truly what poker gamers need? And maybe most insidiously, is that this simply gateway to check out elevated rake?
How The New Lottery-Style PKOs Work
Let’s begin with an summary of this product, which apparently originated with European operator Winamax.
It units up seemingly like a standard PKO. Half of the buy-in goes to the prize pool and the opposite half goes to the participant’s bounty prize.
However, as a substitute of pocketing half of that bounty and including the opposite half to your individual upon scoring a knockout, a multiplier is randomly utilized to it. Here is a have a look at the GGPoker multipliers, which apparently go as much as 400x (Winamax’s product peaks at 100x):
But whenever you knock somebody out – you spin! So you may need simply gained somebody’s $5 bounty, however truly what you win is anyplace from $2 as much as $2000.
So think about first hand, knock somebody out, you win immediate $1000 but in addition lol your bounty is now $1005. pic.twitter.com/CLFLaEwCKC
— Nick Jones (@pokerprojones) October 5, 2026
So, what occurs when the gamers within the match repeatedly hit the low-value spins? I’m glad you requested.
It’s the identical factor that occurs whenever you hit the low-value multiplier on a spin-and-go. Essentially, the operator pockets the cash for the second, placing it into one other pool that may ultimately go to the gamers who land the high-value spins.
Speaking plainly, the match can have a smaller prize pool than the cash that was paid into it.
Opinions within the replies to those threads appeared to be combined. Some gamers liked the thought. Others much less so. That’s to be anticipated, and it’s most likely good for the ecosystem total for operators to experiment with new merchandise that enchantment to completely different subsets of the participant base.
Do Tournament Players Really Want To Play For Undefined Prize Pools?
But I’m discovering myself fairly skeptical of the concept these are going to revolutionize on-line poker. Do gamers actually wish to put most of their poker quantity right into a format the place an honest chunk of the prize pool will typically be taken away and awarded to a different participant in one other match?
I perceive that spin-and-gos have taken over and sit-and-gos are all however lifeless. More “exotic” bounty codecs — thriller and PKO — have largely phased common bounties out of the ecosystem and on-line and overtaken them reside. And some individuals rightly identified that wherever the leisure gamers go, the worthwhile gamers will observe.
But somebody can right me if I’m incorrect, however I feel MTTs and money video games nonetheless get loads of visitors on-line. And moreover that, spin-and-gos function at a quick tempo. If you pull the unhealthy multiplier, you’re onto the following sport moments later. Not so in these MTTs, which might (and principally will) go away gamers in a perpetual cycle of being caught in dehydrated husks of prize swimming pools.
Poker gamers, like all gamblers, have diversified motivations and thought processes. Different merchandise scratch the itch for various individuals, and that’s okay.
There’s little doubt that longshot playing has grow to be ever-more in vogue. Same-game parlays with distant likelihood account for a higher proportion of sportsbook motion yearly. Rubes buying longshot event contracts are lining the pockets of market makers at prediction markets.
There appears to be a notion that match gamers admire the same dynamic, however my expertise is definitely the alternative. Most of the splashy, no-care gamblers I play poker with gravitate towards money video games, the place they will placed on the triple straddle, reload once they inevitably hit a downturn, and go away once they get bored. Tournament gamers are typically extra drawn to the strategic facet of the sport, I’ve discovered.
What If These Are Just A Gateway To Higher Rake Totals?
Ultimately, I feel sufficient poker gamers benefit from the aggressive, strategic, meritocratic elements of poker — all of which these lottery tournaments chip away at — that I’m not as involved as among the doom-and-gloomers I’ve seen that this can dominant the way forward for on-line poker. I feel if individuals wish to chase jackpots, they’ll go mash some slots. Or hearth a $25 12-teamer.
Players will vote with their wallets, and we’ll see what occurs. Maybe I’ll look foolish a 12 months from now when poker lobbies are 100% stuffed with these types of merchandise. If so, I suppose I’ll take solace in the truth that this appears tough to port to my reside video games.
I do have one other concern, although. Let me put my tin foil hat on for a minute.
Imagine these merchandise do take off. The participant pool is sending a transparent message: we’re superb taking part in for prize swimming pools which are smaller than those we’ve paid for.
That could possibly be a reasonably harmful message to ship. Because because the operator, that pure response to that message is clearly to extend the rake.
“Let’s see how far we can push this. If they’re fine letting us take $X out of the pool for the jackpots, why wouldn’t they be fine with taking a few more bucks out for the rake?”
Again, the market will converse. Everyone ought to play what they need. But hopefully, poker gamers give this a assume earlier than they resolve to embrace it as the sport of the longer term.
Mo Nuwwarah is a employees author for Card Player and a extremely profitable match poker participant. Not solely has he coated the sport since 2013, however he additionally racked up north of $1 million in profession match earnings. He gained a WSOP bracelet in 2024, taking down the $1,000 on-line pot-limit Omaha six-max occasion, and just lately added a second MSPT trophy to his assortment. He additionally owns two WSOP Circuit rings.
