Bad Beat Bonus @ Ultimate Texas Hold’Em
A reader recently asked about the new two-way Bad Beat Bonus in Ultimate Texas Hold’Em. It’s pretty easy these days to crunch out the numbers, so I took an hour to work this one out. After all, I might see the bet somewhere, and I’m becoming a sucker for bonus bets lately 
Well, at a 14.8% house edge, I’ll probably look for a better paytable before I play this bet. Has anyone seen any other paytables out there?
| Losing Hand | Frequency | Probability | Payout | Return |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 0 | 0.000000% | 0 | 0.000000 |
| Straight Flush | 10,300,592 | 0.000370% | 7500 | 0.027776 |
| Four-of-a-Kind | 471,040,512 | 0.016935% | 500 | 0.084677 |
| Full House | 8,435,225,376 | 0.303275% | 50 | 0.151637 |
| Flush | 19,434,208,592 | 0.698725% | 30 | 0.209618 |
| Straight | 18,271,076,976 | 0.656907% | 20 | 0.131381 |
| Three-of-a-Kind | 64,049,759,448 | 2.302804% | 9 | 0.207252 |
| Two Pairs | 399,099,149,640 | 14.348956% | -1 | -0.143490 |
| One Pair | 1,366,512,556,968 | 49.130722% | -1 | -0.491307 |
| High Card | 791,967,420,480 | 28.473892% | -1 | -0.284739 |
| push | 113,130,263,816 | 4.067413% | -1 | -0.040674 |
| Total | 2,781,381,002,400 | 100.0000% | -0.147868 |
Here is the Paytable for Lake Elsinore’s Bad Beat Bonus:
Straight flush: 10,000 to 1
Quads: 500 to 1
Full House: 40 to 1
Flush: 25 to 1
Straight: 20 to 1
Trips: 9 to 1
Wow. That’s even worse at a 20.4% house edge.
what’s crazy is everyone who plays there usually plays minimum on the blind and ante ($5), but goes crazy on the trips and Bad Beat Bonus ($25-$30 on each)…and these are poker players doing this! Supposedly someone hit the bonus last week for $25,000 (max payout).
Now that I know exactly how bad that bet is, I will try to resist going there. Only reason I go there is to play Omaha/8 and because it is the closest casino that has UTH.