On Tatooine, Jabba would often host Podraces for the planet's gambling masses. The Boonta Eve Classic Podrace, which pitted a young Anakin Skywalker against Sebulba the Dug and several others, resulted in the slave boy's ultimate victory and freedom from Watto, Anakin's owner.

During the Clone Wars, Jabba's son Rotta was kidnapped by the Separatists, led by Count Dooku. Jabba called on the Jedi to help him recover his son in exchange for use of the Hutt-controlled hyperspace lanes -- a valuable bargaining chip given that the Separatists controlled most of the lanes. Anakin and Ahsoka ultimately located the junior Hutt on the planet Teth, where he had been imprisoned and had fallen deeply ill.

Unbeknownst to the Jedi, the kidnapping was an elaborate scheme hatched by Dooku to undermine any chance of a Republic alliance with the Hutts. Through lies and manipulated holograms, Dooku made the Jedi appear to be the ones responsible for Rotta's kidnapping, a betrayal which enraged Jabba.

The Jedi ultimately delivered Rotta to Jabba safe and sound, however, securing the Republic's favor with the Hutts -- for a time.

Later, Jabba was approached by Chairman Papanoida and his son Ion of Pantora, asking the great Hutt for access to Greedo, a bounty hunter known to frequent Jabba's Palace. Papanoida had reason to believe the hunter was responsible for the kidnapping of his daughters. With Jabba's approval, they confronted Greedo and exposed him as the kidnapper, who confessed his role in the Separatist plot to coerce Pantora to join the Separatist Alliance.

After hiring Cad Bane to retrieve information about the Galactic Senate Building from the memory banks of R2-D2 -- a job the bounty hunter successfully delivered -- Jabba immediately offered Bane a second mission to free Ziro the Hutt -- Jabba's uncle -- from a Republic prison.

Ziro the Hutt, who had been incarcerated by the Republic after joining Dooku's Separatist plot to kidnap Jabba's son Rotta, possessed incriminating information that Jabba and the Hutt Grand Council feared could fall into Republic hands. Jabba hired Ziro's old flame, Sy Snootles, who killed Ziro and delivered the diary to Jabba on Tatooine.

After smuggler Han Solo jettisoned a shipment of Jabba's spice before being boarded by an Imperial patrol, Jabba demanded compensation for the lost cargo and sicced his bounty hunters after him. Jabba confronted Han directly, trying to play the fatherly patron. It was all a ruse, and Solo knew it. That Jabba showed up with the deadly bounty hunter Boba Fett in his party indicated to Solo that time was running out.

Time did eventually run out, and Fett was sent to hunt down the Corellian. Fett delivered Solo, frozen in carbonite, to Jabba's palace in return for a large bounty. Solo, once an extraordinary pilot, smuggler, and soldier in the Rebel Alliance, was now little more than wall decoration for a grotesque crime lord.

It wasn't long before Solo's friends attempted a rescue. Spearheaded by Luke Skywalker, the last of the Jedi, this mission brought C-3PO, Princess Leia Organa, Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian and R2-D2 into Jabba's dark palace.

Sentenced for execution by Jabba on the Dune Sea, the Rebels sprung a surprise attack on Jabba. Princess Leia Organa, who had been subjected to the humiliation of being one of Jabba's slave girls, used the chain that bound her to strangle the Hutt. His body was consumed by the flames that exploded from his sail barge as the Rebels raced for freedom.