Some casinos in Las Vegas have a bad beat jackpot which pays silly money whenever two massive hands appear at the same time.
To win the jackpot, the losing hand usually has to be quads or better. It’s pretty rare, as you can imagine. When any four of a kind can be beat, the odds of this happening on any given hand are in the region of 92,000-1 and it’s much more difficult if only certain hands qualify.
That’s also assuming nobody ever folds a pair or suited connectors in a ten-handed game while they still have a chance to make something huge. Not everyone folds a pair of 6s on a high, suited flop but it does happen.
A week ago the jackpot at The Orleans got so large that it could be won by any aces full hand losing to quads (the odds of this are more like 2,000-1) and the room went crazy trying to hit it. Poker Grump wrote a great account of all the madness here.
There are also casinos that don’t have a jackpot. Like Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall.
I’d completely forgotten they even had poker when I passed through, but there was a no-limit game running right by the door. I’d already tried Imperial Palace and Flamingo and neither had a no-limit game running so I sat down before I’d even realised that this was the smallest game in town.
There’s one $1 blind, and that’s it. You can buy in for as little as $20 if you like and you get $2/hr comps – almost as much as you’ll pay in blinds! I know they sell hot dogs in the sports book, but beyond that don’t ask me what you can spend the comp on.
The game was only running 6-handed but soon after I sat down there was a massive pot, which must have surpassed the $100 mark, after JcQc flopped a straight with Td 9h Kc – only for 9s 9d to come back to take the lead when Tc paired the board on the turn.
Only one card left in the deck could change things. This one:
Straight flush wins. Quads loses.
Well to be fair, they actually paid a $50 bonus for the quads, which just about covered his loss on the hand. The straight flush received a $250 bonus.
But anywhere with a BBJ this would be worth considerably more.
Usually the jackpot is divided up with about half of it to the loser of the hand, a smaller chunk to the winner and the rest distributed to everyone else playing in the room at the time.
And with just 6 of us at Bill’s, I would have done pretty well out of that!
Holy crap – that was me with the straight flush. And I had two outs Ace of clubs would have paid me $500…
You’re right, I totally missed the other end of the draw.
I’m not sure I like the odds of that actually being you given the size of my readership and that the comment came from a British IP address (you’d think I’d remember another Brit at the table) but if you say so 🙂 Nice hand.
What a doubter. Ironically I actually stumbled on your blog when I was trying to search for when BMI stops flying to Vegas as I was already thinking about my next trip there. Anyway – I remember you taking the photo but you were kinda quiet so I can’t remember much about you. If memory serves you were sat between a frumpy middle aged woman and a fairly nondescript guy whereas I was between the lanky Russian dude you can see the arms of in the photo and a younger moderately attractive girl. Dealer was a baldy called Bryan. Floor guy was Chris and the other dealer was Mathew with a weird beard going on. Pot was only about $70 but you can count it in the photo anyways. Odds getting better?
BMI stop flying in April, I’m not sure of the exact date. My summer flight got rerouted via Heathrow and San Francisco and I’m already taking a wacky route via Philly and Phoenix in April. It made perfect sense at the time I booked it.
I have to admit I wasn’t paying much attention at the table, I spent most of the time texting with my gf trying to work out dinner plans. Being unmemorable is a good quality at the poker table, but it seems to come quite naturally 🙂 In fact, I was probably the nondescript guy as I don’t think there was anyone to my right most of the time!
When are you going back then?
probably May/June for a week or so. Going to sneak in a solo trip before I get married in August! I’m pretty sure there was another guy at the table as he’d been there that morning too. However it’s pretty easy to get memories muddled up.
Are Bill’s not to fussed about photos?
A remarkable hand to record, send it to Meg Arena!
$100k at my local casino, 60% to quads
I don’t know why carrying a large camera along the Las Vegas Strip actually looks like a sign around your neck that says “Ask me to take your picture”. Actually I don’t mind at all, but if people somehow think that just because it looks like I