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Rivers Casino is seen Wednesday, June 8, 2022. The biggest poker jackpot in U.S. history might be won there.
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Play the cards: Poker players en route to Pittsburgh for jackpot prize

Morgan Timms/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Play the cards: Poker players en route to Pittsburgh for jackpot prize

Poker players are flocking in from all around Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and even Canada for the opportunity to win possibly the largest “bad beat” jackpot in U.S. history at Rivers Casino Pittsburgh.

A “bad beat” most accurately reflects a scene out of a movie, where in a poker showdown one player plays a remarkable hand, but in an unlikely spectacle, they are beaten out by the opposing player’s even better hand in a dramatic ending.

The next-to-impossible feat has bettors parading into Pittsburgh to get the chance to be a part of the table with a growing jackpot that was listed at $1,030,160 as of Wednesday afternoon.

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“Everybody wants a piece of the jackpot, so everybody's just waiting to see when they're gonna hit,” said Leslie Brittain, the poker manager at the Rivers.

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If the jackpot does not hit in the next few weeks, Ms. Brittain explained, it will become the largest “bad beat” jackpot in U.S. history, beating out Motor City Hotel’s current $1,068,590 “bad beat” record jackpot that was hit in 2018.

Players vying for the jackpot will play Texas Hold ’em poker, with $1 getting added to the jackpot with each hand played. 

The players at the winning table will divide the jackpot prize between them.

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Ms. Brittain brought the “bad beat” jackpot to Rivers’ poker room last year after the casino removed the prize in 2017.

“I wanted to do something to bring excitement back to the group, so I thought what better time to reintroduce the ‘bad beat’ by doing something a little bit different and hopefully create life-changing money for a patron,” Ms. Brittain said.

The improbable jackpot last hit in April 2021 with about a $150,000 jackpot split between players, about a month after the prize was reintroduced to the casino in March 2021. The jackpot has not been hit since.

How does a player win?

A table will win the jackpot if they hit a “bad beat” hand, already a difficult feat, but the casino has added barriers players have to check off in order to win the final prize. 

To win the jackpot, players must be in a showdown where all the cards have been dealt — two cards to each player and the five common cards in the middle of the table — and the table’s remaining players expose their cards to determine the round’s winner. One player must play a hand that is at least quadruple 10s — a high hand that normally would win any given poker round.

If no one has at least quadruple 10s, then it’s just a normal round of poker, and no one wins the jackpot. 

Should a player have quadruple 10s, another player at the table’s showdown must reveal an even stronger hand than the original high hand, such as a royal or straight flush. Those in-game events, granted some other constraints, would trigger the rare “bad beat” to bring the jackpot to the table. 

However, there are variations to the “bad beat” event. The original, high hand can be higher than the casino’s minimum quadruple 10s. For instance, if one player plays quadruple queens but is beaten by quadruple kings, one player could play quadruple jacks and lose to a straight flush, or a straight flush could lose out to a royal flush. 

Rivers officials also have set other various constraints surrounding the jackpot — besides the minimum card hand variations players must play — the two cards dealt to each player must be played. Also, the “bad beat” must occur during a showdown, the players have to play the hand with chips from the poker cage, not cash and there cannot be any co-ordination between players at any point in the match.

With all of the constraints that have to be met to hit a “bad beat,” it’s not a simple feat. 

But if it does happen, the casino will divide the jackpot between all the players at the table, doling out 40% to the losing hand, 30% to the winning hand and 30% between all the remaining players at the table.

Ms. Brittain explained that the “bad beat” hand, which played the original quadruple 10s or higher, gets the biggest jackpot slice “because they had a great hand, you think you’ve got the greatest game that you can get and then — out of nowhere — somebody beats you.”

Why play at all?

The jackpot’s winners, Ms. Brittain said, will win a life-changing sum of money, most likely in the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But the odds of hitting the “bad beat” and winning the jackpot at Rivers are about 2,000,000:1, according to the poker news website PokerListings. Those odds are significantly higher than the odds of getting struck by lightning in your lifetime, which stand at about 15,300:1.

Jackpot winning odds also increase depending on the minimum hand the casino sets. The lower the card number, the better the odds. 

Rachel Volberg, a research professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who studies casinos and gambling, said the odds won’t matter. The players’ excitement is in the possibility of playing to win.

“It's got the added dimension of anybody who can get into the game is going to have some kind of a prize that's substantial,” she said. “And if that's the case, then you know, that does of course make it interesting and attractive to people who want to take a chance on maybe a life-changing event.”

Andrei Barnabei, the Senior Vice President of Gaming at Rivers, said the return from pandemic restrictions coupled with excitement over the jackpot is creating a more lively poker room at the casino.

“I'm sure soon enough it's going to be more regional as it continues to grow,” Mr. Barnabei said.

Nick Pasion: npasion@post-gazette.com or on Twitter @nicholaspasion.

First Published: June 9, 2022, 9:39 p.m.

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Rivers Casino is seen Wednesday, June 8, 2022. The biggest poker jackpot in U.S. history might be won there.  (Morgan Timms/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
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