Recently, Caesars Entertainment has begun rewarding losing hands in poker, with a massive jackpot of $600,000 being available. Now, before you get too excited, remember that this vast sum is not awarded to a single player, but distributed amongst all of the players in the casino.
In this case, it was Scott Rosen who took the lion’s share of this jackpot, while everyone else in the poker room at Planet Hollywood was lucky enough to receive $2,000. There’s no question, this was a bad beat jackpot fit for a truly bad beat of a hand, with Rosen’s quad queens losing to a rare straight flush.
The bad beat jackpot is setup in a progressive way that starts at $200,000 and requires quad aces in order for the jackpot to be hit. As the jackpot steadily grows by increments of $100,000, a lesser set of quads is required to hit the jackpot. For instance, when the jackpot hits $300,000, quad kings, as well as aces, will be acceptable for hitting the jackpot. When the jackpot reaches $400,000, quad queens in addition to the other hands
will activate the jackpot and so on. This goes all the way, until the jackpot reaches $1.4 million, or if a player activates the jackpot before then by losing with quads. Having a winning hand like a quad is rare in itself. Having a hand like quads and losing to an even more infrequently occurring hand is of such a small probability, that it is no wonder the jackpot has been around for over two months before being hit despite 24/7 poker action taking place in the casino.
This kind of bad beat jackpot promotion may seem somewhat foolish and indiscreet when it comes to maintaining a house edge in a game like poker, which affords little if any real revenue for most casinos. However, this is actually a clever play by Caesars, as this kind of behaviour of rewarding losing hands could easily attract more less experienced players and a larger crowd overall (after all, who wouldn’t want to win $2,000 for simply playing poker?). In addition, the resulting press once the jackpot is awarded also helps to increase the popularity of the poker room in question.
Still, it’s tough to call what Rosen encountered a truly bad beat, as winning over $100,000 for losing doesn’t quite seem like losing after all.
