Félicitations and chapeau to the players who found themselves part of another enormous bad beat jackpot at the Playground Poker Club near Montreal on Sunday.
Dealt by Fernando Finelli, the $1.3 million Canadian ($954K) bad beat jackpot was hit after a nine-high straight flush lost to a jack-high one.
According to CardsChat’s calculations, the chances of making a straight flush and losing to another straight flush is about one-tenth of a percent.
For losing the hand, Siew Teh Haw received CAD $530,000, or 40% of the pot. The winner, Guy Sanschagrin took 20% (about CAD $265K), which is what the remaining six players at the table split (CAD $44K each). The final 20% was distributed to the rest of players who were sitting at any table in the room at the time.
This bad beat jackpot was particularly unlikely to hit because the qualifying hands were quad aces or better. The required strength of the qualifying hands loosen weekly, making it slightly easier to hit it as the weeks go by and the jackpot grows.
Big bad beat jackpots are Playground’s M.O.
The Playground Poker Club is not only home to WPT Montreal and World Series of Poker Circuit events, but also holds the world-record for largest bad beat jackpot. Hit in August, it gave all the poker players in the building a piece of CAD $2,590,185 — about $1.94 million USD at the time.
The “loser” of that jackpot won CAD $776,166.
Playground also had a $1,375,265 bad beat jackpot hit in 2018. The casino posted a video on YouTube of the moment, which included confetti falling from the ceiling.
The largest bad beat jackpot hit in the United States happened at Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh. That jackpot of $1,226,765 ended after quad aces lost to a royal flush in the middle of one slow afternoon in August of 2022.
Although bad beat jackpots are good for headlines and the players who happen to be lucky enough to be dealt a miracle, many players who call themselves grinders frown upon them because they are fed by a piece of each pot. Simply put, it’s a bonus generated by taxing the players.
Still, there must be something up with bad beat jackpots and the card rooms of Montreal. The previous world record was hit at Playground’s neighbor, the Casino de Montréal, in April 2018 when eight players got a piece of CAD $1,669,442.
The bad beat jackpot at Playground Poker Club has been reset to $150,000. Canadian, of course.
Bonne chance!
