Five players had a very nice afternoon in Pittsburgh when they hit the bad beat jackpot at Rivers Casino while playing low-stakes hold’em this week. They divided $905,000, the majority going to Scott Thompson, who lost holding the absolute nuts with quad aces to Brent Enos’ royal flush.
Thomson won $362,000, Enos, $271,000, and the three others who happened to be sitting at the $1/3 table with them got $45,000.
“We are unexpectedly and happily becoming a national bad beat jackpot hotspot,” said Bud Green, the general manager at Rivers Casino Pittsburgh. “Congratulations to our winning guests and to our Rivers Pittsburgh Poker Room Team Members for doing a terrific job.”
Green is talking about how Rivers Pittsburgh is the current bad beat record-holder in the United States. In August of last year, a bad beat worth $1.2 million was hit at the casino that sits a couple hundred feet away from Accuser Stadium, the home of the Steelers and Pitt Panthers.
The “loser” in that hand won $490,708 after he spiked his fourth ace on the river after a player moved all-in with a royal flush holding K♠ T♠. Thanks to that fourth ace, his hand was good for $368,029. It took 16 months for the players in the room to fill that bad beat kitty.
A bad beat worth $480,000 was hit at Rivers in Pittsburgh in 2017. The bad beat is reseeded at $2,500 by the casino.
Rivers Pittsburgh may be the bad beat capital of the U.S., but the title for North America goes to the Playground Poker Club in Kahnawake, Quebec, where the world’s largest bad beat was won. In August, five players split a majority of a $1.9 million bad beat jackpot. Every player sitting in a game at the time also got a small piece.
The second largest bad beat jackpot in history was also won at the Playground Poker Club. In June of 2022, a bad beat jackpot worth $1.7 million was hit there.
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, which should be required in every card room in the world.
