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The 6 Card Bonus jackpot is specific to Three Card Poker, just to clarify, and we asked several people at Caesars Entertainment about past winners of the million-dollar hand but couldn’t find anyone who remembered the last time somebody won it (which is surprising -- you'd think something like that would stick in someone's memory over there, not least since they're not exactly flush with spare millions these days). It’s been hit at least six times between Las Vegas and twice in Atlantic City. (It was also offered at Harrah’s Tunica and Tunica Roadhouse, but no longer – see below.)
The most recent Vegas jackpot of which we know occurred in February 2012, when a nurse practitioner from California hit the million-dollar hand at Paris-Las Vegas, becoming the third-ever winner and undoubtedly brightening up her Sunday night. The odds of being dealt the seven-figure hand of cards were one in 20,358,520. In another instance, an anonymous player at Harrah’s Resort in Atlantic City made the long-shot turn of the cards at 6:31 p.m. on Oct. 23, 2011, having wagered $19 on a hand. The winning "super-royal" has to follow the sequence nine, 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace of diamonds; if you hit that hand in any other suit, you win $100,000. At the time, the bonus had been in play for less than a month, having been initiated the previous Sept. 26, and was exclusive to CET resorts in Atlantic City -- it was only introduced to their Vegas properties, and other regions in which they operate, some while later.
As for whether Caesars has discontinued the prize altogether, spokesman Gary Thompson responds, "We still pay $1 million for the six-card diamond royal at our Las Vegas and Atlantic City properties. We’ve changed the jackpot to a lower amount at regional properties as an experiment to determine what types of jackpots players want. We’ve seen virtually no change in the participation in the jackpot wagers at any properties."