A:
While certain Caesars Entertainment properties around the country launched "Total Bad Beat Jackpot" promotions over the past few years (the company's Atlantic City casinos have a linked progressive; Harrah's Philadelphia has a stand-alone progressive), in January of this year CET's seven poker rooms in Las Vegas (Paris' room closed years ago) upped the ante with the introduction of the "MegaBeat Poker Progressive Jackpot," which resets at a whopping $200,000 and has the capacity to climb to more than $1 million.
Since its inception, this jackpot (which is accumulated thanks to a $1 promotional rake from each pot of $10 or higher) has hit no less than three times and on each occasion the winner/loser was playing in the poker room at Planet Hollywood. The most recent hit, which we assume is the one to which you're referring, was just before 8 a.m. on Monday, July 1, when a player from London's six-high straight flush was vanquished by the eight-high straight flush of a player from Mexico, for bonus payouts of $111,646 and $57,765, respectively. (The bad beat hand gets 20 percent, the "winning" hand gets 10 percent, and the remaining 70 percent of the prize pool is split equally between anyone else who's playing in the participating poker rooms at the time.)
In total, 99 players were active in the poker rooms of CET's Vegas properties at the time this hand went down, each of whom was thus entitled to their share of 70 percent of the $538,771 total prize pool, which broke down to $3,888 each.
The previous time the Megabeat Jackpot was hit was at 7:08 a.m. on June 5, when the four kings of another player at Planet Ho were beaten by four aces. At that point, the jackpot had climbed to the giddy heights of $914,474 -- believed to be the largest bad beat jackpot from a brick-and-mortar casino ever. That time around, a player from Germany bagged a surprise $182,952, the "winner" (from Dallas) got $91,447, and 107 players in Total Rewards poker rooms across the city each had a $5,982 payday, just for being in the right place at the right time.
For a complete breakdown of the rules and structure (the criterion for a qualifying "bad beat" hand changes as the jackpot rises), check out Vegas-Gaming-Tournaments-Megabeat.pdf.
Update 06 September 2013
So, here's the thing: We had heard NOTHING of any subsequent jackpot being hit, until the person who submitted this question wrote to explain that they were asking about the Aug. 31 hit at The Quad poker room, which they had narrowly (well, by a week) missed being present for. Even armed with this new info ammo, our searching yielded nothing more than a couple of perfunctory Tweets from the Quad's poker room, but we made the best of it and posted what we could in Today's News today. Fast forward a couple of hours and what should land in our "in" box, but an official press release from CET -- so apparently this good news is no longer secret, or they read QoD and realized they'd forgotten to tell anyone, or ??? Your guess is as good as ours, but here's the official word, which pretty much covers everything we can think of that you might want to know. Better late than never, eh?:
"At 9:15 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 31, 2013, 102 players in poker rooms across Las Vegas celebrated as a king high straight flush beat quad jacks inside the Quad Resort & Casino Las Vegas poker room. This is the fourth time the jackpot has hit since its January launch and the first time the jackpot hit at The Quad Resort & Casino. In what was one of the most exciting Texas Hold’em hands, Micah Kreischer from Lexington, Ohio had pocket jacks while Omar Abu-Eid from Las Vegas, Nev. had the king and queen of clubs. The flop came out jack, nine, two; all clubs. Abu-Eid had a king high flush and made a $20 bet and Kreischer called. The turn was a 10 of clubs. Giving Abu-Eid a king high straight flush, he bet $95, Kreischer called. The river was the jack of diamonds giving Kreischer quad jacks. Abu-Eid pushed his entire chip stack into the pot. Kreischer immediately called the all-in. Both players showed their cards and the room erupted. Kreischer hit Caesars Entertainment’s Mega Beat Progressive Poker Jackpot! The Mega Beat Progressive Poker Jackpot awards not only the losing hand and winning hand but all players actively playing in any of the participating Caesars Entertainment poker rooms. Kreischer’s quad jacks being beat by Abu-Eid’s king high straight flush entitled all 102 players in Harrah’s Las Vegas, The Quad Resort & Casino, Flamingo Las Vegas, Bally’s Las Vegas, Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, Caesars Palace and Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino poker rooms to split $727,770. Kreischer, having the losing hand, won $150,599 and winner Abu-Eid took home $77,771 while all other players received $4,994."
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