A:
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."
Update 26 May 2015
And another update from a reader:
"Regarding your QOD today about the million dollar jackpot at Caesars properties. Two things: 1) I saw someone hit it at 6-card poker at the Flamingo in May of 2012. 2) It it NOT specific to 6-card poker. I was in Vegas 2 weeks ago, and CET properties are dealing it at most 'carny' table games, including the Texas Hold'em bonus game and several other games. Harrah's and Planet Hollywood, in particular, have an entire pit of $1 million bonus tables games."
05/21/2015 We received the following feedback from a reader, which prompted us to excavate deeper to get to the bottom of this one:
"Re your answer to the QOD on 5/21/15, your contact at Caesars Entertainment is dead wrong. As a regular at the Paris casino, I can attest to the fact that the payout on a diamond royal flush in 3-card poker was dropped from $1 million to one hundred thousand many moons ago. The same is true at some other Caesars' properties. Their policy of awarding of $1 million for that hand is inconsistent across their LV properties."
And, guess what? He's right! So, many phone calls later, we're pretty sure we now have this one down, even though CET seems a little confused and no one with whom we spoke had any clue about the bigger picture outside of their own pit:
Caesars Palace, The Cromwell, Flamingo, Harrah's, The LINQ, and Planet Hollywood all still DO offer the $1 million jackpot on the diamond "Super Royal;" Bally's and Paris, however, do not, and pay the same flat fee of $100,000 for that hand, even though both websites say otherwise. Bally's estimated that the jackpot reduction took place around six months ago, while Paris didn't know, and while no one had any information to offer about anyone hitting the $1 million in recent history, Caesars confirmed that it has never happened there, to date.
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