A weird, statistically rare Black Swan life story concerning Texas Hold'em poker.
Backstory
When I was turning 21, I didn't want to drinkpartywastoid. I wanted to go play poker in an Atlantic City casino. This was at the tail end of the "poker boom" era after Chris Moneymaker won the World Series of Poker via online entry, so at the time there were ~10 poker rooms, every casino had one. Today poker is far less popular so there are 3 rooms, one of which is literally infested with mosquitoes.
I picked Caesars -- I like the Roman empire themed gaudiness. A giant fountain-statue of Caesar himself lurks within the open lobby atrium, beckoning gamblers toss a coin for their luck. Doric and Ionic columns abound, decorating cheesy white (faux?) marble. The casino itself is at least partially constructed on the ancient remnants... of a 1966 Howard Johnson's (refitted into one of the current Forum Towers).
Caesars is, in a word, perfect.
And in 2009, they had a poker room -- where I sat down about 1 AM on my birthday. I wasn't doing much -- just mostly observing and absorbing. I'd never played in a casino before, so I was trying to catch the etiquette -- very different from home games.
Hey, Cool, a Hand
Cards are dealt -- I folded out and don't even remember my cards. Other people, apparently had some good'uns: there was some preflop raising and lots of action.
Flop: 4, 8, 7 -- more raise-reraise-reraise-allin-allin action. The guys flip their cards -- there is no more gamblin' action, so no reason to keep them face-down. One has 77, the other has 44. So set vs set -- a rarity -- about 1% chance of that happening on any given flop.
The 444 hand has exactly one out, needs to hit a 4 to get quads, so that is... unlikely. Abysmally low, even.
A 7 hits on the turn! So now the guy that was winning, well -- he is super winning now. He has quads. 444 literally cannot win. Table ooos and aaas and makes noises of sympathetic pain for 444 guy.
River: ... 4!
And the table explodes and goes absolutely wild. I am sitting there like "... wtf?" and completely confused why everyone is celebrating. Quads getting beaten is rare, but I'd seen it once or twice in homegames. The odds are about 1 in 100,000 – .001%. Rare, yes, but not unheard of.
More confusing, the guy with 4444, who lost the hand, is going completely nuts with fist pumping and jumping and dancing and woowoowoo. "WTAF? he lost? why so happy?" goes through my head. So I turn to the guy next to me with requisite, "eh, wat?"
He says "we all just won a lot of money!" and explains the bad beat jackpot.
Bad Beat Wat?
The bad beat jackpot is essentially a prize pool that builds up over time. The casino takes $1 out of every pot to build the jackpot. When there is a hand that is normally winning the vaaaaast majority of the time, and it actually gets beaten, the bad beat jackpot hits. and the prize pool is distributed to the table. A "hard to beat" hand varies by casino, usually it's quads or better.
If the bad beat hits, then hits an hour later -- it's a piddly small prize pool and no one cares. If the bad beat has been building a long time, the jackpot can be huuuge. The biggest bad beat in New Jersey was about half a million in the Tropicana (aforementioned mosquito infested hellhole). The biggest bad beat ever in the USA was 1.2 million in Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh.
The BBJ on my table was a little over $200k. So the 4444s guy who lost the hand, ~$120k. The 7777s guy who won the hand, ~$70k. And everyone else at the table, including me: $8,248.14.
Some poor bastard picked the prior hand or so to get up and take a break. He wasn't dealt in for the jackpot hand, so we were actually 7 handed. You have to be dealt in to partake of the bbj, and he was not, so better prize split for everyone at the table. However -- poker players aren't entirely heartless (lies -- it's not a matter of heart; it's that the hand wouldn't come out the way it came out if that guy had been there. Pure black-hearted mathz). So pretty much everyone gave the guy $200 or so. The dealer was also tipped very kindly.
Conclusion
I had a good birthday weekend, and slowly squandered the rest of the money. I was 21, that money wasn't gonna do anything other than be squandered.
Cool Story, Bro, Because:
- Money, duh.
- I was literal newborn babygambler. By timezone math, I'd have still been illegal in Vegas.
- A Bad Beat Jackpot Babygambler is somewhat of an actual "oh what even omg" rarity. I'd be willing to bet money (not $8,000, though) I'm one of a handful of humans this has ever happened to.
- This occurrence is literally repetition-unachievable: you cannot top winning a jackpot an hour into legal gambling when you did not even know such a thing was even possible.
