Biggest Bad Beat Jackpot in US History Hits as Players Share $1.2million

Losing with quad aces just won someone $490,000, the “unlucky” poker player, Benjamin Flanagan, winning the biggest Bad Beat Jackpot (BBJ) in the country’s history!

It’s not the kind of money you’d expect to see at a $1/3 game, even when two massive hands do get to the river, but triggering the $1.2million BBJ at Rivers casino in Pittsburgh meant life-changing sums of money for all involved.

When Raymond Broderson turned the Royal Flush he was looking forward to a tidy pot, especially when the river came an ace, full houses and trips likely to pay him off.

Benjamin Flanagan: A♥ A♣
Raymond Broderson: K♠ 10♠

Board: J♠ 9♦ A♠ Q♠ A♦

However, Flanagan had just made quads and that meant monster 6-figure wins for the duo, and a huge bonus for everyone else at the table.

The Bad Beat Jackpot rules saw the players take the following:

• Flanagan’s quad aces took 40% of the BBJ = $490,708.
  
• Broderson’s Royal flush got 30% = $368,029.
  
• The other 6 players won a share of the rest = $61,338.
  

It’s the biggest BBJ payout that live poker has ever seen in the USA, Andre Barnabei, assistant general manager at Rivers Casino Pittsburgh, stating:

“It’s absolutely thrilling and potentially life-changing for a poker game to pay out at this level.”

He added in a press release.

“When we launch a bad beat jackpot, we have no idea when it will hit or how big it will get. It’s almost as exciting for us as it is for the winners. Congrats also to our Rivers Pittsburgh poker room team members for a great job.”

The $1.2million BBJ is huge, but it’s not a world record for live poker. That crown belongs to Playground Poker Club in Montreal, Canada, which saw $2,228,425 shared out earlier this year.

Eric Lemay watched on in amazement the river fill his straight flush, beating the flopped quad tens of his opponent, and sparking the BBJ.

That saw Lemay walk off with $423k, his opponent taking $846k, and the best part of $1million shared out between the rest of the players.

The nearby Casino de Montréal holds second spot in the BBJ record books, eight players sharing $1,669,442 in April 2018 when quad 10s again lost out to a straight flush.

Third place in the all-time list goes to the Playground Poker Club again, a $1,375,265 2018 BBJ win triggered when quad queens “lost” to a rivered Royal Flush, the celebrations caught on camera.

Not all BBJs are kosher, however, as the 2018 story we reported about the Boomtown casino in Louisiana proved.

That sordid tale saw a poker dealer and his accomplice arrested after attempting to rig the game to trigger a $166,471 BBJ payout.

The dealer, Ashley Solomon, 61, allegedly stacked the deck so that his buddy, Dale Foret, 51, would lose the hand while holding the cards necessary to trigger the jackpot payout.