Benjamin Flanagan lost a hand through quad deuces to a royal flush during a $1/$ no-limit hold'em match at Rivers Casino, Pittsburgh. Even so, he took home a six-figure prize due to the $1.2 million bad beat jackpot.
The player rived quad aces on a {a-Diamonds}{q-Spades}{a-Spades}{9-Diamonds}{j-Spades} board and ran into Raymond Broderson's {k-Spades}{10-Spades} for a royal flush. Flanagan is based in West Virginia, while Broderson resides in Pittsburgh.
The hand formed the biggest bad beat jackpot in the history of live poker in the United States. Each player at the table was vibrant as the six remaining finalists won huge cash prizes.
Life-Changing Cash Prizes That Some Players Won
Bad beat jackpots are known to give the player that loses the hand the biggest share of their $1,226,000 prize pool. Flanagan got the biggest loss in his poker career and won $490,708, which was 40 percent of the jackpot.
Broderson took home $368,029, which was 30 percent of the jackpot and a pot that he won through a royal flush. The other six finalists won $61,338 each, and they didn't influence the hand's outcome.
Nick Rigby, a Pittsburgh player, was notorious in the 2021 World Series of Poker (WSOP) after having a deep run in the Main Event. He introduced the "dirty diaper" game or deuce-three that he plays to the poker community. The poker pro tweeted a photo of the bad beat jackpot on his profile.
Rivers Casino had consistently advertised it in the past several weeks. It uploaded a video on Twitter on August 11, and the pot reached $1.1 million. Still, it hit after two weeks.
This Isn't the Only Biggest Bad Beat Jackpot
Rivers Poker Room's $1.22 million jackpot is the largest ever seen in the country. A player received $427,452 in 2018 at Motor City Casino, Detroit, after quad kings beat his quad threes. The jackpot pool was $1,068,590 and over $200,000 less than this week's Rivers Casino jackpot.
Another bad beat jackpot hit at Playground Poker Club in Canada in August 2017 after Shane Galle rivered a straight flush against Elphege Delarosbil's quad jacks at the $1/2 no-limit hold 'em final table. Galle won $230, 088 and Delarosbil won $460,149.
Playground Poker Club had a huge $2.2 million jackpot in June. The winner won $845,000 after losing with quad 10's. Even so, many bad beat jackpots rarely reach seven figures before they hit.
This largely relies on the pots' range and the card room. Generally, pots start from $5,000.
Various casinos have different jackpot triggering rules. But, aces full of jacks have to lose to quads. Normally, the losing and winning players in a hand have to play the two-hole cards to qualify for the jackpot.
The card room decreases the pot after a jackpot hits a reserve fund that is less than its previous hit. Leading online poker sites like GGPoker offers regular bad beat jackpots.
For instance, GGPoker's bad beat jackpot hit five times in a day in December 2021. The poker operator paid players over $1 million. Still, the company offered a $593,177 pot-limit Omaha jackpot a few months ago that it shared among six players.
