Jackpot!
Monday, November 14, 2011 @ 9:47 AM
I pushed through the door that led to the casino floor. The noise level seemed louder this night, the crowd a bit larger than a normal Friday night. It was, after all, the "luckiest day of the year." Apparently everyone intended to make the most of it. I glanced at my watch. The gamblers had a little over ninety minutes before the clock rolled to the next day. "Hit that max bet button a little faster, guys," I thought to myself as I weaved my way to the poker room.
The poker room proved to be brimming with activity as well...
Dealers dashed to and from the podium, ferrying chips to guests seated at the tables. The hostess moved quickly around the podium, greeting guests, adding names to the waiting list, exchanging cash for chips and vice versa. Another quick glance at my watch told me were about to give away $100 to some player in whatever lucky seat the random seat generator picked.
Curious if we had paid the big jackpot of the day, the $11,111 to the table when a player flopped quad Aces, I grabbed the clipboard holding the payout sheet. Amazingly, not only had nobody flopped quad Aces all day, nobody had even had quad Aces on the turn or river (which would have paid the comparitatively meager $1,111 to the table). With less than seventy-five minutes remaining before the end of the promotion, it looked like we might avoid the big payout.
The hostess waved the poker room manager and me over. "Is there any special forms for this promotion if it hits?" After a bit of nervous laughter, she was assured that she needed no paperwork above and beyond the normal payout procedures. "Don't jinx us," I laughed. "We have less than an hour to go."
I finished up all my shift-opening paperwork and prepared to head out to press some flesh, say a few hellos, do the easy part of the job. As I rounded the corner, the gentleman in seat 1 on one of the no-limit games rose from his seat. The gentlemen in seats 7 and 9 followed suit. A big pot brewed, with seat 1 having moved all-in and gotten called in two spots. Seat 1 smiled as he rolled over...pocket Aces.
A cacophony started, nearly drowning out the other ten games in the room. "Do it!" "One time!" "C'mon, dealer!" You could almost feel it coming.
The dealer put on an appropriate performance. He burned the first card from the deck under the pile of chips. He then methodically peeled off the three cards that would comprise the flop. With a smile, he rolled them over and put them in place so that only the door card was visible. The door card, of course, was an Ace. The cacophony grew.
The dealer pulled the door card to the right, revealing the card beneath it. Nobody involved remembers that card, only that it wasn't an Ace. Even with the momentary disappointment, the decibel level remained the same. When the dealer pulled the second card to the right to reveal the case Ace beneath it, giving the 1-seat quad Aces on the flop, the party started in earnest. High-fives flew. Smiles beamed from faces, save from the man who had been granted his table chance request at the end of the previous hand.
Instead of walking the room and making my hellos, I wheeled about 180 degrees and headed back to the podium. We filled out paperwork for what seemed an eternity and then sent the money over to the table, $8,888 to be split amongst eight players - one had just sat and had yet to play a hand at that table, one poor soul had a missed blind button in front of him and was thus ineligible.
Once we finished the payout, I drew my watch up to check the time. 11:33 - still nearly half an hour until the promotion ended, a full twenty-seven minutes to sweat a potential second payout. It might as well have been a year.
It only hit once, in fairly dramatic fashion, but it still failed to top the previous year's 10/10/10 payout. That payout occurred at 11:57pm, a mere three minutes prior to the end of the promotion ;)
***
The holiday season arrives. Tis the crappiest time of the year to work in Vegas. You do get to witness amusing sights such as the slot player, but it's the slowest time of the year in the casino save for the brief uptick when the cowboys come to town. November and December are, generally, boring.
Then, of course, comes amateur night New Year's Eve. I find once again that I will be working. It's the one time of year I sorely miss my first job in Vegas when I had a boss who let me not work that dreaded holiday even though the company had a policy against allowing employees to request that night off. At least I work far, far away from the Strip.
Off to drink a tasty adult beverage and contemplate taking photos of the work we've accomplished on the house....
Great, great story. But not sure I understand the promotion; everyone got the same payout at the table? The player who flopped the quads got the same as everyone else at the table? Interesting.
I assume most of the players who got the payout were regulars? I hope they tipped you guys well.
This is out of your pay grade, but I wonder why they didn't mention this promo hitting on your casino's Facebook page; seems like that would be the kind of thing you'd want folks to know about.
Yours is one of my favorite rooms in Vegas, sorry I missed the promo but looking forward to returning next week.
I think one of the biggest problems our room has is getting the word out about what our promotions are each month. Not sure why that is.
In most of our promotions, they try to spread the money out amongst as many players as possible. I suppose the thinking is you get 10 happy customers that will come back if you give each of them $1100 as opposed to giving a single player $11k. The big promo days are usually pretty fun, though.
I understand wanting to spread it around, but it seems to me the hand holder should get something more than the rest. After all, he had the guts to play Aces :-)
Agree about getting the word out. I dunno why the rooms don't use email at all, and target poker players. I play in your room several times every month. Surely the computer tracks that. How hard would it be to send me an email every time you come up with a new promotion. It would cost almost nothing, as far as I can tell.
I've suggested letting people voluntarily sign up for an email-based newsletter or something as well. So far, that idea seems to have gone nowhere. We don't have a social media presence at all - the property does, but the room doesn't use it.
I do think we might be getting hooked up to the Bravo Live app some time in the near future, but that's pure speculation on my part.
<3
looooooooooove your blog
awesome post
weird timing coz i just watcjed this - http://www.pokertube.com/free-poker-videos?movie=18432&title=Bad_beat_jackpot__100K__-_Live_at_the_Bike
whats the biggest jpot you have seen?
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Biggest I've seen was when Harrahs had their city-wide BBJ & it hit at the Pink Chicken. Saw it happen twice. I'm old & memory fails me but I believe losing hand got $35k & winning hand $25k both times.
Hey my friend - I told one of my co-workers about your blog earlier this week, and when he showed up to work last night, he said, "Thanks, I'm addicted to that blog now..." He read your blog from the first post up through January 2010 in one day... :) Traz
You didn't warn him about the insanity that reading this crap might bring? ;)
I'm have the unfortunate luck of being cw's co-worker. I have to say this stuff is entertaining as hell. I've read back to early 09 so far. I've worked security in bars for almost 6 years now on top of bounty hunting for the past year. After reading yall's blogs I may have to start one just to relive some old memories. I look forward to future posts.
Steve
I did some time behind the bar when I was younger. I can only imagine some of the stories you might have from being a bounty hunter. There has to be some comedic gold in there somewhere ;)