Me and my brother made a bet on the odds of hitting a bad beat jackpot at our local casino here in the inland empire.

To qualify for jackpot, it has to be aces full or better vs. Quads , straight flush or royal.

He says the chances of this happening are less than 1 in 500,000. I say the chances of this is greater than 1 in 500,000.

Were not mathematicians and can't find a exact answer.

Can anyone help?

I did a lot of work on bad beat jackpots years ago for a cardroom client. Also, this page from the highly respected wizardofodds site lists the results of extensive simulations. I would have to do some more work to make sure that my exact calculations are in line with the wizard's simulations to within experimental error. My calculations are for more restrictive conditions than yours. However, I think we can both agree now that the odds for your case are far better than 1 in 500,000.

Do both players have to use both hole cards? Do you have to hold a pair for quads? Can the aces full use 3-of-a-kind on the board?

Even under the most restrictive conditions for aces-full beaten by quads or better where the quads must hold a pair, and a full house cannot use 3-of-a-kind on the board, the wizard gives a probability of 0.00004579 or just 1 in 21,839. Removing the conditions of having to hold a pair for quads, and allowing a 3-of-a-kind on the board for aces full, but still using both hole cards, he gives 0.00016964 or just 1 in 5895.

EDIT: To clarify, these are the probabilities for the whole table, with 10 players. It is about 10 times less likely per person.

Bruce, are your calculations for *someone* at the table winning, or you specifically winning the BBJ?

I didn't give my results, just the wizard's, and those were for a 10 player table. He says to divide those by 10 for a single player. So depending on how the OP answers my questions about the conditions, this could become somewhat close. If it's within an order of magnitude, I'll try to do the exact calculations for his case myself, but I want all the information first. We also need to know how many players are at the table.

The wizard's numbers assume everyone always sees the river. Is that what you want? My calculations also tried to account for typical player behavior, but this is more difficult and more subjective.

Yes you have to use both hole cards.

Yes you can use 3 of a kind on the board.

My brother won the bad beat jackpot @ Morongo casino last week. When he hit it, it had just been hit the night before. It's a progressive jackpot so he only got $1500. It previous night jackpot was over $10k.

So the exact bet was.... What are the odds of this happening to me again. He original said that it was less than 1 in a million. I thought it was more frequently than 1 in 500,000 so we wagered $100. I'm almost sure I'm right but need to be able to PROVE IT!

Thanks So Much !

Oh and it's 9 handed max there.

So according to the wizard, it's 0.00016964/9 or 1 in 53,054 when everyone always sees the river. I can try to do an exact calculation, but I'd be extremely surprised if his numbers are off by nearly a factor of 10.

So just to be sure, you don't have to hold a pair for quads? You could hold AK, and the board could have AAA? The loser could just hold a pair of deuces and use the same AAA?

And you want to assume everyone always sees the river? That makes a big difference, and it wouldn't apply to the probability of YOU seeing it again.

Did you read the replies? You are wrong.

Nah, OP is right - the chance of it happening is more than 1/500000 (that is, more frequent). If your brother won't take the linked site as proof, get a new brother?

I see your point but initially I read it different. When the OP writes - I read that as "the odds are greater". He could mean more frequent but to me, at least now, it is unclear.