Red Rock Bad Beat Case Remanded Back To Hearing Officer
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Station Casinos’ pays out a percentage of its Jumbo Hold ‘Em Poker Progressive Jackpot to players in all five of its poker rooms across the Las Vegas area when a qualifying hand is hit in any one of them. The rooms all take a small percentage of every pot played to fund the jackpot.
Len Schreter‘s straight flush beat Avi Shamir‘s lower straight flush at Red Rock on July 7. Along with the 80 players on tables at all Station Casinos poker rooms, they assumed they’d hit the jackpot.
Shamir thought he was in line to collect $62,126 for taking the bad beat. Schreter expected to earn half that for dishing it out. Plus, all players at a Station Casinos poker rooms figured they had won $565 each just for being there.
Cards exposed, bad beat jackpot invalidated
However, Schreter exposed his cards before the fateful hand’s final betting round and Red Rock invalidated the jackpot.
An NGCB hearing heard testimony in December that after looking at surveillance video showing Schreter clearly exposed his cards before the hand was over, then-Red Rock poker room manager Forrest Caldwell invalidated the jackpot.
Caldwell and other Red Rock executives concluded exposing the cards was similar to a discussion of the hand during play. Posted rules clearly state any discussion of the hand during play could invalidate the jackpot.
The players involved claimed Schreter revealed his cards after the final board card and it didn’t change the outcome of the hand. They asked the NGCB to review it.
NGCB investigator Bill Olliges was called in. After investigating, he ruled in the players’ favor. Olliges said Schreter’s actions may have been bad poker etiquette, but they didn’t change the outcome of the hand.
Station Casinos requested the NGCB hold a hearing. The three-hour December hearing resulted in Vegas Valley Law managing member and NGCB Audit Supervisor Chan Lengsavath authoring a report for the three-member NGCB that reportedly suggested Stations pay.
Case remanded back to hearing officer
However, at the last NGCB meeting held Jan. 11, the dispute was essentially kicked back to a hearing officer. Board member Terry Johnson said the report left him with more questions than answers.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Johnson said there wasn’t enough information to decide on the issue. First, he wanted to know why Schreter had decided to withdraw his complaint in the case. Second, he wanted to know whether Station’s bad beat rules or standard poker-room procedural rules were used to reach the determination that the jackpot should be paid. Finally, he wanted a hearing officer to review and clarify evidence and other materials submitted in the case.
Stations Casinos will never be able to keep the money. It can only hold it until the next time a qualifying hand is hit. However, if the board rules in the players’ favor, Station Casinos can appeal the case to Clark County District Court. Johnson said it’s important to clarify the issues he pointed out just in case it does.
A date for a new hearing has not been set.
In the meantime, the largest bad beat jackpot in US poker room history was hit at the Motor City Casino poker room in Detroit, Michigan Jan. 16.
Quad queens beat quad fives after the Motor City Casino’s progressive jackpot had grown to a whopping $1,068,590.
The game was six-handed at the time. That meant the player with quad fives won $427,452 and the player with quad queens collected $213,712. Plus, the other four players each earned $106,856.