I don't usually like to go into great detail about the gambling, but this came in an email from Mr. Tbend and I laughed out loud.



Yes, that is my poker hand at TI. I had to come back later with the camera to get the shot. Here's the full story on Joker Poker:

I was doing lousy at the Hooters casino, so walked up to Paris for dinner, and started playing a dollar machine at Bally's when I saw the Multi-Strikes were all taken. For some reason I decided to try the Joker game, and started doing really well, turning $80 into more than $1400 without even any handpays. Biggest hand was a wild royal for $500.

So the next night at TI I naturally wanted to try my luck at the same game, this time at the $5 level, and ended up with the 5-of-a-kind. The aces don't pay more than anything else, but it's still a very difficult hand to hit, the odds being about 3 times as good as a natural royal, or about 1 in 13,000. The hand paid $5,000, and I had some small hand paid jackpots on the same game.

Two nights later at Santa Fe I was playing the same game and was DEALT the identical hand (5 aces, with the joker in the middle this time) but I only had 2 coins in so it paid $2,000. Didn't have my camera with me.

The odds of a DEALT 5-of-a-kind are about 1 in 415,000, and of a particular one (like aces) about 1 in 5.4 million.

Some Joker Poker pay schedules pay a lot more for the 5-of-a-kind, but they are 2 pair or better schedules rather than kings or better, and I don't like that as well.