Bad Luck? Not For Ohio Bad Beat Poker Jackpot Winner

Published on March 30, 2013 by Tom Jones

Some people have bad luck, the type where they go to a casino, and never win anything. They lose playing cards, slots, or other table games. No matter what the game, they have found a way to lose it.

Then there is Andy Shymske, the luckiest of all the losers. Shymske has made a habit out of losing the best of poker hands, but luckily for the retired mechanic, he has turned those losing hands into a small fortune.

Earlier this March, Shymske walked into a hand where he caught a few cards and ended with quad queens. That would have normally been a winning hand, had his opponent not woke up with a royal flush. The prize for losing in such grand fashion? 78,138.82.

Many poker rooms around the US have bad beat jackpots. The requirements to win the bad beat vary from poker room to room. In most cases, the player needs to have aces over jacks or better, and lose to a better hand. The loser of the hand takes home 50% of the bad beat, the winner gets %25%, and the rest of the players at the table chop up the remaining 25%.

Winning one bad beat jackpot, according to odds makers, is a 500,000 to one proposition. The fact that Shymske hit once is remarkable, but the craziest part of this story. The win at Wheeling Island is actually the third bad beat jackpot the poker player has won in the past four years.

In addition to his Wheeling win, Shymske has taken hom the bad beat at Meadows Casino in Pennsylvania, and Seneca Niagara in New York. Those two bad beat payouts only totaled a little over $31,000 combined, compared to the $75,000 hit this month at Wheeling.

"They changed my name," said Shymske. "They call me Mr. Bad Beat. The last time we went to Mountaineer, three guys started rubbing my ears for luck."