Free money at Rio

Apparently, the poker room at the Rio is closing permanently. But they have to give away the bad beat money anyway they can. The method they’ve decided: show up on 9/17 and/or 9/18 and swipe your card for an entry. Swipe both days for two entries.

It seems like there’s no other requirement other than being there to swipe.

Winners will be picked Saturday night, and you don’t need to be present for the drawing.


As a poker player, I think it sucks that they’ve taken money from poker players and giving it to the general public in this matter. 🤯

If only there were in event in the near future at the Rio that would attract poker players, so that the money could be given to them… 😵‍💫

The best solution would have been a tournament with the bad beat money added to the prize money.

I might swipe on 9/17.

However, I find this a poor idea for a solution. I believe they don't have to keep the money constrained to poker. When the Riviera closed their bingo room, they had a lot of progressive money left. They gave it out in the form of a drawing that was point based on any machine.

We know at the Red Rock, certainly sequential royal games had very juicy progressive meters. I think they moved that money over during the shutdown, but from which other game, I have no idea.

I do think the general public should have a shot at the money, which would exclude invitation-only events.

If I were in management at the Rio and feeling lazy, I would have just added it to other progressive meters, even if they were slots, keno, video poker, table games. Anything. I think Gaming wouldn't have objected. This would attract more play to those games and give the money to players who did something to earn it.

For several years, the Rio was my favorite place to stay. Not so much for gambling but just about everything else. By the time I moved to Vegas, it was a shell of it's past.
The only reason I went there at all was to zip line and they couldn't even maintain that.

I'm going to agree with DJTeddyBear that I would prefer from the poker players, to the poker players. Just do a tournament with a prize structure for the buy-ins and the winner of the tournament also gets the accumulated jackpots, or you can divide it up among the Top Five, or what have you.

Not that I would expect Rio to care, but were I one of the poker players there (and also played other stuff) and I saw all of this player-contributed poker jackpot money up for grabs to anyone, then I definitely wouldn't go to the Rio anymore, other than to finish up whatever comps I might have.