Christmas came early for one lucky New Jersey poker player and her dealers at an Atlantic City casino. Earlier this week, the Monmouth County woman hit a progressive poker mega jackpot at Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City that earned her $1,681,458 off a $5 bet.

The woman, who casino officials identified as a “longtime customer” of the Caesars Entertainment-operated casino, was apparently in the holiday spirit as she tipped her dealers a handsome $77,000, according to NJ.com, which first reported the heartwarming tale.

The five-figure cut for the dealers made for 4.6% of the total prize, not a bad tip that arrived just in time for the holiday season. The lucky winner, meanwhile, can go Christmas shopping comfortably after seeing a 33,629,060% return on her $5 investment.

Conveniently, several poker players debated earlier this year how much pros should tip dealers after a controversial tweet from poker vlogger Lex Ozias (@LexOpoker1). PokerNews wrote about that debate, which you can read about here.

Plenty of Big Jackpots Hit This Year

The $1.7 million jackpot hit in Atlantic City was big, but there have been no shortage of big jackpots in 2022.

In August, West Virginia’s Benjamin Flanagan lost a hand with quad aces against a royal flush at Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh to hit the poker room’s $1.2 million bad beat jackpot, the largest bad beat jackpot in US live poker history.

In June, a record-setting $2.2 million jackpot hit at Playground Poker Club in Canada when a player lost with quad tens to win approximately $845,000.

Back in January, GGPoker paid out the biggest ever Omaha Bad Beat Jackpot of $593,177 that had Ibai Delgado walking away with the lion’s share worth $366,159.

Read about five bad beat jackpots that you won’t believe

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