You think you get busy at your job? Just be thankful you don’t have to answer the phone at the Taj Mahal poker desk right now as the casino’s bad beat jackpot has hit $441,815 (as of about 3pm Friday, May 21).

“The phone is ringing every two minutes,” says Tom Gitto, poker room manager for the Taj. “’What’s the bad beat at?’ ‘Has it hit?’ ‘Can you make sure it doesn’t hit until we get there?’ As if we have any control over it. It’s been funny, but it’s also brought a lot of excitement into the room.

“This is the highest we’ve ever had the jackpot go,” says Gitto. “I think the next highest was the last one we had at about $314,000. So we haven’t been getting that many hits lately. I can tell you the room is going to be jumping this weekend and we should have all the tables going.”

Considering that the Taj has a 70-table room, that means either the jackpot will continue to grow fast, or hit really soon.

“We still have a lot of tables where we offer seven card stud,” Gitto says. “And we have a lot of Omaha tables. The bad beat is only on Texas Hold’em and those players, regular players, are all jumping to the Hold’em tables. At this rate, we may go all Hold’em.”

The minimum hand for the bad beat at the Taj is any four of a kind. The record for a bad beat jackpot in A.C. is $553,000 set at Caesars in January.

Also, bad beat jackpots at Caesars and Bally’s were at about $224,000 and $237,000 respectively going into Friday’s play.

Along with the bad beats, a couple of major tournaments are on tap for the weekend at Harrah’s and The Borgata (more after the jump).

At the Harrah’s World Series of Poker super satellite event , Saturday marks a $2,000 + $150 Deepstack No limit Tournament, that offers up a $10,000 seat at the WSOP Main Event in Vegas this July to the winner. The Deepstack is a three-day event. Sunday, Harrah’s also offers up a two-day, $500 + $60 No limit event.

And, as we’ve pointed out a few dozen times, poker pro Annie Duke appears at Harrah’s poker room tonight (May 21) and tomorrow will play in Harrah’s room at 11am.

Meanwhile The Borgata offers its Double Play Tournament Friday through Sunday. Go here for a schedule.

All in all, there should be a lot of money flying around the resort this weekend.

Tags: Annie Duke, Atlantic City bad beat jackpots, Atlantic City Poker Tournments, Harrah's Resort poker, Taj Mahal poker, The Borgata poker

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