Hawaii Visitor Wins $446K Jackpot at Fremont Casino

Around 8:30 p.m., the player had placed a $1 progressive side bet on the Light & Wonder table game when the cards fell into a seven-card straight flush in clubs, ace through eight, completed with a wild card joker filling in the run. That is about as rare a hand as pai gow deals out, which is why the progressive meter had built up to six figures before it hit.

The Fremont has run the Fortune Pai Gow progressive for years without much attention, and that is the point of these side bets. You are not chasing the win on every hand, you are just in the game if the deck ever lines up.

The Review-Journal's report ties this into a string of recent payouts around the valley. Binion's paid out $11,539.84 to a visitor from New Mexico, Four Queens hit a Whitney Houston slot machine for $15,586 on a $5 bet and had a separate win off a $3 bet, Rio paid $73,545 on a Liberty Diamond machine, and Santa Fe Station handed out $50,020.20 on a Wheel of Fortune Cash Link machine from a $1 bet.

None of those match the Fremont's number, but together they make the point that downtown and off-Strip casinos are still where a lot of the valley's biggest recreational wins are landing, not just the big Strip resorts.

If you play pai gow downtown, the Fremont's progressive is worth the extra dollar if you are already at the table, since the side bet does not change your base strategy on the hand itself. It is a small add-on cost for a shot at a payout like this one.

More broadly, this is a reminder that Fremont Street casinos still run real table game action, not just cheap video poker and low-limit slots. If you are downtown for the lights and the $5 blackjack tables, it is worth checking which pai gow tables carry a progressive before you sit down. The timing lines up with other downtown momentum this month, including Golden Nugget reopening its own poker room a few blocks away, so if cards are the reason you are staying downtown instead of the Strip, this is a good stretch to be here.