Irish online poker room Paddy Power Poker (www.paddypowerpoker.com) will soon be dealing its one billionth hand of Internet poker.

And whoever wins that one billionth hand will win a special bonus prize of $50,000!

To commemorate the occasion of its upcoming one billionth hand, the room has announced a variety of special promotional events and prizes.

According to the room’s website: “The billionth hand will be dealt on Paddy Power Poker over the coming months and you have the chance to profit, as hundreds of cash prizes will be given out! One billion is a really, really big number–that’s more pints of stout than the Paddy Power Poker team down in a month of Friday evenings. It is even more than the number of aspirins we need the following Saturday mornings!

“Cash-table players can win prizes up to $14,000 by participating in countdown and jackpot hands, which occur leading up to the magic number. The countdown hands occur every 200,000 hands, while the jackpot hands occur every 5,000,000 hands, in the run-up.

“The winner of the jackpot hands will also win tickets to all European Championship Of Online Poker (ECOOP) II tournaments. Yes, this is the promotion that doesn’t stop giving! Players participating in the final 100 hands leading up to the billionth hand gain entry to a special $10,000 freeroll.

“The winner of the billionth hand gets a gob-smacking, heart-stopping, possibly life-changing $50,000 cash prize and tickets to all ECOOP II tournaments, while the other participants in the hand will share $30,000. Not only that, the winner of the hand will play in the $10,000 freeroll with a bounty of $2,500 on his head!”

“We are thrilled to be able to bring this promotion to our players,” said a Paddy Power Poker flack.

“The chance to nab a tasty $50,000 by winning the billionth hand dealt on our cash tables is nothing to be sneezed at,” the flack said. “We are expecting to reach this landmark in the next few weeks, so make sure you are at the tables in order to scoop the loot!”

Last year, rival online poker rooms Absolute Poker (www.absolutepoker.com) and Bodog Life Poker (www.bodoglife.com) claimed to have dealt their one billionth hands of Internet poker.

Dealing a billion poker hands, however, doesn’t necessarily mean everything is roses for an online poker room.

Around the time of its one billionth hand, Absolute Poker was mired in a cheating scandal that led to a half-million-dollar fine from a regulatory agency.

And around the time of its one billionth hand, Bodog lost its “Bodog” trademark and related web address in a court case and had to change its name to Bodog Life, costing millions in lost business.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.) =A0