Archie Karas died last month at the age of 73. Outside of the people that follow the world of professional gambling, the news didn’t travel far. In that world, Archie was best known for his eye-watering wagers; at pool halls, card rooms and at the craps table. Like most professionals, he had an edge, and Archie’s edge was that he had no fear.
“You’ve got to understand something. Money means nothing to me. I don’t value it. I’ve had all the material things I could ever want. Everything. The things I want money can’t buy: health, freedom, love, happiness. I don’t care about money, so I have no fear. I don’t care if I lose it.”
Born Anargyros Karabourniotis in Greece, he ran away from home at age 15 and found work as a cook aboard a freighter ship. Two years later he disembarked in Portland, Oregon and eventually found his way down to Los Angeles where he worked at a Greek restaurant. With only a tenth grade education, his street smarts soon led him to the local pool halls, where he quickly grew into an adept player. Throughout the 1970’s Archie earned enough hustling pool to make a comfortable living, but as his reputation grew so did the number of players who knew better than to take him on. Seeking a new income stream, Archie tried his hand at poker, and it didn’t take long for the word to get around LA: This guy was a natural.
Throughout the 80’s, Archie took on any player that would challenge him, mostly in games of Razz; a stud-based poker variant that awards low hands. Numerous Vegas professionals made the trip to LA seeking easy money from him, and most went back home empty-handed. Archie’s bankroll rose to over $2 million, but then his luck changed in a big way. Several high-stake matches had left him broke, really broke, with only $50 to his name. His only other asset was his car, so in 1992 he drove to Las Vegas for a fresh start. A chance meeting with an old friend from LA netted him a $10K seed to get started, and Archie found a high-limit Razz game at the Mirage that took him through the night. The following morning he was up $30K. He paid back his old friend $20K and then went off in search of a pool hall. Now holding $10K of his own money, he found the perfect opponent: A former World Series of Poker bracelet holder who was just as stubbornly competitive as he was.
They shot pool almost daily for two months, with the stakes increasing every week. By the time it was over Archie had taken $1.2 million from him. But his opponent had a secret backup plan: He’d win it back from Archie playing poker. They set up a table at Binion’s Horseshoe and got to work playing 7-card Stud. Three days later his opponent decided to cash in his chips. Not because he had won his $1M back, no, because he had ended up losing an additional $3M instead. Archie camped out at that table for the rest of the week, taking on all comers. By the weekend he had amassed a $5M bankroll, and asked Binions to convert it into ten racks of $5,000 chips. $5M in chocolate-colored chips were neatly arranged in front of him at his table. “The Run” was underway.
Word got out, and quickly. The cast of characters who lined up to play him read like a who’s-who of 1990’s poker history. First up was Stu Ungar, a three-time WSOP champion who was widely seen as the greatest Texas Hold’em and gin rummy player of all time. The two of them started with Razz, and Ungar lost $500,000. Then they moved on to 7-card Stud, and Archie took another $700,000 of Stuey’s money.
Next was poker legend Chip Reese, who only lasted 25 hands before he went looking for the nearest exit, carrying $2M less than he arrived with. Even Doyle Brunson walked away with his hat in his hand, and not much else. Over the next six months, one of the very few players that beat Archie was the esteemed Johnny Chan. A back-to-back WSOP champion, Chan took Archie for 900K, but by that point it didn’t matter much. Archie was now up $17M and literally was having to haul around suitcases of money from his car to the casino. He was living the good life, flying out friends and family from Greece and enjoying his reputation as the most talked-about player in Vegas. The only problem now was that no-one wanted to play against him.
Ever adaptable, Archie turned his focus to craps. Jack Binion welcomed his action, and following his father’s (Benny Binion) original house rules, he allowed Archie to place wagers at astronomical limits. $50K a roll, then 100K, then 200K. He was granted his own personal craps table at Binions, and at one point amassed all of their chocolate $5000 chips - $18M worth. Archie Karas nearly bankrupted them, but Jack Binion was terrified to refuse his action. Over the course of a year they had lost $30 million to him and didn’t want him taking that money anyplace else. They knew that the odds were, after all, in their favor so they grimly agreed to his demands. Now Archie wanted to play at $300K per roll. Jack Binion’s stress-creased face nodded in the affirmative, and soon after that a golden light from above poured down onto the long-suffering casino executive. Archie Karas had started losing.
It came quickly. He lost $11M at craps in one day. Disgusted, he switched his play to baccarat the next day and lost $17M in a single game. Next, he invited Chip Reese back to the poker table and lost $2M to him. “The Run” was vanishing, along with Archie’s bankroll. In just three weeks, he had given almost all of it away.
One day I might be driving a Mercedes, and the next day I might be sleeping in it.
Archie got in his car and drove back to LA with his last million. But he was restless. He wanted to put a poker game together at the Bicycle Club, a heads up freeze-out match for a million dollars. He called Johnny Chan.
Johnny arrived with a partner, 3-time WSOP champion Lyle Berman. Archie agreed to go up against the tag-team duo, and he destroyed them both. Now doubled up with a $2M bankroll, Archie high-tailed it back to Vegas with the burning desire to start another streak. And did he? Did he work that $2M back up to the $40M that he had previously lost? No, he gambled it away in a day.
Archie had several mini-streaks over the following decade, but never to the sky-high levels of the early 90’s. And now he was adding more titles to his resume. Felon. Cheat. Turns out that Mr. Karas had a talent for marking cards, and had been quietly building up a criminal record. It culminated in 2013 when he was arrested after a casino in San Diego caught him with a dummy chip filled with dye. That conviction later earned him a spot in Nevada’s infamous “Black Book”, which forever banned him from stepping foot in any casino in that state.
Archie Karas had defied the odds in the low-tech era of the 90’s, but exactly how much of that had been by his own hand is a secret that he took to his grave.
Not about cars but great story nonetheless! Thanks for another interesting read!