Casino gambling’s greatest ever winning streak

No, it’s not my recent five hand, €25 streak with Vanda at Betfair.

 

This is the story of Anargyros Karabourniotis, better known as Archie Karas, or simply The Greek in gambling circles.

Archie was responsible for what some say is the greatest ever winning streak in the history of casino gambling. Imagine turning $50 into $40 million in the space of a couple of years; and this is the mid 90’s we’re talking about!

Makes Don Johnson’s more recent $15 million streak look quite pedestrian by comparison. Although as far as we know, Johnson has managed to hang onto his.

The Run

Here’s the condensed version of Archie’s amazing streak, or The Run as it is commonly referred to.

• In 1993, Archie arrives in Las Vegas with only $50 to his name (after losing $2 million playing high stakes poker in L.A.)
• He convinces a friend to loan him $10,000 (brave friend).
• He promptly turns the $10,000 into $30,000 playing Razz, and returns $20,000 to his friend.
• Archie then turns that $10,000 into over $4 million playing first pool ($1.2 million up) then poker (a further $3 million up) against a wealthy individual identified only as Mr X.
• Over the next 6 months playing poker against all-comers including 3 times WSOP champ Stu Ungar, Chip Reese, Doyle Brunson, Puggy Pearson, Johnny Moss and Johnny Chan, Archie’s bank roll grows to $17 million.
• By now, having beaten many of the best poker players in the world heads up, opponents started to dry up so Archie turned his attention to craps, with pass line and come bets of up to $300,000.
• By 1995 Archie’s bank roll had grown to over $40 million.
• Here The Run ended, in quite spectacular fashion.

“I ended up winning every $5,000 chip at Binion’s Horseshoe, which was about $18,000,000 worth”

Casino gambling’s greatest ever winning streak was followed by what must surely be the greatest ever losing streak.

Within the space of three weeks, Archie managed to lose the lot: $11 million shooting dice, $2 million to Chip Reese playing poker, $17 million playing baccarat, a further $11 million on craps, and then the final $1 million playing poker against Johny Chan.

In case you didn’t already guess, Archie didn’t have a lot or respect for money, or fear of losing it. He is quoted as saying,

“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”

Just as well.

Things haven’t improved a great deal for Archie since coming out of the other end of the greatest ever casino streak with only the shirt on his back. He has been charged with cheating in casinos on multiple occasions (marking cards playing blackjack seems to be his go-to thing these days). His fifth, and most recent arrest came in September 2013.

In 2007 he filed for bankruptcy with a $250,000 in credit card debts  (and no friends to bail him out this time).