Archie Karas

[Count Room]

Just as Arci has mentioned that Rob Singer might be the lucky 0.3% that made a million at VP, there is another crazy story of big wins I once heard about...

Archie Karas turned $50 into $40 million at poker and craps from 1992-1994. Yes, he lost it back

http://www.pokernews.com/news/2008/0...ras-part-5.htm
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2008/0...ras-part-7.htm

Not sure whether win or loss goals would have saved this guy...

[Alan Mendelson]

There are many stories about how the craps tables at the Rio rake it in when the WSOP is played there. Several big name poker stars have lost huge amounts of money playing craps "with the boys." And while I've heard of players winning huge amounts of money in poker, I've never heard of anyone winning huge amounts of money in craps. Yes, I've been at Caesars when a player walked away with $140-thousand but he had to bet big amounts to win that because for the most part most bets in craps only pay slightly more than double what you bet. This is unlike the payoffs on slots or even video poker where a payoff can be dozens or a hundred times when you bet.

And unfortunately in craps, you can win only one bet on the table at a time, but you can lose them all at once.

[Vegas Vic]

There's not a lot of current information about Archie and unfortunately, this makes his legend more fantasized than presented in terms of reality. He refers to himself as the "greatest gambler in the history of the world", which while possibly true, he should add "and I'm the world's lousiest at gambling responsibly."

[Alan Mendelson]

Didn't the Travel Channel feature him in one of their Vegas gambling shows about a year or so ago?

[Vegas Vic]

Didn't the Travel Channel feature him in one of their Vegas gambling shows about a year or so ago?

That could be, although it seems like all of their shows about Vegas are several years old anyway.

[Count Room]

I'm a bit curious as to exactly how Archie would usually bet in a craps session. I had mentioned previously that I had played craps for smaller stakes years ago: My best session was turning $40 into $1,800+. Even though, as Alan said, there are many more comparitively boring "pseudo even-money" bets in craps than in VP (maybe 2-1 for 4 & 10 odds) it still rekindles the thrill of a long dice roll for me when I read Archie's story.

Archie lost the $40 million, but it seems to me that he had to have that same "irresponsible gambling" mindset in order to build such a massive bankroll in the first place. (i.e. It requires the same brand of craziness to both win and lose such staggering amounts.)

What surprises me the most was that, close to the peak of Archie's run Binion's Horseshoe did not allow him to make odds bets on his pass line and come bets. So what was his betting strategy? Let everything ride on a winner and play all the come points as they roll out? A few hardways on the side? Archie didn't seem to be overly enthused on the high house vig bets, though.

[Alan Mendelson]

Count room, the most "common bets" on the table are the pass line which pays even money, and the place 6 and place 8 which both pay 7 for 6.

If you bet $6,000 on the place 6 or place 8 it would pay you "only" $7,000. If he did lose $40-million he placed and lost a lot of big bets.

If the table limit was $25,000 losing just 100 bets would be two and a half million dollars. And as every craps player knows, it doesn't take much bad luck to lose 100 bets in a row at a "cold table" when shooter after shooter throws nothing but "point sevens."

Heck, I was at a table on my last trip when SIX shooters in a row all threw "point seven" and this was a $25 table, so if a player had all the numbers across plus full odds, each "seven out" cost approximately, $260. Now, make that a $25,000 table and six "point sevens" in a row would cost a quarter million dollars.

If he wasn't allowed to bet odds, I'm going to guess that his flat bets were at the table limits and he had money across the numbers to fill his "need for action." It takes a disciplined player to bet only the inside numbers and come bets with odds and clearly this guy was an action junkie.

[bigfoot66]

He did an interview with Tom Sexton who wrote a lot about Karas. He said he was on the pass line plus he could bet like $200,000 each on the 4 and 10 if I remember correctly. And he was not happy that Binion would not let him bet more.

[Vegas_lover]

He did an interview with Tom Sexton who wrote a lot about Karas. He said he was on the pass line plus he could bet like $200,000 each on the 4 and 10 if I remember correctly. And he was not happy that Binion would not let him bet more.

I read this story before somewhere but can't exactly remember where it was. Anyhow, Karas' story is great material for a book. It has the potential of a bestseller. Only problem is that most readers would think it's fiction instead of reality. Losing 40 million, my lord how stupid.

[Alan Mendelson]

Losing doesn't amaze me at the level he was playing at. It's winning that much that amazes me.

[Vegas_lover]

Losing doesn't amaze me at the level he was playing at. It's winning that much that amazes me.

Well if I won an amount like that I would probably allow myself to lose some of it. But I would never allow myself to lose that much. I would invest and would buy property at low risk to secure a 6 number income per year and block at least 20 million for "immediat spending". I would probably keep a couple of million at my direct disposal but that would be it. You know when you win these amounts, your luck is going to change sooner than later.

[Count Room]

Well if I won an amount like that I would probably allow myself to lose some of it. But I would never allow myself to lose that much. I would invest and would buy property at low risk to secure a 6 number income per year and block at least 20 million for "immediat spending". I would probably keep a couple of million at my direct disposal but that would be it. You know when you win these amounts, your luck is going to change sooner than later.

I still have the feeling that such a sensible, conservative viewpoint would never enable someone to have the bravado to take such huge risks to win the 40 million in the first place. Live by the sword, die by the sword. I really suspect the crown jewel that Archie was truly after was ownership of Binion's Horseshoe casino itself. For a fleeting few weeks it actually seemed like a possibility.

By the way, from what I read it seems that Binions did allow Archie Karas to make odds bets (but just 1x) all the way up to $200,000 pass and come bets...at the $300k level the odds were taken away.

I know from my own very tiny craps experiences from many years ago that I had to steadily press my pass and place bets during a very lucky session to turn the $40 into $1,800....It's the only way, really. I actually think it was pretty awesome that Archie could pull off such a monstrous 2-1/2 year streak even though he lost it back. It would be impossible for me to second guess some of the bad decisions he made because I can't even imagine the emotions going through someone's mind in such an extraordinary circumstance. Like what Tom Sexton's articles said, "It was like being in the Twilight Zone."

[Vegas_lover]

I still have the feeling that such a sensible, conservative viewpoint would never enable someone to have the bravado to take such huge risks to win the 40 million in the first place.

You're probably completely right about that. I would probably wet my pants every time I would make a bet as large as he did on every hand. I like to gamble for sure but I probably wouldn't be the right person to bet those amounts.

[Alan Mendelson]

I think for many people the denomination of the game has a great affect on their "ability to play" even though the game itself does not change. There is no difference between 25-cent video poker and $100 video poker (assuming the pay tables are the same), and there is no difference between playing poker at a $40 buy in table and a $5,000 buy in table. But when you play at denominations that are too pricey for your budget you tend to make what amount to "stupid adjustments" in strategy.

For example, at a $100 craps table, a player with a limited budget might bet $100 on the pass line but not bet the odds because his budget is strained just to make the passline bets.

From reading that Karas was limited in "odds bets" yet still played shows me that he was forced to make a "stupid adjustment" in strategy to play higher limits. Every craps player knows that "odds bets" pay more than "flat bets" when the bet "hits" or wins. (Example: flat bet on the point of 6 pays even money, but the odds bet pays 6 for 5.***) His "stupid adjustment" was that he allowed himself to be forced to restrict odds betting just so that he could make bigger "flat bets" that paid less.

For those of you who don't understand this about craps, let me make a different analogy: a casino says if you want to make big bets at blackjack, then instead of 3-to-2 blackjack payoffs, you must accept even money on blackjacks. That is exactly what Karas did.

*** Here is how the same amount of money with odds and without odds changes a payout:

Let's say you have $600 to bet when a point of 6 is rolled.

A. If no "odds" are allowed all $600 must go as the "flat bet." And this pays even money, or $600, if the point of 6 is made, or won.

B. With traditional 5X odds, a player would have $100 on the passline for the flat bet, keeping $500 for odds. If the point of six is made, the payoff would be:

$100 flat bet is paid $100
$500 odds bet is paid $600
Total payoff is $700

Here's another example with the point of 4 with a casino allowing 3X odds and a bet amount of $400.

A. If no "odds bets" are allowed all $400 is on the passline, and if the 4 is made the payoff is $400.

B. If odds bets are allowed, the player would put $100 on the passline and $300 odds, and the payoff would be this:

$100 on the passline would be paid $100.
$300 on the "odds" would be paid $600.
Total payoff $700.

[Count Room]

One of the issues I try to learn about in gambling: Are cases like Archie's a statistical inevitability? If you consider the millions of unknown craps players that have hit the green felt tables over several decades around the country, would it be inevitable that one amazing story such as Archie's would come out of the whole pile, like a lottery winner?

This brings up fascinating issues about a gambler's free will & choices vs. mathematical inevitability (for me, at least). And yes, this somewhat goes back to the timeworn arguments between arci & Rob Singer on statistical inevitability vs. free will of the gambler to leave a winner.

If kidnapping was legal and people held Archie Karas in shackles and chains for 10 years in a dungeon somewhere to cool off from his $40 million hot streak with all of his money still intact, would the results have been different had he resumed action many years later? Would we say he had beaten the math by taking a long break like this?

EDIT:
1) I should have re-phrased by first questions such that: "Would Archie's case be considered an inevitable statistical outlier from among the statistical sample of millions of craps players? Or is there a certain brand of machismo and free will involved to help render the math less relevant?"
2) I should add that, years after Archie's streak, many Vegas casinos lowered their limits to $50k or less. Would Archie had been more likely to hang onto the $40 million had he been released from the dungeon with all his money and seeing the lower limits in place 10 years later?

[Alan Mendelson]

I love the movie "Indecent Proposal" for its crap scene. Demi Moore rolls the dice, hits a come out 7 for a winner, with a million on the passline and Robert Redford, quits.

Watch the clip.

[Count Room]

Maybe the secret to successful dice control is giving the cubes a kiss before sending them off?

[Alan Mendelson]

Maybe the secret to successful dice control is giving the cubes a kiss before sending them off?

It depends. Is there glue on the lips? Is the lipstick sticky? Notice that Demi is kissing the sides of the dice showing a 4 and 3 or winner "7." If you hold a pair of dice with the 6 and 1 showing on top, all of the faces of the dice will show a "7" and this is a dice set used for the come out roll by "dice influencers."

With this set, the 5 is on the outside face of one die and the 2 is on the outside face of the other die.

The dice settled showing 5 and 2 which is accomplished by two rotations of one die. Instead of glue on Demi's lips perhaps there was something sticky on her fingers holding the 5 and 2 and that's why the 5 and 2 settled on the felt. The opposite of the 5 and 2 are the 2 and 5.

Now, in "Indecent Proposal Part II" we find out that Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson are really embezzlers of high rollers and they bilk the casinos with illegal moves and their initial loss at the casino only was a set up to show they are blundering gamblers.

(Attention Hollywood Producers and Writers: I came up with the idea first.)

[Count Room]

It depends. Is there glue on the lips? Is the lipstick sticky? Notice that Demi is kissing the sides of the dice showing a 4 and 3 or winner "7." If you hold a pair of dice with the 6 and 1 showing on top, all of the faces of the dice will show a "7" and this is a dice set used for the come out roll by "dice influencers."

With this set, the 5 is on the outside face of one die and the 2 is on the outside face of the other die.

The dice settled showing 5 and 2 which is accomplished by two rotations of one die. Instead of glue on Demi's lips perhaps there was something sticky on her fingers holding the 5 and 2 and that's why the 5 and 2 settled on the felt. The opposite of the 5 and 2 are the 2 and 5.

Now, in "Indecent Proposal Part II" we find out that Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson are really embezzlers of high rollers and they bilk the casinos with illegal moves and their initial loss at the casino only was a set up to show they are blundering gamblers.

(Attention Hollywood Producers and Writers: I came up with the idea first.)

I can see where you might be a decent poker player, Alan. You almost had me believing that you really didn't know I was kidding about kissing the dice! Only my memories of your past posts expressing personal ambivalence toward dice control methods saved me here...

[Vegas Vic]

Indulge me here for a moment: I don't play craps and haven't really spent any time observing those who do (although while waiting for my wife to meet me near a craps table in Lake Tahoe, I watched a guy with a rail full of chips lose them all in less than 5 minutes) but is it illegal to kiss the dice?