The Ultimate Gambler: Archie Karas

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Tuesday, November 29th, 2016 | Written by Adam Brown

Some poker players become legendary for their skills, other are favorites due to their larger than life personalities, and some keep spectators on the edges of their seats due to their bold moves. And then there is Archie Karas. The infamous poker player gained fame for being too good to lose, losing it all and then becoming embroiled in a sordid cheating scandal.

Greek Origin

In 1951, Anargyros Karabourniotis, or Archie Karas for short, was born into a poor family on the Greek island of Cefalonia. As a boy, he gambled playing marbles to try and make extra money for his family, and his income from the game eventually came to exceed how much his father was earning. A man with a terrible temper, his father ended up alienating Archie and driving him from his home.

After an argument with his father, he set off to the United States, eventually settling in California. There, Archie began seeking out underground poker games and hustling in pool halls, and a few months later he made $2 million, before then losing all but $50 of it in gambling in high stakes games.

The Run

In 1992, Archie borrowed $10,000 from a friend and embarked on what still remains the longest winning streak in gambling history. It’s been nicknamed The Run and it would stretch from December of that year all the way to May 1995. During the run, Archie managed to make $40 million playing poker against top high rollers, including Stu Ungar, Puggy Pearson, Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan and Chip Reese.

Craps Out

By May 1995, it seems that Archie started to think he couldn’t lose. The skilled poker player ended up shifting his focus to craps, losing $11 million rather quickly. Next, he tried baccarat, only to lose $17 million playing a game that reportedly he had never played before. The rest of his fortune was nearly completely lost playing poker at the casinos, and he even had a few large public losses at World Series of Poker events.

Fall From Grace

In 2013, Archie’s house was raised by the Las Vegas Police Department. It wasn’t the first time that he had gotten himself into trouble with the law, though, as on three previous occasions, he had been arrested for various forms of cheating. This particular instance proved to be his last, however, as police found evidence that Archie had been marking the casinos’ cards.

He was convicted of the crime, fined $6,800 and ended up serving a 73-day sentence in jail. The transgression also landed him on the Nevada List of Excluded Persons, meaning he could be arrested if he even set foot inside a Las Vegas casino. Today at the age of 65, Archie remains mostly out of the public spotlight, and he travels home to Greece once every year to see his family.

Archie Karas Legacy

Despite his rather meteoric fall from grace, Archie Karas is considered one of gambling’s foremost legends, and as Jack Binion once said of the Greek-American gambler:

“When a player can run a toothpick into a lumberyard, it makes him a tough and dangerous player. Archie fits this bill exactly, which is why so many places are scared to take him on.”

While Karas had incredible skills across a range of gambling games, in terms of poker, his most impressive characteristics included being an adept reader of cards and people; not being afraid to lose money; and having an ingrained desire to raise the games stakes to levels which unnerved his opponents. During his run, Karas beat at least two poker legends, including Stu Ungar for $1.2 million over a couple of days, and Chip Reese for $2,022,000.

As to what made him such a formidable poker player, and able to take on the game’s greats Karas had these words to say about his encounter with Chip Reese: “A man will begin to hesitate to try and bluff or steal a pot, if he thinks his opponent is crazy enough to call anyway. Not many players could do this at $10,000/$20,000 limit. Heads-up poker is a game of psychology. I picked my spots to do this, of course, when I might have a strong early board, but when I was rolling, it didn’t matter what my up cards were. You must mix up your play to keep your opponent off balance and out of rhythm.”