Archie Karas Poker Legend has passed
October 19th, 2024 at 11:00:30 AM
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the abbreviated version - Karas arrived in LV in 1992 with $50 in his pocket - he then borrowed $10 K and ran it up to $40 million
he then proceeded to lose it all - he lost $11 million in one night, then $20 million more in the 2 weeks that followed
quote from Archie: "One night I might be driving a Mercedes, and the next day I might be sleeping in it"------------------note - a longish story and obit is under the pic
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Saturday, October 19, 2024
Karas told Poker News his nosedive began when he lost $11 million in a single night, then $20 million more in the two weeks that followed. Eventually, down to his last million, Karas returned to Los Angeles, where he doubled it in one day, then immediately lost it all, by then mostly playing baccarat. "You've got to understand something," Karas told Cigar Aficionado. "Money means nothing to me." Such emotional detachment could give a player an edge, but for Karas it meant there was nothing to curtail his impulses. He seemed less exhilarated by how much he won than how much he put in play. "He was definitely a compulsive gambler," said Nakano. "It's a disease." After The Run, Karas kept gambling for high stakes but with a lower profile. Then, in 2013, San Diego County charged him with defrauding the Barona Resort & Casino, after Karas was caught on videotape there marking cards with small amounts of dye—a tactic for cheating. He pleaded guilty to a felony count of burglary and was sentenced to three years' probation and ordered to pay $6,860 in restitution. Next, the Nevada Gaming Control Board banned him from all casinos in the state. Karas maintained he had never cheated, but others disagreed. "Archie was a known cheater," said Konnikova, who is working on a book about cheating. "That said, there is no evidence that he cheated during The Run." Friends describe Karas's ban as a turning point—a sad deflation. "There were no other hobbies," said Chris Parisis, a restaurant owner in Los Angeles, where Karas eventually relocated. "It was gamble, gamble, gamble." Unable to play cards, Parisis said, Karas was "like a bull that wants to run." By that time, Karas was struggling financially. Voula Balason, his on-again, off-again girlfriend for the last 30 years, explained that around 2000, Karas sold his large house in Las Vegas, several luxury cars and all his furniture. "It's sad that a man with $40 million ends up with me paying his phone bills," she said. In 2020, Karas had a brain aneurysm. After recovering, he asked Balason to help track down a son he'd had many years earlier—only to learn that his son had recently died. "Archie took that really hard," Balason recalled. "He totally changed—just by being more humble. He would call me every night to tell me how much he loved me." Then this summer, Karas asked Balason to marry him, she said. "I chased that guy for 30 years, and he finally proposes to me two months before he dies." In the Soft White Underbelly interview, Karas attributed the aneurysm to "the pressure, and all the ups and downs from gambling. I pay the price." Asked what he was most proud of in his life, he exhaled and said with a little laugh: "Not much, to tell you the truth." Then Karas dropped his head, looked away from the camera and said again, "Not much." IAN COMER/ IMPDI Karas at a World Series of Poker event in 2008.
OBITUARIES
ARCHIE KARAS | 1950-2024
A Gambling Legend Who Made, and Lost, a Fortune
In a famous lucky streak known as ' The Run,' Karas raked in asmuch as $40 million—for a while.
BY JON MOOALLEM
The professional gambler Archie Karas arrived in Las Vegas in December 1992 with $50 to his name. He borrowed $10,000 from a friend and over roughly the next three years, the story goes, he turned that money into something like $40 million.
It was a run of good luck so unfathomable that it's known in poker circles simply as "The Run." It made Karas the protagonist of one of Las Vegas's strangest epics. He died Sept. 7 in Los Angeles County at age 73 of undisclosed causes.
Many details about The Run have gone fuzzy as the story has been retold in the three decades since—including how much Karas ultimately raked in at his peak. But its essential narrative indisputably made Karas a folk hero among gamblers. Shooting craps at his private table at Binion's Horseshoe casino—betting as much as $300,000 a toss, ringed by a throng of spectators and a detachment of armed guards—Karas took in so much money at one point that he possessed every one of the casino's $5,000 chips—about $18 million worth, he later told Poker News.
"He was up about $35 million at the Horseshoe one night—I saw it all in the box," recalled Lyle Berman, a fellow top player who was there during The Run. "So I went up to him, and I said, 'Archie, do you know what an annuity is?'" Soon after, Karas was broke, having lost his entire bankroll far faster than he amassed it. "I tried to invest money," he told the Soft White Underbelly YouTube channel in 2021. "But I'm not an investor. I'm a gambler. That's who I am. That's my personality."
Marbles for bread
Anargyros Karabourniotis, aka Archie Karas, was born Nov. 1, 1950, on the Greek island of Kefalonia, one of four children. His father was a home builder. The family was so poor, Karas told Poker News in 2008, that as a kid he'd shoot marbles to win a couple of drachmas for bread.
He left home at 15, working as a waiter on a ship. In a video interview with his old poker buddy Yosh Nakano, he described jumping ship in Portland, Ore., after two years at sea, and making his way to Los Angeles, where an aunt gave him a job in her restaurant.
There, Karas thrived as a pool hustler and started playing high-stakes poker at Indian casinos—extremely high-stakes. "Archie took it up to nosebleed levels," Nakano said, regularly pushing games to $15,000 antes, more than 35 times the usual. The aggressiveness intimidated his opponents and helped Karas to quickly bleed them dry—all while he remained eerily unbothered by his own booms and busts.
"One day I might be driving a Mercedes, and the next day I might be sleeping in it!" Karas once told Poker News. This wasn't just a funny line—it had literally happened, according to Michael Konik, who first brought Karas's story to light in his Cigar Aficionado magazine gambling column in 1994. At that point, Karas estimated he had been a millionaire more than 50 times in his life, and flat broke a thousand.
When Karas left for Las Vegas at the end of 1992 with his $50, it was after one of the collapses. Playing Razz—a type of seven-card stud—he immediately doubled the $10,000 he had borrowed, then started shooting pool with a man referred to in the Cigar Aficionado article, and ever after, as "Mr. X."
Over the next several months, betting up to $40,000 a game, Karas took Mr. X for roughly $2 million. The two men then switched to poker at Binion's Horseshoe, a smaller casino known for its uncommonly high betting limits. (It is now known as Binion's Gambling Hall.) Poker was Mr. X's game; he was angling to win back his money. Instead, Karas drained another million dollars from him in a week.
What unfolded from there resembled an old kungfu movie, with a mob of new adversaries encircling Karas, who pummeled virtually all of them as they stepped forward, one at a time. They included some of the biggest names in poker: Doyle Brunson, Stu Ungar, Chip Reese. Having run out of challengers, Karas switched to craps, a game that hinges on luck, not skill. Nevertheless, The Run continued.
"He went on a ridiculous tear," said journalist Maria Konnikova, author of "The Biggest Bluff," and cohost of the "Risky Business" podcast. In the summer of 1994, Cigar Aficionado reported that Karas had amassed $17 million and was still going.
Here the story of The Run turns murkier. Some news outlets and other players at Binion's reported that Karas reached between $30 million and $40 million or more at his peak. (Brunson called it "the most amazing run I'd ever seen—maybe the greatest one ever.") Karas declined to give an exact number in the Soft White Underbelly interview. "It doesn't matter," he said, "because I lost the money anyway."
From up to down
'One day I might be driving a Mercedes, and the next day I might be sleeping in it.'
the abbreviated version - Karas arrived in LV in 1992 with $50 in his pocket - he then borrowed $10 K and ran it up to $40 million
he then proceeded to lose it all - he lost $11 million in one night, then $20 million more in the 2 weeks that followed
quote from Archie: "One night I might be driving a Mercedes, and the next day I might be sleeping in it"------------------note - a longish story and obit is under the pic
.
Saturday, October 19, 2024
Karas told Poker News his nosedive began when he lost $11 million in a single night, then $20 million more in the two weeks that followed. Eventually, down to his last million, Karas returned to Los Angeles, where he doubled it in one day, then immediately lost it all, by then mostly playing baccarat. "You've got to understand something," Karas told Cigar Aficionado. "Money means nothing to me." Such emotional detachment could give a player an edge, but for Karas it meant there was nothing to curtail his impulses. He seemed less exhilarated by how much he won than how much he put in play. "He was definitely a compulsive gambler," said Nakano. "It's a disease." After The Run, Karas kept gambling for high stakes but with a lower profile. Then, in 2013, San Diego County charged him with defrauding the Barona Resort & Casino, after Karas was caught on videotape there marking cards with small amounts of dye—a tactic for cheating. He pleaded guilty to a felony count of burglary and was sentenced to three years' probation and ordered to pay $6,860 in restitution. Next, the Nevada Gaming Control Board banned him from all casinos in the state. Karas maintained he had never cheated, but others disagreed. "Archie was a known cheater," said Konnikova, who is working on a book about cheating. "That said, there is no evidence that he cheated during The Run." Friends describe Karas's ban as a turning point—a sad deflation. "There were no other hobbies," said Chris Parisis, a restaurant owner in Los Angeles, where Karas eventually relocated. "It was gamble, gamble, gamble." Unable to play cards, Parisis said, Karas was "like a bull that wants to run." By that time, Karas was struggling financially. Voula Balason, his on-again, off-again girlfriend for the last 30 years, explained that around 2000, Karas sold his large house in Las Vegas, several luxury cars and all his furniture. "It's sad that a man with $40 million ends up with me paying his phone bills," she said. In 2020, Karas had a brain aneurysm. After recovering, he asked Balason to help track down a son he'd had many years earlier—only to learn that his son had recently died. "Archie took that really hard," Balason recalled. "He totally changed—just by being more humble. He would call me every night to tell me how much he loved me." Then this summer, Karas asked Balason to marry him, she said. "I chased that guy for 30 years, and he finally proposes to me two months before he dies." In the Soft White Underbelly interview, Karas attributed the aneurysm to "the pressure, and all the ups and downs from gambling. I pay the price." Asked what he was most proud of in his life, he exhaled and said with a little laugh: "Not much, to tell you the truth." Then Karas dropped his head, looked away from the camera and said again, "Not much." IAN COMER/ IMPDI Karas at a World Series of Poker event in 2008.
OBITUARIES
ARCHIE KARAS | 1950-2024
A Gambling Legend Who Made, and Lost, a Fortune
In a famous lucky streak known as ' The Run,' Karas raked in asmuch as $40 million—for a while.
BY JON MOOALLEM
The professional gambler Archie Karas arrived in Las Vegas in December 1992 with $50 to his name. He borrowed $10,000 from a friend and over roughly the next three years, the story goes, he turned that money into something like $40 million.
It was a run of good luck so unfathomable that it's known in poker circles simply as "The Run." It made Karas the protagonist of one of Las Vegas's strangest epics. He died Sept. 7 in Los Angeles County at age 73 of undisclosed causes.
Many details about The Run have gone fuzzy as the story has been retold in the three decades since—including how much Karas ultimately raked in at his peak. But its essential narrative indisputably made Karas a folk hero among gamblers. Shooting craps at his private table at Binion's Horseshoe casino—betting as much as $300,000 a toss, ringed by a throng of spectators and a detachment of armed guards—Karas took in so much money at one point that he possessed every one of the casino's $5,000 chips—about $18 million worth, he later told Poker News.
"He was up about $35 million at the Horseshoe one night—I saw it all in the box," recalled Lyle Berman, a fellow top player who was there during The Run. "So I went up to him, and I said, 'Archie, do you know what an annuity is?'" Soon after, Karas was broke, having lost his entire bankroll far faster than he amassed it. "I tried to invest money," he told the Soft White Underbelly YouTube channel in 2021. "But I'm not an investor. I'm a gambler. That's who I am. That's my personality."
Marbles for bread
Anargyros Karabourniotis, aka Archie Karas, was born Nov. 1, 1950, on the Greek island of Kefalonia, one of four children. His father was a home builder. The family was so poor, Karas told Poker News in 2008, that as a kid he'd shoot marbles to win a couple of drachmas for bread.
He left home at 15, working as a waiter on a ship. In a video interview with his old poker buddy Yosh Nakano, he described jumping ship in Portland, Ore., after two years at sea, and making his way to Los Angeles, where an aunt gave him a job in her restaurant.
There, Karas thrived as a pool hustler and started playing high-stakes poker at Indian casinos—extremely high-stakes. "Archie took it up to nosebleed levels," Nakano said, regularly pushing games to $15,000 antes, more than 35 times the usual. The aggressiveness intimidated his opponents and helped Karas to quickly bleed them dry—all while he remained eerily unbothered by his own booms and busts.
"One day I might be driving a Mercedes, and the next day I might be sleeping in it!" Karas once told Poker News. This wasn't just a funny line—it had literally happened, according to Michael Konik, who first brought Karas's story to light in his Cigar Aficionado magazine gambling column in 1994. At that point, Karas estimated he had been a millionaire more than 50 times in his life, and flat broke a thousand.
When Karas left for Las Vegas at the end of 1992 with his $50, it was after one of the collapses. Playing Razz—a type of seven-card stud—he immediately doubled the $10,000 he had borrowed, then started shooting pool with a man referred to in the Cigar Aficionado article, and ever after, as "Mr. X."
Over the next several months, betting up to $40,000 a game, Karas took Mr. X for roughly $2 million. The two men then switched to poker at Binion's Horseshoe, a smaller casino known for its uncommonly high betting limits. (It is now known as Binion's Gambling Hall.) Poker was Mr. X's game; he was angling to win back his money. Instead, Karas drained another million dollars from him in a week.
What unfolded from there resembled an old kungfu movie, with a mob of new adversaries encircling Karas, who pummeled virtually all of them as they stepped forward, one at a time. They included some of the biggest names in poker: Doyle Brunson, Stu Ungar, Chip Reese. Having run out of challengers, Karas switched to craps, a game that hinges on luck, not skill. Nevertheless, The Run continued.
"He went on a ridiculous tear," said journalist Maria Konnikova, author of "The Biggest Bluff," and cohost of the "Risky Business" podcast. In the summer of 1994, Cigar Aficionado reported that Karas had amassed $17 million and was still going.
Here the story of The Run turns murkier. Some news outlets and other players at Binion's reported that Karas reached between $30 million and $40 million or more at his peak. (Brunson called it "the most amazing run I'd ever seen—maybe the greatest one ever.") Karas declined to give an exact number in the Soft White Underbelly interview. "It doesn't matter," he said, "because I lost the money anyway."
From up to down
'One day I might be driving a Mercedes, and the next day I might be sleeping in it.'
the foolish sayings of a rich man often pass for words of wisdom by the fools around him
