Archie Karas The Rise and Fall of Vegas’ Greatest Gambler

The Rise and Fall of Vegas’ Greatest Gambler

Archie “the Greek” Karas is the stuff Vegas legends are made of. This man came to Vegas with only $50 in his pocket after losing over $2 Million in the Los Angeles card rooms. He was then lent $10,000 by a friend to play in the $100-$400 Razz game at the Mirage. He proceeded to win $20,000 in the game. Over the next couple of months, Karas too that $20,000 and proceeded to run it up to over $1.2 Million shooting 9-ball. After this run, Karas proceeded to play heads up poker matches to run his bankroll up to around $5 Million. At this point, Karas started shooting dice at Binion’s Horseshoe. He then proceeded to run his bankroll up to around $7 Million.

At this point Karas started to take on all challengers playing Heads Up poker. One of his first “big name” opponents was Stu “The Kid” Ungar. Ungar was a 3 three time World Series of Poker Main Event Winner. At the time he played Karas, he had already won 2 of those Main Event titles. Ungar sat down with $500,000 to play Karas in high stakes Razz, which is Karas’ best game. The match did not take long and Karas won the $500,000.

A few days later, Karas took on the legendary Chip Reese playing Heads-Up Razz. After eight hours of heads-up play, Karas beat Reese for $500,000. Later in the day, Stu Ungar came back and wanted a rematch again Karas. This time, the game was to be Seven Card Stud. After four hours of heads-up competition, Karas emerged victorious to the tune of $700,000.

This began what is known by many in the poker world as The Run. During this stretch, Karas built up his bankroll to an astounding $17 Million. In one of his stretches, Karas won over $2 Million playing high stakes heads up poker against Chip Reese. Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan also took their lumps against Karas. Chan won $900,000 off Karas the first time they played together, but over time Chan lost his fair share to Karas. The last match between the two was a $1,000,000 freezeout that was won by Karas.

Over time, much of the high stakes action began to dry up around Karas. Karas was known to take players out of their comfort zone and force them to gamble at stakes they were not used to playing at. Karas then turned most his attention to dice. He proceeded to run his winning from $4 Million all the way up to $40 Million. He had Benny Binion create the highest stake games in the world just so that he could have the rush of gambling. The streak started to take a downturn over a three week period where he lost $30 Million. He lost over $11 Million of that in one night at the dice tables. He then lost his last great heads up match.

Out of all the players that played Karas, Reese played Karas the most. The last match between Karas and Reese started with Karas borrowing $500,000 to play with. He lost the money and then borrowed $500,000 more. After some negotiation, he then borrowed $1 Million from Reese and then lost that. The two then proceeded to head to the Horseshoe where Karas paid Reese the money owed. After paying the money, Karas has $4 Million left of his bankroll. He tried to get Reese to go back and play for the rest of Karas’s money at higher stakes, but Reese declined. After this match, there were no other opponents willing to gamble with Karas at the poker table.
Karas ended up losing most of his money at the dice and baccarat tables until he was left with his final million. He then went out to LA and doubled his money playing heads-up poker against Lyle Berman and Johnny Chan. Unfortunately, Karas went back to betting on dice and baccarat and ended up losing all the money a short time afterwards.

The story did not end there. Karas tried to make comebacks over the next few years only to find himself shut out of many casinos. Recently Karas has decided to try and make a comeback via the poker world. This past World Series of Poker, Karas was backed into several events including the $10,000 Seven Card Stud World Championship and the $1,500 Razz event. Karas finished short of the money in the Stud World Championship but made a deep run into day 2 and early on was putting on a clinic at a table that included Phil Hellmuth and Daniel Negreanu. Karas made the final table of the Razz event and finished 7th for $19,478. His Razz finish was no surprise seeing that he won a big part of his past fortune in head-up razz games. He was also featured by ESPN on their World Series of Poker broadcast regarding his life and times. Now we will see if Karas can try and make a name for himself again in the poker world. A fitting ending to this story would be to see him win a bracelet at the World Series of Poker, preferably in a razz event.