The request surely has everything to do with a winning streak that reportedly brought him $140,000 in one session and, one year later, another $800,000. Surveillance allegedly caught the actor card counting and was unimpressed that, following his first big win, he gave away most of his winnings by heavily tipping everyone from the dealers to.

• Biggest Blackjack Winning Streak California Lottery
• Blackjack Winning Hands
• Percentage Of Winning Blackjack
• Blackjack Winning System
• Odds Of Winning Blackjack
• Biggest Blackjack Winning Streak Win
• Winning Blackjack Tips

Longest streaks. The longest (in terms of time) recorded winning streak in any professional sports is Spain's Antoni Bou having won 26 consecutive world championships in Motorcycle Trials between 2007 and today, he is still active in the sport. Pakistan's Jahangir Khan's 555 consecutive wins in squash from 1981 to 1986 is also of significant note. Very little space will be spent on streak data as it has little purpose. This chart is a bit unusual. Here the percentage of time spent in streaks is plotted. Pushes are ignored. In the first column, you see the percent of time that you are in a streak of one loss or one win. About 10% of the time you are in a losing streak of one hand. Blackjack Neo trailed by six lengths in his heat before overpowering a front-running Barooga Brett to win in 34.55sec. “Blackjack Neo has won his past three, all in the city, so he’s in form, and he just needs a clear run going into the first turn tonight,” Neocleous said.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun:
Those Losing Streaks That Never End

In the decades I have been writing about blackjack, I have heard many players’ horror stories of bad fluctuations -- losing streaks that seemed as if they would never end. There have been pros who lost most of their savings over months of play, blackjack teams that took years to make a bank. Every experienced player has his story of the impossible losing streak. Two standard deviations. Three standard deviations. Four. I’ve also heard a few stories that went the other way.

Some years ago, Bill Zender told me about a truck driver who blew into Vegas with a few hundred bucks, and went on a winning streak that seemed without end. Over a period of months, he won more than a million bucks at the blackjack tables.

The casinos courted him like a king for awhile, waiting for him to fall. But he just kept winning. Despite no evidence that he was anything but lucky, one by one many of the Strip casinos stopped dealing to him because they couldn’t take the wins any more. The winning streak didn’t make sense to the pencil pushers and number crunchers; they felt he had to be doing something.

But he wasn’t. The casinos that had lost bundles to him, then refused to deal to him anymore -- and these were some of the biggest properties in Vegas -- came to regret it. The lucky trucker gave it all back even faster than he made it to the one joint that had the wisdom and patience to wait for his luck to turn.

After a few months of living the Vegas high life, he left town pretty much the way he came in, with a few hundred bucks in his jeans, and some tall tales to tell his buddies that none of them would ever believe.

Every religion has a unique vision of God, and that includes the First Church of Blackjack. All gamblers, from the most sophisticated and savvy advantage players to the hapless compulsives on tilt with their rent money, place their offerings at the Altar of Flux.

Our Supreme Deity is known by many names: Standard Deviation, Variance, Fluctuation, Luck, Fortune, Chance. Regardless of name, all gamblers know that Luck is a Lady. With the fickle heart of a vamp, she delights in toying with men’s lives and dreams. Many gamblers offer heartfelt prayers to Dame Fortune, but the sad fact is: the Goddess of Flux is stone deaf. Neither prayers of thanks, nor pleas for mercy, are ever heard.

We humans are so arrogant. If a man wins ten times his net worth in a weekend, he boasts of his skill, his daring, his timing, his intelligence. If, on the other hand, he loses his life savings, he jumps to blame the Goddess of Flux. Do not ask how she can be so cold-hearted, she who never gets the credit, but always the blame.

But this myopia of man does not anger her; for unlike the male God of the Christians, the Jews, and the Muslims, the Goddess of Flux doesn’t really give a damn.

Our Goddess is not a Fair Provider, but a wild and crazy Party Girl. She lets the good players go unrewarded, and the bad go unpunished. Good and bad mean nothing to the Goddess of Flux.

Many who have lost their fortunes to the whims of the Goddess ask how she can allow such catastrophes to occur. The Goddess of Flux never explains herself. She tempts, she teases, she lures, but she never explains. Cursing the Goddess of Flux has the same effect as pleading for her mercy, which is to say, no effect whatsoever.

Because we humans are logical and rational creatures, we long to believe that the Goddess of Flux shares these admirable attributes. When, alas, men see neither rhyme nor reason to her treatment of them, some fall into a state of deep despair. These lost souls turn away from the Goddess, and deny her existence. Like all atheists, they make Logic their new God, and they seek rational explanations for the wild and crazy results the Goddess puts before their eyes.

Should one of these infidels lose eight sessions in a row, he’ll say: “I must have been cheated. They must have been using altered decks. The running count was +20, I had three max bets on the table, and when I was dealt all babies against a dealer five up, the count jumped to +27! I had three double down hands, and every one of them caught a 4, 5 or 6; then the dealer hits to a six-card 21. It had to be a rigged shoe!”

But it wasn’t a rigged shoe, nor was it an altered deck; just the Goddess of Flux having her fun at the expense of a puny mortal.

Other atheists might blame different factors: “This system doesn’t work. I win when the count is negative, and lose when it’s positive. So, either the system sucks, or card counting is just a myth made up to sell books; it has no validity in the real world.”

Meanwhile, the atheist who has just won on eight consecutive sessions, is singing a different tune: “I’ve finally gotten my skills sharpened to perfection. I’m as close to invincible as a player can be. I do have to give credit to the side count of aces which has really made my bet-sizing pinpoint accurate. The casinos don’t stand much of a chance against me anymore. I’ve got to play all short sessions these days just to keep their suspicions down.”

But neither this player’s skill, nor his system, is any better than that of his counterpart who has just lost eight consecutive sessions. Both are merely playthings of the Drunken Mistress of Inexplicable Results.

Many intelligent and educated men claim to have a deep and intimate understanding of the Goddess of Flux. They devise charts and tables and graphs and spreadsheets to describe her crazy twists and turns. To these men, it is a mortal sin to call the Goddess by her common nickname, “Luck.” They speak of her in authoritative tones as “Variance,” or “Standard Deviation,” as if by changing her name they have reined her in, corralled her, broken her, dominated her.

But as with all men, she neither serves them, nor obeys them. They serve her, and she treats them as she pleases.

“There’s something wrong, Charlie. The team is four standard deviations below EV. That’s impossible!”

But to the Goddess of Flux, nothing is impossible. And she specializes in the highly improbable.

Most of those who believe in the Goddess of Flux regularly curse her existence. Likewise, those who have forsaken their belief in the Goddess would agree with the believers that if the Goddess did exist, then she is the enemy of men.

There is but a handful of men who worship the Goddess tirelessly, and always thank her for her attentions, whichever direction they take. Among those few who sing her praises are those who own the casinos, the race tracks, the lotteries. These faithful know that were it not for Lady Luck, they would have no customers.

She is the foundation of their business. And each time she dips into their coffers to rain fortune down upon some undeserving rube, a glimmer of hope is ignited among the masses of losers, a glimmer that keeps their fantasies alive, and their dollars flowing out of their pockets.

Likewise, the Goddess of Flux is not the enemy, but the friend, of all professional gamblers. This is why she is worshiped by the faithful followers of the First Church of Blackjack. Were it not for our Goddess, we card counters would extract our small percentage from the tables each and every time we played, and soon our action would be welcome nowhere.

The Goddess of Flux has but one objective: to skew the path of man. Because of her, at the blackjack tables the shortest distance from Point A to Point B is never a straight line. There are always mountains to climb, valleys to negotiate, and so many bends and forks in the road, it seems at times the dizzy path leads nowhere but in circles.

But for all her wild and crazy spirals, there is an equalizer to her whims that man has at his disposal - Persistence. For all her power to steer man’s destiny, the Goddess of Flux has no follow through. Like so many in today’s world, the Goddess suffers from ADD. Just when you’re sure she has her heart set on crushing you, she turns around and goes the other way.

Persistence is the only tool man has to overcome her folly. It’s a secret that every professional gambler learns, and it’s the knowledge that separates the pros from the wannabes. Time and work, work and time - the players’ only hope. How ironic that most of the people who attempt to enter the profession do so because they don’t want to work, and they don’t want to wait. They want easy money, and they want it now. Gambling is a magnet for those who lack discipline and patience; yet it is precisely these virtues that are required to succeed at this vice.

The fact is, if a man is determined to arrive at Point B from Point A, he will get there in the long run. Because of the machinations of the Goddess of Flux, no man may ever know how long that run will be. No formula, no spreadsheet, no graph can predict how long the Goddess will have her fun at our expense. But if we keep Point B in our sights, we will eventually arrive.

So, the next time Dame Fortune toys with your heart, your soul and your wallet, raise your glass and praise her thus: “Thanks for nothing, you cold-hearted, evil, damnable, nefarious, low-life, malicious monster from Hell!”

Biggest Blackjack Winning Streak California Lottery

She is, after all, stone deaf. ♠

Return to Blackjack Forum Professional Gambling Library
Return to Blackjack Forum Online Home

Anargyros Nicholas Karabourniotis^[2] (Greek: Ανάργυρος Καραβουρνιώτης, born November 1, 1950), commonly known as Archie Karas, is a Greek-Americangambler, high roller, poker player, and pool shark famous for the largest and longest documented winning streak in casino gambling history, simply known as The Run, when he drove to Las Vegas with $50 in December 1992 and then turned a $10,000 loan into more than $40 million by the beginning of 1995, only to lose it all later that year. Karas himself claims to have gambled with more money in casinos than anyone else in history^[3] and has often been compared to Nick the Greek, another high-stakes gambler of Greek origin.^[4]

Early life[edit]

Karas was born on November 1, 1950 in Antypata on the island of Cephalonia, Greece. He grew up in poverty and had to shoot marbles as a teenager to avoid going hungry. His father, Nickolas, was a construction worker who struggled financially.^[2]

Karas ran away from home at the age of 15 after, in a rage, his father threw a shovel at him, barely missing his head. He never saw his father again. Nickolas died four years later.

Karas worked as a waiter on a ship, making $60 a month until the ship arrived at Portland, Oregon. He would later move to Los Angeles, where he would gamble his bankroll up to $2,000,000 before losing it playing high-stakes poker.^[2]

Gambling career[edit]

He worked at a Los Angeles restaurant, which was next to a bowling alley and a pool hall. There he honed his pool skills and eventually made more money playing pool than he did as a waiter. When his victims from the pool hall thinned out, he went to Los Angeles card rooms to play poker. Karas claims to have gone from broke to millionaire and back several times. Later, he became an astute poker player, building his bankroll to over $2,000,000. Professional poker players such as Chip Reese and Doyle Brunson, had played and considered Karas a weaker poker player often giving Karas handicaps to play. In December 1992, Karas had lost all but $50 playing high-stakes poker. Instead of reevaluating his situation and slowing down, he decided to go to Las Vegas in search of bigger games. The next three years would go down in legend as the greatest run in casino gambling history.^[2]

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.^[3]

Blackjack Winning Hands

The Run[edit]

Karas' initial run lasted for six months when he drove to Las Vegas with $50 and turned a $10,000 loan into approximately $17 million playing poker and pool. In December 1992, after losing his entire bankroll, Karas drove to Vegas with his car and $50 in his wallet. After arriving at The Mirage, Karas recognized a fellow poker player from the Los Angeles scene and convinced him for a $10,000 loan. Karas quickly turned the loan into $30,000 playing $200/$400 limitRazz.^[3] Karas returned $20,000 to his backer, who was more than content.^[5]

With a little over $10,000 in his pocket, Karas went to a bar with a pool table adjacent from the Liberace Plaza on East Tropicana. There he found a wealthy and respected poker and pool player. Karas refused to reveal his name for the sake of his opponent's reputation; he simply referred to him as 'Mr. X'. They started playing 9-ball pool at $5,000 a game raising the stakes as games progressed. After Karas won several hundred thousand dollars, they raised the stakes to $40,000 a game. Many gamblers and professional poker players watched Archie play with stakes never seen before. Karas ended up winning $1,200,000. The two decided to play poker at Binion's Horseshoe where Karas won an additional $3,000,000 from Mr. X. Karas was willing to gamble everything he made and continued to raise the stakes to a level few dared to play at.^[6]

With a bankroll of $4 million, Karas gambled his bankroll up to $7 million after spending only three months in Vegas. By now, many poker players had heard of Mr. X's losses to Archie. Only the best players dared to challenge him. Karas sat at the Binion's Horseshoe's poker table with 5 of his 7 million dollars in front of him, waiting for any players willing to play for such stakes.^[7]

The first challenger was Stu Ungar, a three-time World Series of Poker champion widely regarded as one of the greatest Texas hold'em and gin rummy player of all time. Stu was backed by Lyle Berman, another professional poker player and business executive who co-founded Grand Casinos. Karas first beat Stu for $500,000 playing heads-up Razz. Karas then played Ungar in 7-card stud, which cost Ungar an additional $700,000.^[7] The next player was Chip Reese, widely regarded as the greatest cash game player. Reese claims that Karas beat him for more money than anyone else he ever played. After 25 games, Reese was down $2,022,000 playing $8,000/$16,000 limit.^[7]

Percentage Of Winning Blackjack

Karas continued to beat many top players, from Puggy Pearson to Johnny Moss. Many top players would not play him simply because his stakes were too high. The only player to beat Karas in the first round during his run was Johnny Chan, who beat him for $900,000, though Chan did lose to Karas frequently, before and after the streak. By the end of his six-month-long winning streak, Karas had amassed more than $17 million. Karas said that Doyle Brunson was the only player able to win playing Razz during his winning streak.^[8]

The poker action for Karas mostly dried up due to his reputation and stakes. He turned to dice, for $100,000 per roll.^[4] Karas was allowed to make pass line and come bets of up to $300,000, but with no odds.^[9]Jack Binion capped Karas' buy bets on the 4 and 10 at $100,000. At one point, Binion raised Karas' 4 and 10 buy bet limit to $200,000. Karas quickly won $920,000 under these conditions; then Binion immediately lowered the limit back to $100,000.^[9] Karas said that he could quickly win $3 million on dice, while it would take days to weeks with poker. Karas stated, 'with each play I was making million-dollar decisions, I would have played even higher if they'd let me.'^[3]

Transporting money became a hassle for Karas, as he had several million dollars in his car every day. He carried a gun with him at all times and would often have his brother and casino security guards escort him. At one point, Karas had won all of the Binion's casino's $5000 chips, the highest denomination at the time.^[10] By the end of his winning streak, he had won over $40 million.^[11][12]

Downfall[edit]

Karas's odds-defying two-and-a-half-year streak came to an end in 1995 when he lost most of his money in a period of three weeks. He lost $11 million playing dice and then lost the $2 million he won from Chip Reese back to him. Following these losses, he switched to baccarat and lost another $17 million, for a total of $30 million. With approximately $12 million left and needing a break from gambling, he returned to Greece. When he came back to Las Vegas, he went back to the Horseshoe, shooting dice and playing baccarat at $300,000 per bet, and in less than a month, lost all but his last million.^[13]

With his last million, he went to the Bicycle Club and played Johnny Chan in a $1,000,000 freezeout match. This time, Chan was backed by Lyle Berman, and they took turns playing Karas. He preferred playing both of them, instead of just Chan, as he felt Chan was the tougher opponent. Karas won and doubled his money, only to lose it all at dice and baccarat, betting at the highest limits, in just a few days.^[13]

Mini-streaks[edit]

Blackjack Winning System

Since he lost his $40 million, he has gone on a few smaller streaks. Less than a year later, he turned $40,000 into $1,000,000 at the Desert Inn. He then went back to the Horseshoe and won an additional $4 million before losing it all the next day.

A few years later, Karas went on another streak at the Gold Strike Casino, 32 miles outside Las Vegas. He went with $1,800 and lost $1,600 until he was down to just $200. Then after getting something to eat, he decided to gamble the rest of it. He shot dice and ran his $200 into $9,700 and then headed to Las Vegas. He stopped at Fitzgeralds Casino & Hotel and won another $36,000, betting $1,000 with $2,000 odds. He went back to Binion's and won another $300,000 at the Horseshoe and by the third day, had won a total of $980,000 from a low of $200.^[14]

Personal life[edit]

Odds Of Winning Blackjack

Karas currently resides in Las Vegas. His family lives in Greece. Karas stays in touch with his family by phone, and tries to travel back to Greece at least once per year. He brought his mother, Mariana, to Las Vegas for six-month visits when he was on his winning streak.

Karas's story was documented in Cigar Aficionado by American author Michael Konik^[3] and also was featured, along with Stu Ungar, in an E! documentary special called THS Investigates: Vegas Winners & Losers.^[15] Konik also wrote an article about Karas which was featured in a book about Las Vegas gamblers called The Man With the $100,000 Breasts.^[4]

He was interviewed, along with poker player Tony G, by Tiffany Michelle during the 2008 World Series of Poker. He was also a featured player on ESPN's coverage of the 2008 WSOP.^[16]

Cheating[edit]

Biggest Blackjack Winning Streak Win

Karas was arrested on September 24, 2013 after being caught marking cards at a San Diego casino's blackjack table by the Barona Gaming Commission. He was arrested at his Las Vegas home and extradited to San Diego to face charges of burglary, winning by fraudulent means and cheating. He was found guilty and sentenced to three years probation.^[11]

See also[edit]

Winning Blackjack Tips

References[edit]

1. ^'Anargyros Nicholas Karabourniotis'. Nevada Gaming Control Board. Retrieved 2016-10-07.
2. ^ ^abcdTom Sexton (2008-02-11). 'Sexton's Corner, Vol. 31: Archie Karas, The World's Biggest Gambler'. Poker News. Archived from the original on 19 February 2009. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
3. ^ ^abcdeMichael Konik (2008). 'Tables of Dreams'. Cigar Aficionado. Archived from the original on 10 February 2009. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
4. ^ ^abcHoward Schwartz (2008-06-21). 'Archie Karas, The Greatest Gambler'. Poker Works. Archived from the original on 20 February 2009. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
5. ^Paul McGuire. 'The Return of Archie 'The Greek' Karas'. Bluff Magazine. Archived from the original on 2014-02-20.
6. ^Tom Sexton (2008-02-18). 'Sexton's Corner, Vol. 32'. Poker News. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
7. ^ ^abcTom Sexton (2008-02-25). 'Sexton's Corner, Vol. 33'. Poker News. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
8. ^Tom Sexton (2008-03-03). 'Sexton's Corner, Vol. 34'. Poker News. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
9. ^ ^abTom Sexton (2008-03-17). 'Sexton's Corner, Vol. 36'. Poker News. Retrieved 2014-03-10.
10. ^Tom Sexton (2008-03-10). 'Sexton's Corner, Vol. 35'. Poker News. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
11. ^ ^abEmma Lacey-Bordeaux (2013-09-29). 'Legendary gambler Archie Karas accused of marking cards in San Diego casino'. CNN. Retrieved 2014-03-10.
12. ^Tom Sexton (2008-04-14). 'Sexton's Corner, Vol. 40'. Poker News. Archived from the original on 15 April 2008. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
13. ^ ^abTom Sexton (2008-04-14). 'Sexton's Corner, Vol. 37'. Poker News. Archived from the original on 14 February 2009. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
14. ^Tom Sexton (2008-03-31). 'Sexton's Corner, Vol. 38'. Poker News. Archived from the original on 14 February 2009. Retrieved 2009-03-02.
15. ^Karas, Archie (2008-06-13). THS Investigates: Vegas Winners & Losers (documentary). USA: THS.
16. ^Archie Karas in 2008 WSOP on YouTube

External links[edit]