Rip Archie Karas

Fatboy said:
Bobby didn’t have a prayer in that pool game.

Archie had be running around Vegas for about a year playing $100 sets. We tried to match up many times. I couldn’t beat him playing 1P and I was stealing playing anything else. I was broke, he was broke we both at the time were looking for a stone cold lock.

Bobby had a huge ego, not a knock-just how Bobby was and probably is to a lesser extent now. I haven’t seen him in forever.

Corvette Lou got the game made with Bobby and Archie and they fired their nuts at him. 3 days later Bobby was stuck $1.5M which is about equal to $3M these days. The money wasn’t a huge sum for Bobby back then. He was Wynn’s right hand man and they were printing at the Mirage and other properties.

Archie spun that 1.5 into just a hair over 26 playing poker and craps at the Horseshoe downtown. He had ALL the $5K chips from the Shoe at one point. Which was the highest value chip at the time.

True to being a stone degen Archie drove a little white pickup with a camper shell. He’d sleep on it sometimes. All the while he had millions and loads of comps & the rebate. When asked why? He said he needed to save money for gambling. I can’t make this up.

There will be others I expect to chime in on this thread who knew him and watched it go down.

I have an audio clip of Lou (RIP and also a black book member) recounting the way he put the game together and how it went down. Not sure what I’m gonna do with that. I recorded it when Lou was very very sick and didn’t have long. Lou didn’t get into black book trouble with Archie. That’s another story.

These kinds of guys are what I miss in pool these days. 🥲

Fatboy<———getting older and slowly becoming the old guy. Glad I saw/lived pool and the personalities I did.
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If I ever won 26 million gambling, I'm confident I would never gamble another nickel in my life. I've never known a gambler who just lived for the gamble, but I did know a pool player (strong shortstop) that had a very high gear when he was on (took money off some of the biggest names in pool). He never worked, didn't have a family, didn't have anything. One time he told me he didn't care about titles or winning money; he just wanted to shoot good pool. He said that's all he ever thought about.

Regarding craps (I know nothing about craps), is there such thing as someone that's good at it? I always thought it was pure luck.
 
fjk said:
If I ever won 26 million gambling, I'm confident I would never gamble another nickel in my life. I've never known a gambler who just lived for the gamble, but I did know a pool player (strong shortstop) that had a very high gear when he was on (took money off some of the biggest names in pool). He never worked, didn't have a family, didn't have anything. One time he told me he didn't care about titles or winning money; he just wanted to shoot good pool. He said that's all he ever thought about.

Regarding craps (I know nothing about craps), is there such thing as someone that's good at it? I always thought it was pure luck.
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Craps is all luck. If you know the best bets and can get even $ with no vig (by placing true odds bets) you minimize the casinos edge.

So effectively the better you play the slower you lose your $. There’s NO WINNING SYSTEM.

I’ve never been into pool for the brownie points, just the cash. Same in backgammon-I love the action

Best
Fatboy <———never gives casinos action
 
There are those that claim to be "dice controllers". It's impossible to control the dice on modern tables with the stickman yelling at you to hit the back triangled wall and chips in play. Maybe you could slightly influence the dice back in the day when they could basically slide them on the surface, but I highly doubt even that. The "dice controllers" were all about selling their book, so they were really "mind controllers" also called marketing. It is nothing like "card counters" in BJ which is based on math and proven true. It also takes a lot of discipline and awareness to pull it off. It's not illegal in any casino, but frowned upon and they will ask you to leave and your action is not welcome. In some cases, they will escort you out through the back door if you know what I mean. So players beware.
 
fjk said:
If I ever won 26 million gambling, I'm confident I would never gamble another nickel in my life. I've never known a gambler who just lived for the gamble, but I did know a pool player (strong shortstop) that had a very high gear when he was on (took money off some of the biggest names in pool). He never worked, didn't have a family, didn't have anything. One time he told me he didn't care about titles or winning money; he just wanted to shoot good pool. He said that's all he ever thought about.

Regarding craps (I know nothing about craps), is there such thing as someone that's good at it? I always thought it was pure luck.
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Your mind would never allow you to win 26 million in the first place, unless it was lottery.

The people that could win 26 million have a brain you would never understand
 
jasonlaus said:
Your mind would never allow you to win 26 million in the first place, unless it was lottery.

The people that could win 26 million have a brain you would never understand
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I 100% agree with the above. The reason he was able to achieve that run is the same reason he would eventually lose it all. It's unfortunate because there is a part of me that roots for "the man" to beat the casino. Gamblers anonymous is a real organization. The best gamble is no gamble. Hard for many pool players to understand that. I always said there is only one person gambling in any transaction, the other is conducting business. I would rather be on the business side. If you can find an edge or adjust the odds, you can become an "advantage player".
 
Fatboy said:
Toby got him for around $600,000 and took the $ and bought into Cue Club. Tony’s stake horse Gentile from Ok blew a couple hundred back to Archie. Toby had Archie in his cross hairs for a good bit of time and played his ass off to get ready. He was all business.

He was never up 40 or 45 as the story goes. It was 26.5ish, either way it was a truck load of money. About half from poker and about half from craps. The Shoe had 100X odds behind the pass line which was tremendous. He flatted the line with $1000 and took $100,000 odds. Which effectively is no vig for the joint. Can’t find action like that anymore. Legendary. The big score didn’t last that long-I don’t know how long it did last, so I won’t guess. I don’t know. But it wasn’t long. That’s how it goes, the mentality to book a score like that is the same mentality that will bust you even if you have ALL the 5K chips

Gambling $ knows no home
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Reminds me of Stu Ungar.
 
there are gamblers that have won millions and kept it all. they are called successful gamblers. the others are merely suckers getting a fix with the excitement of the ups and downs.

stu ungar was one of those suckers but with tremendous talent. drugs ended his rein of terror.
 
every bet you make no matter what kind can be either positive value or negative value. most have trouble discerning when its close. and many just like the gamble.
but if you bet with a positive expectation you will come out ahead over a short time frame and never look back as long as you dont spend yourself broke.

the higher stakes you bet the more you will end up with.
 
there are many sides to these stories some true some not and most partially true. most know just a piece like myself.
archie played originally with bobby at the bar with only one barrel. that obajack guy had some piece but archie cut him out or he cut out after the first day. archie won the big money in the pool game by himself.

archie was good with the dice and thats how his run started. they shut him down early into it but he just kept winning.

after he won a bunch from the horseshoe they wouldnt let him raise the bet. so he went over to caesars palace and they gave him a bigger one and he destroyed them and then they pulled up on him.
back to binions archie comes in late and teddy is there and no jack. archie says let gamble but you wont let me. teddy says bet what you want. thats when archie started making big scores. they got mad at teddy for letting archie bet so much but too late.
what he was up at the high point has been debated. only binion knew. archie probably didnt himself. as i watched him just stuff in and take out
money and chips.
took him awhile but he lost it all on the square and was dead broke for a time. then made a few run ups but back to broke and scuffling for cash.
he stayed in small action and some bigger but his end was drawing near especially when he went to the indian casino and marked cards and got busted.

people glorified him but he was hardly a decent person. and your end was never right but overall he got lucky at cards and dice for a time before the vig took its toll. my bad luck as he stopped gambling with me when he hit the couple million mark.
 
maha said:
i dont know of corvette lou. but i do know archie knew bobby real well and could arrange his own game anytime he wanted to call him.
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That’s true they knew each other. But Lou put it together. More in this later, I promise

Best
Fatboy
 
maha said:
there are many sides to these stories some true some not and most partially true. most know just a piece like myself.
archie played originally with bobby at the bar with only one barrel. that obajack guy had some piece but archie cut him out or he cut out after the first day. archie won the big money in the pool game by himself.

archie was good with the dice and thats how his run started. they shut him down early into it but he just kept winning.

after he won a bunch from the horseshoe they wouldnt let him raise the bet. so he went over to caesars palace and they gave him a bigger one and he destroyed them and then they pulled up on him.
back to binions archie comes in late and teddy is there and no jack. archie says let gamble but you wont let me. teddy says bet what you want. thats when archie started making big scores. they got mad at teddy for letting archie bet so much but too late.
what he was up at the high point has been debated. only binion knew. archie probably didnt himself. as i watched him just stuff in and take out
money and chips.
took him awhile but he lost it all on the square and was dead broke for a time. then made a few run ups but back to broke and scuffling for cash.
he stayed in small action and some bigger but his end was drawing near especially when he went to the indian casino and marked cards and got busted.

people glorified him but he was hardly a decent person. and your end was never right but overall he got lucky at cards and dice for a time before the vig took its toll. my bad luck as he stopped gambling with me when he hit the couple million mark.
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I heard, I don’t know, only heard around town that some of the poker money Archie won after the pool score was poker players dumping off Teddy and jacks money to Archie. In the HU games. I never heard any names and it was probably just rumors started by jealous people.

The craps $ he did spin up was the 100x odds game at the Shoe.

Not everything is clear. And 30 years later it doesn’t matter. Everyone’s gone. I was just a fly on the wall. I wasn’t involved.

In any case Archie wasn’t gonna stop until he won the Shoe or go busto.

The mentality that will get you a $10M score is the exact mentality that will cost it all. Nobody leaves with the money in that situation-except the dump games and those don’t last long.

Who knows

Fatboy
 
Back in 1990-91, Archie from time to time would stop late at night in Mary Kenniston's pool room Cutopia (Swenson & Twain) and gamble. I've never seen him play pool, just sit at counter and occasionally flip a coin for 1500 a pop (who he was flipping with, I do not know).
 
Fatboy said:
Craps is all luck. If you know the best bets and can get even $ with no vig (by placing true odds bets) you minimize the casinos edge.

So effectively the better you play the slower you lose your $. There’s NO WINNING SYSTEM.

I’ve never been into pool for the brownie points, just the cash. Same in backgammon-I love the action

Best
Fatboy <———never gives casinos action
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When Buddy was living in Tulsa someone asked him to play a set 'for fun'. Buddy's reply?? " I don't find playing for fun to be remotely fun". Case closed.
 
It looks like this R.I.P. Archie thread has taken a 'Turn'.

I'll relate a story from of friend of mine and Archie.

My friend lived in Vegas and was around/friends with Archie before, during and after He went broke.

During Archie's 'Big Run' my friend wasn't doing well and asked AK for a 'little snap, a "No can do" from AK.

As time went on, and AK went broke, Archie saw my friend in 'Ceasars' and approached him and said, "***** let me have a Thousand?" my friend says, "Can't do it." Archie, "Well, how about $500?" "No, I can't." AK "At least let me have a $100?" "No, but listen Archie, I'm going over to the Candy Machine, you want a candy bar?" Archie, "OK."
 
maha said:
fun at pool is gambling at pool for a gambler
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The above is true and not to get to far way from topic, Archie was all about the gamble—the big gamble. I don't think controlled gambling (on the pool table) is anything more than keeping score and holding his opponent accountable for his play. Simply playing for the game really doesn't mean much to most, including me. Put a $5 set with a buddy near my speed and it changes everything. I might breakout a safety or two. To me, pool is entertainment and my delusions of playing pro are in the past. I matched up pretty well in the past and I'm sure on pure gambling I have made a small fortune, but include all of the waisted time, drinking, table time, traveling, wear and tear on my body...I'm in the red. If I would have spent any of that time working on my career, I would be a multi millionaire for sure. But then again, I wouldn't have met some of my best friends and enjoyed myself as much. So it begs the question, was it worth it? I'm not sure but I wish I would have known what I know now. I wonder if Archie regrets going broke and never would admit it. I've never experienced those kind of highs and lows, but the lows must have hurt a lot. Money won might be twice as sweet as money earned, but its like Rodney Dangerfield and gets no respect.
 
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mr3cushion said:
It looks like this R.I.P. Archie thread has taken a 'Turn'.

I'll relate a story from of friend of mine and Archie.

My friend lived in Vegas and was around/friends with Archie before, during and after He went broke.

During Archie's 'Big Run' my friend wasn't doing well and asked AK for a 'little snap, a "No can do" from AK.

As time went on, and AK went broke, Archie saw my friend in 'Ceasars' and approached him and said, "***** let me have a Thousand?" my friend says, "Can't do it." Archie, "Well, how about $500?" "No, I can't." AK "At least let me have a $100?" "No, but listen Archie, I'm going over to the Candy Machine, you want a candy bar?" Archie, "OK."
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Archie wouldn’t be big on memorial tears.

Let’s talk about gambling to honor Archie🎰🎰
 
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