Wayne - Need Help with Archie the Greek!

I know a little

TATE said:
Wayne,

Can you or someone else tell the Archie the Greek Story on this thread?

http://www.azbilliards.com/vbulletin/upload/showthread.php?t=13633

His cues are being sold off on E-Bay, so I assume he needs the money.

Chris
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I can't tell you the whole story, but I know a little bit about him, mostly second hand knowledge. He came thru my families pool hall in Hesperia, Ca. at the begining of his big run. The guy couldn't play at all but would get tremendous weight from people hoping to make a big score. More often than not people gave too much a would lose to him.
When he came through our place he had not yet gotten up on his 45 million dollar run. My dad gave him the six out and the breaks for $100 a rack and just robbed him for about $1,600 but Archie ended up about 5k ahead beating everyone else who tried matching up. Anyway within a couple of years of this happening I started hearing some legendary tales of what this guy was doing in Vegas, I heard he had gotten up like 45 million dollars, I didn't believe it until one day the channel 4 news in Los Angeles broke away from regular programming one day to show him playing craps live at Binions. On this day he had in his possesion every $1000 chip that Binions had. I don't remember if he won or not on that day, but just the fact that the news was coverring this was pretty astounding.
He had some family members who lived in my home town at the time and I would ask occasionally about what he was doing, what they told me was that he lost every penny of that 45 million he was up, actually got on another pretty strong run and used the money this time to buy a hotel in Greece. I haven't heard much about him lately, I had quit playing for 10 years and moved out of that town.
 
But Archie Karas knows he has to come up with a "very big score" at the tables for it all to happen. I mean who's going to buy a book about a man who LOST $17 million? Now WINNING $17 million has some appeal. We all dream about it, fantasize about it. But how many of us can hold onto it? How many of us would quit cold once we hit it? It's in Archie's blood to play. He's lookng for a backer; then he's got to find the right game at the right time, get the right cards and roll like he's never rolled before.
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I think that is just wrong. Watching a movie about a guy who starts with nothing, makes millions of dollars on a hot roll and gets into the limelight and has the hot chicks and the great booze and so much cash he cannot even carry it all, and then falls back to nothing and ends the movie or book with only memories of what he had would be phenomenal. What is so interesting about someone who wins 17 million then quits? That story has been done before, it is boring. There was one movie about a gambler who got ludicrously into debt by defrauding the company he worked for (I think it was a bank) and then hit a hot streak, made millions, and then lost it all again. But that movie kind of sucked, most of it was in Atlantic city and the guy did not play alot of different games.

I had a old time pool player tell me a story like that above, supposedly the Greek. It was a little different though, the guy supposedly made quite alot of cash (thousands) playing pool in LA against some movie producer starting with a whole $20 in his pocket. He then went to Vegas and rolled it into millions at the tables, I was told 50 mil but who knows the exact amount. Anyways the guy wanted to "win" the casino itself so he keeps playing but his streak sort of hits a wall and he cannot get higher and stays close to the same high point and cannot win more. He finally quit, went back to Greece for a while, bought a motel for 5 mil, and then came back to Vegas and got into high stakes poker against a whole bunch of pros. They carved the guy up at the tables and ended up taking every penny of money the guy had won minus the motel he bought.
 
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