Casino History records these craps winners and craps monster rolls.
I find that the greatest interest is usually monster rolls--rolls that last more than 20-30 minutes and make everyone at the table a bundle of money. I have had a good number of monster rolls, 50 numbers or more that last between 45 minutes and an hour. My greatest roll was 89 numbers before I sevened out.
The greatest roll of all time was turned in by the Captain in 2005 with 147 numbers before he sevened out. This roll took two hours and 18 minutes. The Captain has also had a 100 roll monster in 2004.
The longest roll in terms of time was one Stanley Fujitake, the famous “Golden Arm” from Hawaii, who rolled for over three hours, six minutes at the California Club in Las Vegas in 1989. He rolled 118 numbers before he sevened out.
I personally witnessed two back-to-back hour-plus rolls at The Frontier during the summer of 1995.
The table was composed of nothing but red-chip players, but after the two fellows finished two plus hours later, everyone was betting green, black and purple chips!
Atlantic City has had its share of great reported rolls.
The famous “Arm” of Atlantic City has had many 20 minute to one-hour rolls over the past two-dozen years, and that one special night, New Year's Eve at the Claridge Hotel, she had five or six 20-to-30-minute or longer rolls -- one after another -- because every other player passed up his or her turn to shoot and let the “Arm” roll the bones exclusively!
Literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, were won by those high-rolling players in a single session.
Of course, there are famous craps players as well; that is, craps winners who are known for running up big wins with small investments, not necessarily on their own individual rolls.
Because craps is a game with many long-shot bets, some paying as high as 30 to 1, a craps winner can catch a lucky streak and ride small buy-ins to big wins. It’s rare but it does happen.
For example, a character known as Fast Eddie, “an octogenarian jockey had, on four separate occasions, run $100 up to more than $250,000.” That ain’t hay!
In early 1980s, the “suitcase man” arrived at Binions to make a big bet. The story of the “suitcase man” has become another modern legend of Las Vegas and it has lost nothing in the telling over a period of almost 20 years. In fact, there are at least six different versions of the story, the following being the most accurate.
William Lee Bergstrom from Austin, Texas decided to test the Binion claim that Binion would book any bet, no matter how large, as long as you make it your first.
Bergstrom arrived with a suitcase filled with $777,000 which he bet on the Don’t Pass line at craps. The shooter established a point of six and then sevened out two rolls later. Bergstrom took his original $777,000 and his win of $777,000 and departed.
However, Bergstrom couldn’t stay away for long. He came back and won a single $590,000 bet, then he came back some while later and won a $190,000 bet; then he appeared again and won $90,000. Finally, he came back to make his famous $1,000,000 bet (circa 1984) -- which he lost.
To conclude this Learn to Play Craps lesson, a modern legend and craps winner extraordinaire is none other than the Captain, the man who has beaten craps since 1978.
The Captain, like the “million dollar bum,” is thought by some to be a myth. But the Captain is real, and what he has done is just as real, as a handful of casino executives know; but because craps is a negative-expectation game, what the Captain has done whets the desires of craps players worldwide that perhaps someday they can be in his shoes.
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