Gambling Winners, Casino Records & Legends

by Frank Scoblete

Gambling history records these gambling winners, runs and greatest legends. May all casino players aspire to these heights.

Gambling Winners: Blackjack Casino Records
Would you rather be lucky or skillful? Many gamblers have asked that question. I believe that it is better to be skillful so that when luck comes you are ready for it.
Blackjack is a game of skill but some people have ridden lucky streaks to incredible wins.
In the spring of 1995, an old man found treasure at Treasure Island in Las Vegas.
This was a rags to riches to rags story about gambling winners that has now taken on the aura of legend.
I can tell you it did happen by my interviews for a book. It is a complete story of the man sometimes referred to as “the million dollar bum.” These interviews were done mere weeks after the events.
Here is the most amazing blackjack streak of all time: A smelly bum, whose wife has just kicked him out of the house, cashes in his $400 Social Security check and proceeds to win between 1.3 and 1.6 million dollars in a weeklong orgy of good luck at the blackjack tables. The folks who deal to him and the folks who serve him say he is the rudest, crudest, but luckiest bun they ever saw.
At the height of his winning he alienates just about everyone he meets at Treasure Island. When he finally blows his incredible bundle (oh, yes, he loses just about all of it back to the casino), then owner Steve Wynn steps in and has him escorted out into the neon night and into the dawn of a new Las Vegas legend.

However, a shorter but also improbable streak took place at the Maxim Casino in Las Vegas in July of 1995 (just weeks after the bum’s rush), when a $5 player won 23 straight hands -- some with doubles, splits (wins on both!), and splits with doubles (wins on them all!) -- in blackjack playing heads up against a dealer in a six-deck game.
This gambling winner was playing perfect basic strategy but, still, 23 straight hands is an amazing run. On the fourth hand, he started to increase his bets and he won several thousand dollars in that streak.

In the early and late 1970s the most exciting blackjack player in history, Ken Uston, beat the casinos in Vegas and Atlantic City out of over five million (some say 10 million) dollars utilizing a concept called “team play.”
Here is a sample of how team play worked: Relatively small-stakes players took seats at various blackjack tables throughout the casino where they counted cards and used basic strategy to play their hands. When the shoe became positive for the player (many big cards were left), a small-stakes player signaled a “big player” (Uston) to enter the game, make large bets, sometimes table maximum bets of $500 to $2,000, and depart once the shoe went negative.
It was a remarkably effective system that some teams still utilize to this day. It got Uston fame, fortune and the boot from just about every casino he played in.

Gambling Winners: Poker Casino Records
Perhaps the most extraordinary of recent legendary streaks is possessed by Mr. Archie Karas, a Greek immigrant, who in 1992-1993 had one of the greatest runs in Vegas history.
Starting with a borrowed stake of ten thousand dollars, Archie went on a rampage of poker at Binion’s Horseshoe, defeating 15 of the world’s greatest poker players in head-to-head competition, including World Champions Chip Reese, Stu Unger, Puggy Pearson, and Johnny Chan.
When he ran out of poker competitors, Archie headed to the Horseshoe’s craps tables where he won millions more. At one point in his run, Archie possessed all of the Horseshoe’s $5,000 chips -- over 11 million dollars worth.
When the run was over, Archie was up over 17 million dollars between poker and craps, all at the Horseshoe.

Gambling Winners: Baccarat and Blackjack Casino Records
The most written about, most admired, and, to some the most feared of the gambling winners was Australian billionaire, Kerry Packer.
When it comes to Packer, it’s hard to get the facts straight.
He either won 20, 30 or 40 million dollars over several days at MGM Grand in Las Vegas in 1997 and caused several casino executives to get the axe for reeling in this big whale who sunk their quarterly earnings report.
The myth of Australia’s gambling media tycoon just gets bigger and bigger with a capital “b” as in baccarat and blackjack, his preferred games. Kerry is said to have tipped one cocktail waitress a house!
Savor this tall-tale about Packer: A loud and obnoxious Texas high roller is playing at the same table as Mr. Packer. Finally, Kerry asks the man to ease up. The man gets louder: “Do you know who I am? I am worth 60 million dollars, pardner!” Packer eyes him and says, I’ll flip you for it!

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