5 of the Best Gamblers of All-Time
Posted by Harry Kane on Thursday, September 30, 2021
When you were younger, there probably myriad careers that your parents didn’t want you to pursue. Maybe boxing was one, for example, or perhaps your guardians didn’t want you to become a high-octane motor racing driver?
Similarly, it’s unlikely that you would have been encouraged to become a professional gambler, even if your mom or dad liked the occasional casino wager or horse racing flutter.
However, history tell us that professional gambling can be a highly lucrative career for a select few practitioners. With this in mind, here’s a glimpse at some of the best and most successful professional gamblers and their achievements!
1. Amarillo Slim
We’ll start with Amarillo Slim, who heralded from Texas and was originally a poker player who eventually joined forces with two other gamblers (namely Doyle Brunson and Puggy Pearson).
Despite this background being in poker, Slim earned the bulk of this winnings (and notoriety) from placing extremely risky wagers at the race track, alongside a select few cunning bets that helped to maintain a steady flow of income.
As his success and reputation grew, Slim took his much-fabled wit and ingenuity to a diverse selection of games and betting markets, including pool and even table tennis!
Prior to his death in 2012, Slim had earned $587,000 through competitive poker tournaments alone, while he also won four bracelets at the coveted World Series of Poker. What’s more, Slim earned 11 money finishes at the WSOP, while he even won the Main Event back in 1972.
2. Edward Thorp
Thorp’s background Is quite unusual for a professional gambler, having started out as a qualified math professor who wrote a market leading book on the controversial practice of card counting in blackjack.
When he started out in the realm of professional gambling (after years of learning and preparation), Thorp had a bankroll of $10,000. However, having employed his unique card counting techniques in both Reno and Las Vegas, he won an impressive $11,000 in his first weekend alone!
Of course, his success made him something of a marked man in casinos over time, which is why Thorp continued to change his disguises when frequenting brick-and-mortar establishments.
Similarly, he continued to develop new card counting strategies and math-based methods for prevailing at blackjack, making it even hard for him to be detected by authorities.
He also used his systems to win considerable amounts at backgammon, while him and his team’s roulette play represented the first ever instance of using a wearable computer device in a casino. This was done to observe the wheel in motion and interpret the cadence of the wheel, successfully informing wagers in the process.
3. Bill Benter
Next up is the legendary Bill Benter, who boasts an outstanding reputation in the world of gambling and is most famous for developing a horse racing algorithm for Hong Kong races during the 1980s.
As a result of this software-driven innovation, Benter earned a staggering $1 billion over time, with his algorithm going on to become one of the most successful analysis programs of its type in the global horse racing marketplace.
Following this success, Benter embarked on another exciting and luck-laden journey to Las Vegas, when began card counting with an entire time of like-minded and similarly skilled Australians.
The enabled him to bank further earnings using wealth as a sizable bankroll, while Benter also saw his success increase incrementally after a chance meeting with the aforementioned Edward Thorp helped him to improve his card counting methods.
He is currently alive and well and living in Pennsylvania, enjoying the fruits of his hard-earned labour!
4. Archie Karas
The story of Archie Karas may be one of the most of all time in the gambling realm, and one that has inspired a plethora of people across the globe to seek their fortunes through betting and wagering.
The narrative boasts the unusual distinction of being both romantic and cautionary in equal measure, making it one that’s worth telling for anyone who wants to pursue their fortune either online or at brick-and-mortar casinos.
A Greek immigrant who first arrived in Las Vegas’s Sin City in 1992, Karas had just $50 to his name when he first launched his career as a highly-skilled gambler.
Barely two years later, he has banked an incredible $40 million, having achieved his immense riches by playing a variety of high-stakes games such as roulette, baccarat, poker and blackjack. His wealth peaked in 1995, although this time at the top table of professional gamblers was not destined to last long.
In fact, he lost all of his riches later that year, having failed to invest any of his winnings and becoming caught in the midst of a relentless losing streak.
He also became embroiled in a card making scandal in San Diego in 2013, was sentenced to three years’ probation.
While Karas continues to live and wager in Las Vegas, he has never achieved the heights of his early career, while his experience should serve as a warning to anyone who’s fortunate to make money from off or online gambling in the modern age.
5. Bill Walters
Billy Walters is a man who has mastered both sports betting and roulette in his distinguished gambling career, which began in earnest in 1955 when he bet all of his paper round earnings on the outcome of the baseball World Series (this wager didn’t come in).
Undeterred, continued to earn prolific amounts of cash through sports betting through his 20s, while attempting to achieve similar success at the roulette tables of Las Vegas and Atlantic City.
Despite recording two separate $1 million losses in Vegas, Walters and an unnamed gambling partner delivered $2 million to the cage the Atlantic Club Casino Hotel (then known as the Golden Nugget) having requested a freeze-out in exchange for this sum.
With the pair displaying a clear wheel bias by betting prolifically on 7-10-20-27-36, Walters had banked a cool $3.8 million within 38 hours of play, beating the prior record of $1.28 million held by Richard W. Jarecki at the San Remo Casino in Monte Carlo in 1971.
Three years later, the same syndicate won $400,000 and $610,000 at casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City respectively, highlighting his immense and continued success in the challenging world of table games.