Also, they didn't "frame" him when he was robusto, he had already blown the millions. Doesn't make sense they would try to get rid of him as a losing player when his demographic are huge earners for the casinos.

I don't think he's conflating interesting with successful, it's obvious to everyone he's not successful so no need to explain the differences of those things.

I also think his life has been fairly interesting, but talking about it like it's one of the most interesting life stories in the poker community is more a reflection of a) the skill of the interviewer, and b) irrational romanticizing of old people who did mildly interesting things because it was 'back in the day'.

I think turning 10,000 into up to 40 million partially by beating 3 of the best poker players who ever lived and nearly tapping out a major casino is more than "mildly interesting" to a true gambler. And since the story is so unique, his current age and when it happened should really have nothing to do with how interesting the story is to someone truly interested in poker and gambling.

Interesting sure, it could make a fun movie. I guess my issue was more in the praise and "legend" status that comes with marking some cards and playing some actual high stakes poker legends with stolen money. Poker community is strange in how it selectively picks and chooses which cheaters are good and which are bad, seemingly anything from back "in the day" was A-Okay for cheating as that was just an "edge" back then(see Doyle Brunson tweets yesterday about Jack Strauss' golf bets) Inb4 he only cheated the half dozen times he was caught red handed, if you actually believe that you should give the legend a stake and put em back in the games.

gamblers do not embellish.....never!

i don't know how they haven't made a movie about this yet. i would definitely watch

They did, its called Rounders, look it up.

Archie may not have embellished the story much —he probably just didn’t tell the whole story. He may have, in fact, won 30m or whatever—but he probly lost 40m trying to win the 30m. I’ll never believe that at any time since he began gambling was he 30m ahead.

he was, i was there. it was a one time big event in history the way it unfolded.

archie was lifetime ahead of gambling at all points in time. maybe except at the very first.

as should anyone that that takes it seriously.

I understand you cannot spill the beans on who Mr X was

But 30 years later tell us how he cheated at dice?

it's amazing that Binions didn't institute a stop/loss at a number way lower than what he hit. I'm sure rules have changed since then, the movie 'Owning Mahowney' comes to mind. "...he better not leave up $9 million!..." but they knew he would lose it all back, math and all.

I got tossed from Circus Circus casino/dumpster once for card counting on a $50 bet!

Come on Ray, give us some more deets of Archie's run.

How did he win most of the money, was it just blind luck or did he have some sort of advantage play? If he did, how come he lost it all back in the end, did they shut down his outs and he just gambled it on baccarat til bust or what happened?

Regarding the razz play, how come he went on such a big run vs. the best razz players at the time, did he just sun run again or are the stories greatly exaggerated? From the reports it sounds like he was like Ungar playing gin rummy and crushing everyone with barely any losing sessions. You're saying he was just decent shorthanded but not world class.

craps. what i said was correct.

if they stop him then he just goes to another casino to lose it all back, thats the last thing they want to happen. remember Owning Mahowney they treated him like a god because they were terrified of him going to vegas and dumping it all back.

Hi Hellmuth was right:

I wasn't there and don't know what the decision making process was at Binions. But I do know that Jack Binion is a very smart person.

The question they would have to address is was Archie someone who was incredibly lucky or did he have a dice shot where he somehow had control of the dice and was thus able to shift the advantage to his favor instead of the house.

Now, at least in Nevada, for a throw of the dice to be legal, the dice must not only bounce to the back of the craps table but they also must bounce off the back wall of the dice table. When this is done, especially because the back wall of the dice table has small prongs or spokes that stick out, the roll of the dice will be essentially random and the shooter won't be able to control the dice. This was obviously the question that the people at Binion's had to answer as Archie's win began to mount, and since they let him continue to shoot dice, they must have been satisfied that his incredible streak was just luck.

And while I know there are others who disagree with me, I suspect his streak was just incredible luck. There are two reasons for this:

1. He didn't do it again, and,

2. Going back to my conversation with him he told me that he lost most of the money back playing baccarat and that he couldn't beat that game, and if his dice shooting wasn't luck but his baccarat play was, why would he ever go to a game where he didn't have an edge?

Best wishes,
Mason

Seething.. Check your blood pressure

Same reason why professional poker players play pit games and
gamble on sports. Because they are degens. I know many poker
players who crush poker but have lost tons playing baccarat.
Baccarat is a hell of a drug.

This is closer to the truth. I've known Archie since his early days in California. We first met in a bar in South L.A. where I was hustling five and ten dollar pool. He challenged me to play him for $50, one game of Eight Ball. That was a big bet in the late 60's and early 70's. I was afraid he might be a strong player but i had to find out. So we played one game and I won fairly easily. Then he quit, just like that. Years later he told me he just wanted to see if he could make me nervous and he had. But I could still play pool when I was nervous, just had to concentrate more.

Like all of you I'm not sure of how much he was winners at one time, but he told me he was ahead 40 Mil at the top of his run. I do know that we had a long conversation outside the Cue Club one day back in the mid 90's. He said he had settled with the IRS for four million and still had 17 Million locked up in cages in Vegas. Most was at Binions where at one time he had all their 5K chips. Jack had to buy back chips from Archie for his other high rollers. But he read off a list of strip casinos where he had millions in the cages. As I recall, it was Bellagio, Caesars, the Mirage and one or two more where had a few Mil at each one.

I advised Archie to invest 10 Mil with the same Beverly Hills investment counselor my father was using. This guy only handled million dollar plus accounts. My dad was consistently earning 10% on his money every year. That way Archie would still have 7 million to play with, plus an income of over 80K per month. He refused. Archie didn't trust anyone! Years later when he was short on money he told me he should have listened to me.

Archie did buy a nice property in Greece for his parents, but proceeded to go off for most of the money he had won playing Baccarat. Almost every casino had banned Archie from playing Dice. One of the very few men to ever be banned from playing that game who were not cheats. I think only Caesars would still let him play, but with low limits. Too low for Archie.

What Archie learned how to do was control one die. While one die was bouncing along, the other one was sliding into the wall. This skill was enough to give Archie an edge. If he needed a big number like nine or ten, to be able to slide a six out there was strong. If he needed a small number like four or five, to be able to slide a one was equally strong. This was key to his huge winnings. Semi legal but he got away with it for a long time.

I know the whole story (and so does Ray Zee) about how his run started and who he played poker with and beat. He did have trouble beating Johnny Chan and Chip beat him at Stud a time or two. But pretty much everyone else went down and no one could beat him at Lowball (2-7) or Razz, his favorite games. His run started with a million dollar score playing pool and he won another three million playing heads up poker. When he got ahold of four million he went after Binions playing Dice. I asked him once how much he wanted win and he told me he wanted to win the whole casino! That was how his mind worked.

Since then Archie has had several "starter" bankrolls of a few hundred thou to a million or so, and he still dreams of making another big score. But those days are over. He's in the Casino Black Book and banned just about everywhere. I'm sure his picture is on file with every casino in North America, Indian ones included.

Toupee Jay thanks for sharing this insider info.

He figured out he can’t beat baccarat, what a genius.

Thank you Toupee Jay

Me three!

jay is a good guy from the pool world and poker world that has a lifetime of great stories he shares with people. he tends to tell it like it is also.

Smart guy? The guy mostly played dice. Domain of idiots. He's a dumb gambler who happened to get a lucky streak. Still a dumb lucky degen who can't do basic math and gave it all back, like every degen ever.
Interview was the biggest waste of 10 mins of my life. Had to turn it off. Gibbering idiot.