Not all forms of gambling can be performed professionally. You can’t use skill and strategy to play slot machines or roulette. But there are forms of gambling that can, and are, played by pros. Gambling for profit may be a dream for many but it has become a form of life for just a select few players in history. And these may be the best-known of them all.
Archie Karas
Anargyros Nicholas Karabourniotis, best known by his nickname Archi Karas, was a man who could have shown up at any of the high-roller casinos listed at onlinecasinosonline.co.za – and broken the bank.
Between 1992 and 1995, Karas turned a loan of $10,000 received from an acquaintance into $40 million by playing high-stakes poker and pool. Then he went on to lose all of it at games of high-stakes baccarat and dice.
Kerry Packer
Kerry Packer was a famous media mogul in Australia, owner of Channel Nine and other media outlets. And he was a passionate gambler and high-roller, known for winning and losing fortunes at casinos.
Legend has it, Packer once walked into a famous London casino with £15 million in his pocket and lost it all playing roulette. At another time, he won $33 million at a casino in Las Vegas. He certainly didn’t feel it – his net worth reportedly reached $6.5 billion.
Alan Woods
There seems to be something about Australian media and gambling, because another famous Aussie gambler, Alan Woods, also came from a media background – his parents ran a news agency. Woods played blackjack occasionally until the late 1970s, but really dived into the world of gambling in the 1980s. He played in pretty much every casino around the world. In 1982, he gave up blackjack and switched to horse racing, settling in Hong Kong. Together with professional gambler Bill Benter, Woods worked on a computer-aided prediction model that seems to have worked, generating $100,000 in revenues in the 1987 season alone. By the 1990s, Woods won more than $1 million from horse racing bets alone.
Edward Thorp
Edward Thorp went down in history as a mathematics professor and blackjack researcher. He taught mathematics at a variety of high-profile American universities and at the same time, he wanted to crack the mathematics of blackjack, creating a theoretical research model on the probabilities of winning. In his book “Beat the Dealer”, Thorp has proven that blackjack’s house edge could be overcome by simply counting the cards.
Billy Walters
Finally, let’s not forget William T. “Billy” Walters, one of the most successful sports gamblers in the US. A long-time gambler (he started gambling at the age of 9), he lost $50000 by the time he turned 22. He was an advantage gambler, using biases to predict roulette outcomes and win large sums at casinos.
In the 1980s, he joined a group that used computers to predict sports outcomes. As a result, he had a 30-year winning streak – at one point, he bet $2.2 million on the outcome of a college football match – and won.
Final words
There are several casino games that are based on nothing but luck. And for most bettors, sports betting is also a mystery. There are, in turn, those select few that can see through the veil of the future – using probabilities, computers or just their instincts – and make a living playing casino games or betting on sports. Archie Karas, Billy Walters, and others have proven that it’s possible – but it will never be easy. So, whenever you think of following their lead, make sure to do it in a responsible way.
