Nikolaos Andreas Dandolos – Nick the Greek: The king of gambling
Nikolas Dandolos was originally from Smyrna and was born in Rethymnon, Crete, on April 27, 1883. He is the most famous and most honorable professional gambler in the world, of all time, who became known as "Nick the Greek" (Nick the Greek). A man who became a legend in the imagination of romantic people but also went down in history as America's greatest gambler. No one in the entire world, in human history, has managed to win or lose more money by putting to the test all known theories about work. and easy enrichment. He was for almost half a century the most famous Greek in America, better known than Spyro Skoura, Dimitris Mitropoulos, Ilia Kazan.The designation "card player" in the person of this man did not have the bad meaning of the word, but his employment and performance in the card game and indeed at the highest professional level.
He grew up in a well-to-do family environment. His father was a carpet merchant and his godfather a shipbuilder. He graduated from the "Hellenic Evangelical College" of Smyrna with a degree in Philosophy. But his personality was such that he was not destined to become the next Plato. At the age of 18, his godfather sent him to the USA, with the aim of gaining experience in business. Dandolos was supported financially by his godfather with a weekly "allowance" of 150 dollars, a very significant sum for the times.
His first stop was Chicago. There he met and fell in love with a girl but after their breakup he moved to Montreal, Canada. There, in 1911, he met a famous horse racing jockey, Phil Musgrave. Aided by Musgrave's advice and guided by his innate ability to make money out of nothing, Dandolos won nearly half a million dollars in six months betting on horse races.
Then he returned to Chicago again. There he continued and lost all the money he had won in Montreal, playing large sums at cards and dice, games which so far were unknown to him. But this did not stop him from deciding what his profession would be for the next few years. He gradually became a master of gambling and gained a great reputation. Often big casinos offered him big salaries to work for them (to avoid the "damages" he caused them as a player) but usually Dandolos would say no, but he couldn't avoid being the show of the night in every casino he visited because he never stopped betting, even when he lost 100.000 dollars in a single bet. The name "Nick the Greek" took on legendary proportions and only the name of Johnny Moss, the best poker player of the time, could to be considered equal.
Our compatriot's biggest gambling matches took place on New Year's Day, mainly in Las Vegas. Once, a minute before New Year's, Nick lost some $300.000 in a trick and calmly stood up and gave the signal for the lights to flash and the champagne to be opened. "I hope," he said, "with the change next time my luck will change too". When he continued he swept the table winning $1.250.000, an amount he lost in a month on roulette and horses, the biggest of all his weaknesses. According to his niece (his sister's daughter who lived in Athens), Dandolos ranked his favorite games as follows: Horses, dice, roulette, cards. He himself faced his misfortune at the racetrack rather mockingly: "Quadrupeds, you see, most of the time run with only three legs...".
During his career he had defeated almost all of their opponents and was constantly looking for new challenges. In the state of Nevada, gambling was legalized in 1931. Thus, Las Vegas became its base.
In the summer of 1949, and while his streak continued, Dandolos approached Benny Binion, a casino owner and poker fanatic, with the unusual request of the time to book him a showdown with the best up to that time. poker player, a game that will was billed as "Marathon Poker". Binion agreed to stage the match between Nick the Greek and the legendary Johnny Moss on the condition that the game be played in public.In fact, this event is widely credited as the inspiration for the modern-day World Series of Poker. , established in 1970.
This game, which went down in history as the longest poker game ever played, began in January 1949 and ended in May of that year. two opponents played every variation of poker there was. In the end, Moss won what was billed as the "Biggest Game in Town" and a sum of $2 million. When Dandolos lost his last dime, he slowly rose from his chair , moved quietly and uttered the famous line: "Mister Moss, I have to let you go". He then headed upstairs where he fell asleep... Fatigue seems to have been significant factor for the defeat of the now 66-year-old Dandolos, as he was 24 years older than his opponent.
Late in life, when he was now single, he used to play small games of poker somewhere in Southern California. When asked how a few years ago he bet millions of dollars and now plays for 5 dollar chips he replied that "that's life...".
Dandolos played for the thrill of the game and not for the money, while he used to say, "Luck is a woman and this woman is the love of my life." In his life, Nick the Greek is valued that he won and lost more than 500 million dollars (an amount mythical for the data of the time), while there are estimates that increase this amount to 2 billion dollars. He donated more than $20 million to charitable and educational causes, a huge amount, as we said, for the time. He is the only Greek to be inducted (in 1979) into the "Hall of Fame" list of poker legends along with 21 other great poker players.
He had created a mystery around his person as he never revealed his secrets to anyone while he used to tip his croupiers heavily. In defiance of all those who questioned the origin of his money he called himself an "independent gambler", avoiding expensive casinos and closed clubs of tie-wearing "professionals" inof sorts. During the game he used to remain expressionless without changing his facial expression or the timbre of his voice. He was tall, sensitive, with a professional air, humanitarian instincts, sometimes caustic in his comments but always with talent and readiness to face challenges.
He liked to use wise phrases to describe something he wanted to say like in the case of glory: "In my profession glory is usually followed by a sentence that includes the word, 'prison'."
Nevertheless, glory was his constant companion throughout his life. There were times when thousands of visitors came to Las Vegas not for the glittering buildings and spectacular shows but because the fame of Nick the Greek drew them there. Stories about Nick the Greek border on legend, and old-timers find it hard to tell a story from those days without mentioning his name.
He was kind, with finesse and nobility and won you over immediately with his mannerisms. He wasn't typical on dates, you might have a meeting and he'd show up two months later apologizing for not coming. What impressed most people was that he did not gamble only in the gambling halls but everywhere and always in his life.
But of all the stories about Nick the Greek, the most interesting is the one with the battle he fought for his life at Mount Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. He had never fought harder and never taken a greater risk.
The "gentleman of green felt", died at the age of 83, on 25 December of 1966, from a heart attack, having previously had pneumonia. He was now penniless, although he lived in the most luxurious hotel in Las Vegas. A number of his famous friends met and saw to it that he had a fitting funeral – gold coffin, gold everything for a truly great legend of Las Vegas...He was buried in great luxury by Frank Sinatra, who wept as if he were his father...Hollywood mothers, stars and mobsters, came in their tinted limousines and laid flowers with playing cards, mainly the Riga sword, which represented him in the field of gambling. The American newspapers wrote it on the front pages and devoted several pages to it. As Telis Savalas said, famous gamblers sought to be Nick's opponents even once, in order to tell the story, like at his funeral, how they had played with him.
Our countryman master of cards, famous above all for his honesty, did not die rich. Entire fortunes had passed through his hands. Charities, horses and a lack of business spirit scattered the money that the great player had won on the green felt. Frank Sinatra, saying goodbye to him, said: "Nick, you were so pure and honest that the only property you had was your good deeds"
From: The Investigator of Veria
Nikolas Dandolos was originally from Smyrna and was born in Rethymnon, Crete, on April 27, 1883. He is the most famous and most honorable professional gambler in the world, of all time, who became known as "Nick the Greek" (Nick the Greek). A man who became a legend in the imagination of romantic people but also went down in history as America's greatest gambler. No one in the entire world, in human history, has managed to win or lose more money by putting to the test all known theories about work. and easy enrichment. He was for almost half a century the most famous Greek in America, better known than Spyro Skoura, Dimitris Mitropoulos, Ilia Kazan.The designation "card player" in the person of this man did not have the bad meaning of the word, but his employment and performance in the card game and indeed at the highest professional level.
He grew up in a well-to-do family environment. His father was a carpet merchant and his godfather a shipbuilder. He graduated from the "Hellenic Evangelical College" of Smyrna with a degree in Philosophy. But his personality was such that he was not destined to become the next Plato. At the age of 18, his godfather sent him to the USA, with the aim of gaining experience in business. Dandolos was supported financially by his godfather with a weekly "allowance" of 150 dollars, a very significant sum for the times.
His first stop was Chicago. There he met and fell in love with a girl but after their breakup he moved to Montreal, Canada. There, in 1911, he met a famous horse racing jockey, Phil Musgrave. Aided by Musgrave's advice and guided by his innate ability to make money out of nothing, Dandolos won nearly half a million dollars in six months betting on horse races.
Then he returned to Chicago again. There he continued and lost all the money he had won in Montreal, playing large sums at cards and dice, games which so far were unknown to him. But this did not stop him from deciding what his profession would be for the next few years. He gradually became a master of gambling and gained a great reputation. Often big casinos offered him big salaries to work for them (to avoid the "damages" he caused them as a player) but usually Dandolos would say no, but he couldn't avoid being the show of the night in every casino he visited because he never stopped betting, even when he lost 100.000 dollars in a single bet. The name "Nick the Greek" took on legendary proportions and only the name of Johnny Moss, the best poker player of the time, could to be considered equal.
Our compatriot's biggest gambling matches took place on New Year's Day, mainly in Las Vegas. Once, a minute before New Year's, Nick lost some $300.000 in a trick and calmly stood up and gave the signal for the lights to flash and the champagne to be opened. "I hope," he said, "with the change next time my luck will change too". When he continued he swept the table winning $1.250.000, an amount he lost in a month on roulette and horses, the biggest of all his weaknesses. According to his niece (his sister's daughter who lived in Athens), Dandolos ranked his favorite games as follows: Horses, dice, roulette, cards. He himself faced his misfortune at the racetrack rather mockingly: "Quadrupeds, you see, most of the time run with only three legs...".
During his career he had defeated almost all of their opponents and was constantly looking for new challenges. In the state of Nevada, gambling was legalized in 1931. Thus, Las Vegas became its base.
In the summer of 1949, and while his streak continued, Dandolos approached Benny Binion, a casino owner and poker fanatic, with the unusual request of the time to book him a showdown with the best up to that time. poker player, a game that will was billed as "Marathon Poker". Binion agreed to stage the match between Nick the Greek and the legendary Johnny Moss on the condition that the game be played in public.In fact, this event is widely credited as the inspiration for the modern-day World Series of Poker. , established in 1970.
This game, which went down in history as the longest poker game ever played, began in January 1949 and ended in May of that year. two opponents played every variation of poker there was. In the end, Moss won what was billed as the "Biggest Game in Town" and a sum of $2 million. When Dandolos lost his last dime, he slowly rose from his chair , moved quietly and uttered the famous line: "Mister Moss, I have to let you go". He then headed upstairs where he fell asleep... Fatigue seems to have been significant factor for the defeat of the now 66-year-old Dandolos, as he was 24 years older than his opponent.
Late in life, when he was now single, he used to play small games of poker somewhere in Southern California. When asked how a few years ago he bet millions of dollars and now plays for 5 dollar chips he replied that "that's life...".
Dandolos played for the thrill of the game and not for the money, while he used to say, "Luck is a woman and this woman is the love of my life." In his life, Nick the Greek is valued that he won and lost more than 500 million dollars (an amount mythical for the data of the time), while there are estimates that increase this amount to 2 billion dollars. He donated more than $20 million to charitable and educational causes, a huge amount, as we said, for the time. He is the only Greek to be inducted (in 1979) into the "Hall of Fame" list of poker legends along with 21 other great poker players.
He had created a mystery around his person as he never revealed his secrets to anyone while he used to tip his croupiers heavily. In defiance of all those who questioned the origin of his money he called himself an "independent gambler", avoiding expensive casinos and closed clubs of tie-wearing "professionals" inof sorts. During the game he used to remain expressionless without changing his facial expression or the timbre of his voice. He was tall, sensitive, with a professional air, humanitarian instincts, sometimes caustic in his comments but always with talent and readiness to face challenges.
He liked to use wise phrases to describe something he wanted to say like in the case of glory: "In my profession glory is usually followed by a sentence that includes the word, 'prison'."
Nevertheless, glory was his constant companion throughout his life. There were times when thousands of visitors came to Las Vegas not for the glittering buildings and spectacular shows but because the fame of Nick the Greek drew them there. Stories about Nick the Greek border on legend, and old-timers find it hard to tell a story from those days without mentioning his name.
He was kind, with finesse and nobility and won you over immediately with his mannerisms. He wasn't typical on dates, you might have a meeting and he'd show up two months later apologizing for not coming. What impressed most people was that he did not gamble only in the gambling halls but everywhere and always in his life.
But of all the stories about Nick the Greek, the most interesting is the one with the battle he fought for his life at Mount Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. He had never fought harder and never taken a greater risk.
The "gentleman of green felt", died at the age of 83, on 25 December of 1966, from a heart attack, having previously had pneumonia. He was now penniless, although he lived in the most luxurious hotel in Las Vegas. A number of his famous friends met and saw to it that he had a fitting funeral – gold coffin, gold everything for a truly great legend of Las Vegas...He was buried in great luxury by Frank Sinatra, who wept as if he were his father...Hollywood mothers, stars and mobsters, came in their tinted limousines and laid flowers with playing cards, mainly the Riga sword, which represented him in the field of gambling. The American newspapers wrote it on the front pages and devoted several pages to it. As Telis Savalas said, famous gamblers sought to be Nick's opponents even once, in order to tell the story, like at his funeral, how they had played with him.
Our countryman master of cards, famous above all for his honesty, did not die rich. Entire fortunes had passed through his hands. Charities, horses and a lack of business spirit scattered the money that the great player had won on the green felt. Frank Sinatra, saying goodbye to him, said: "Nick, you were so pure and honest that the only property you had was your good deeds"
From: The Investigator of Veria