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Famous American Gamblers
Nick the Greek
Nick "The Greek" Dandelos
b. 1893
d. 1966
A man who became almost as legendary as any man in romantic fiction and certainly America's most famous gambler.
Born in Rethymnon, Crete, and educated at the Greek Evangelical College in Smyrna, Nick ( whose real name was Nicholas Andrea Dandelos ) was the son of a rug merchant and the godson of a wealthy ship owner. When he was 18 years old, his grandfather sent him to America, giving him an allowance of $150 a week. In Chicago he met and fell in love with a girl, but they quarreled and Nick moved on to Montreal. There he became friendly with a leading jockey of the day, Phil Musgrave; assisted by the jockey's advice and his own natural ability for working out odds, Nick won $500,000 in six months' betting on horse races.
Nick then went back to Chicago and promptly lost the entire amount playing card and dice games that were unfamiliar to him. But he was not at all deterred from continuing in his chosen profession. He began to study these games assiduously and in a few years had become so well known as a freelance gambler that casino proprietors were offering him large salaries to work for them. He usually refused, but became an enormous attraction at the casinos nevertheless merely by playing - partly because he would seldom stop gambling even after losing (as he frequently did) as much as $100,000 in a single session at the tables.
Naturally this unpredictable gambler with a degree in philosophy and a passion for Aristotle & Plato was the source of endless speculation and rumor. It is widely believed that he once won a city block in Los Angeles, that he challenged an arrogant opponent to draw one card for $550,000 (the other man backed down), that he played faro for 10 days and nights without sleep.
In the summer of 1949, as the story goes, Nick the Greek approached Benny Binion with an unusual request-to challenge the best in a high-stakes poker marathon. Binion agreed to set up a match between Dandolos and the legendary Johnny Moss, with the stipulation that the game be played in public view.
During the course of the marathon, which lasted five months with breaks only for sleep, the two men played every form of poker imaginable. Moss ultimately won "the biggest game in town" and an estimated $2 million. When the Greek lost his last pot, he arose from his chair, bowed slightly, and uttered the now-famous words, "Mr. Moss, I have to let you go." Dandolos then went upstairs to bed.
He was enshrined in 1979 as a charter member of the Poker Hall of Fame.
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