The Legend of Nick the Greek

Of all the gamers who have ever lived, none were more well known than Nicholas Andreas Dandolos aka; Nick the Greek. The year was 1946. Benjamin “Bugsy” Seigal had just opened the Flamingo Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas and things were about to change forever. For the next 20 years, the mob maintained an iron grip on legalized gambling in Nevada.

It was during this time that the legend of “The Greeks” had begun to take hold. Although he was well known and appreciated in Damon Runyon’s hay days of the 1920s and 1930s, it was his adventures in Las Vegas that solidified the mystique surrounding the man.

There are so many stories attributed to the Greeks that it’s hard to separate fact from fiction. The only reliable accounts I have came from my father, who had spent as much time in Las Vegas as the guys who emptied the slot machines.

As a young man in his early 20s, Nick was engaged to be married and the day before the wedding, his fiancé ran off with another man. Heartbroken, some friends took him to the race track to distract him.

As the story goes, without rhyme or reason, Nick proceeded to randomly pick 8 consecutive winners, drawing nearly $20,000 of their bankroll. From that moment on, the stage was set and our hero never looked back. Some people believe in destiny, others don’t. In this situation it is difficult to call it otherwise.

At the craps tables, he was a confirmed “don’t pass” bettor who always put full odds against the point. He was a fearless player with an uncanny grasp of the mathematical percentages of any given game. He had great judgment and an innate instinct to find an advantage.

As with most experienced players, the methods they use to increase their bets when on a winning streak were mostly intuitive. When you’ve been gaming for that long, a lot becomes second nature.

The “Greek” was also known to use a tray system, as he called it. This was a method of locking in a portion of his winnings to ensure that he would not play it all out once he had a winning session.

Using an example; Starting with $1,000, you hit a winning streak. Gradually increase the bet up to $1,500. You would then secure $500 (50% of your initial bet) and continue to play with the remainder. If he won another $500, he would lock him in and play only with the winnings.

This is a very smart money management system that protects his capital and allows the player to try to build another level using his winnings. Every time he reached another $500 level, he would lock it and refuse to play it regardless of any lucky streak.

Nick The Greek seemed to have an inspired ability for any type of game. He was a believer in luck and recognized that all luck, good and bad, works in cycles. He knew the best way to take advantage of those cycles was to bet big when it was working for you and cut back when it was working against you. This procedure would guarantee that your winning bets would all be significantly higher than your losing bets.

One night at a dinner party, Nick went up to a high-stakes poker game. About two hours later he walked out of the game having lost $250,000. He came out on the dance floor laughing and joking and having a great time. A friend came up and asked how he could be dancing and in such a good mood after losing a quarter of a million dollars. With a big smile on his face, he looked at his friend and said, “Your life doesn’t go with that.”

Perhaps the reason the legend of Nick the Greek is so enduring is because he was clearly a classy guy. He was also known to say, “the only difference between a winner and a loser…is character.” For our purposes, we’ll call it self-discipline.

El Griego was said to have won and lost around $400 million in his lifetime, close to $1 billion in today’s money. Nick died broke in 1966, but I never got the feeling that having a lot of money meant so much to him anyway. It was just a way of keeping score.