According to a number of reports out of California, legendary gambler and poker player Archie Karas (née Anargyros Karabourniotis) was arrested at his Las Vegas home last week for cheating at blackjack. He faces charges of burglary, winning by fraudulent, means and cheating.
Karas committed the crime at the Barona Casino, located in Lakeside, California, a town in the northeast San Diego metropolitan area. He was nabbed by the Barona Gaming Commission for allegedly marking cards at a blackjack table. Security footage reportedly shows the 62-year old placing what the District Attorney’s office calls “subtle, but distinguishable mark(s) on the back of playing cards.” These marks, if done well, would have been visible only to Karas and given him knowledge of what the dealer’s down-card was and perhaps what would be the next card to be dealt from the shoe.
The California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Gambling Control and the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office also investigated the alleged cheating; both, along with the Gaming Commission, positively identified Karas on the security tapes as the one who was marking cards.
It has not been reported if Karas how exactly Karas was caught. It is possible that someone thought something he was doing looked fishy, so authorities were called in to look at the security footage. It is also possible that casino officials thought his winning run seemed too “perfect,” that his play was impeccable, so they decided to investigate further. In any case, he was caught cheating the casino out of $8,000.
Karas will be extradited to San Diego from Las Vegas.
Karl Bennison, chief of investigations for the Nevada Gaming Control Board, told the San Diego Union-Tribune that this is not Karas’ first time running afoul of the law. In fact, he has been arrested four times in Nevada for gambling-related crimes. In 1992, he was apprehended for card-switching, a cheating method in which he swapped cards with a partner. In 1996, he tried something different: pressing bets. In this scam, the cheater secretly adds chips to his bet after he knows he has a winning hand. Two years later, he was caught marking cards, and again in 2007.
Archie Karas’ claim to gambling fame was the legendary run he went on from 1992 to 1995. After losing all but $50 of his $2 million bankroll, Karas moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to get involved in bigger games. He started by borrowing $10,000 from a friend at Binion’s Horseshoe, immediately running that up to $30,000 playing Razz. He then switched to pool, playing someone he calls “Mr. X” for anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000 per game, eventually growing his bankroll to over $1 million. The two men moved on to poker, where Karas dominated, winning another $3 million.
After Mr. X, Karas took on the world’s best poker players – names such as Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan – and built his roll to $17 million. When nobody wanted to play against him anymore, Karas tried his luck at dice, eventually growing his wad to $40 million.
As is wont to happen to extreme gamblers, Karas lost it all in a span of three weeks in 1995.
