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Nick Dandolos: The Legend of “The Greek”

January 4, 2024

Nick Dandolos is one of the more extraordinary characters in the history of gambling in the twentieth century.

Known in the gambling world as “The Greek” (Dandolos was born in 1883 in Rethymno, on the island of Crete), he has represented, since the 50s, the idea of the professional gambler who does not play mainly for the prizes up for grabs but for everything that gravitates around a bet, a poker game or any other game.

He himself, in fact, often repeated: “I play for risk, not for money!”

THE ORIGINS

After studying at the prestigious Greek Evangelical College, a prestigious school that saw among its alumni world-class personalities such as Aristotle Onassis, he moved to the United States where he developed an interest in the game. An expensive passion but one that he managed to cultivate thanks to the financial resources of the family: his grandfather sent him a weekly “small gift” of 150 dollars. Undoubtedly a good sum of money for the time.

Although he was a permanent resident in Chicago, he was well known in Canada where he often went to focus on horse racing. After a few years he was now known in the industry, both for the staggering winnings and for the many losses. It is said, in fact, that on one of his trips to Canada he won $ 500,000 at horse races but, back in Chicago, he lost the entire nest egg in a few days between cards and dice.

PASSION VS TALENT: DANDOLOS VS MOSS

Of his career as a gambler remain in history the poker matches with opponents of undisputed talent, faced, by his own admission, more with passion than with skills at the table.

The astute Benny Binion, a leading figure of Las Vegas in the golden years, in June 1949 managed to give life to a real “marathon” of poker: a meeting that lasted more than six months that saw Dandolos’ passion for the game clash with the talent of the first world champion of the discipline, in Johnny Moss.

The event, organized in the halls of the Flamingo Casino, drew a record attendance in the halls of the casino during the entire duration.

The gap between the two contenders was immediately evident and, as reported by unofficial sources, the game ended when, exhausted and broke, Nick turned to the opponent and famously said: “Mr Moss, I have to let you go”.

THE SCAM

The event that negatively characterized the career but also the life of “The Greek” was the ignoble fraud he suffered at the hands of the shrewd Ray Ryan, an entrepreneur with interests in the oil and real estate sectors.

In a game in which Lowball and Gin Rummy alternated, The Greek lost about $550,000, but he was suspicious of cheating. Having asked around afterwards, The Greek learned that an accomplice of Ryan’s had lurked behind The Greek with binoculars and pointed at his cards and used a hand-held transmitter that allowed him to communicate.

NEARING THE END

Hoping to gain some revenge, Nick came to contact prominent Chicago mobsters, but the kidnapping attempt and threats did not prevent Ryan from getting away with it ultimately, and Dandolos was arrested along with two gangsters who had helped him. He was released early enough for cooperating with the investigation, but by then the decline was only just beginning.

At Christmas 1966, at the age of 84, after winning and losing an estimated fortune of 500 million dollars, the career and life of one of the most famous professional players ended.

FINAL CONSIDERATION

Despite losing a lot, his passion for the game led him to become a legend in the best casinos in the world to the point of being inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979.

He bequeaths to the world of Poker, a game that he loved in a particular way, wise words about his intense life, losses, and wins: “I have been extremely rich and equally extremely poor for 73 times during my long life. The euphoria of this form of existence is beyond my ability to describe.”