Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Where I Stand — Hank Greenspun: Nick the Greek was always known as the king of the gamblers

Note to readers: This column by Sun founder Hank Greenspun appeared on Dec. 15, 1966. Nick the Greek Dandolos died 10 days later.

King of the gamblers.

Luck is a lady and she has been the love of his life.

Of all the men who have made their mark playing for high stakes, Nicholas Andreas Dandolos has easily achieved the most fabulous of all reputations.

Nick the Greek, as he is more readily identified, is truly the king of the gamblers, for no man in recorded history has won or lost more money in testing the various theories of making money without actually working for it.

It is estimated that he won and lost in his lifetime over a half-billion dollars. At least this is the amount of money that has gone through his hands while bucking the odds.

Nick the Greek's life is as well known to me as to any of his close friends or associates for Dick Donovan and I did the research and wrote the story in Collier's Magazine some 12 years ago.

The most fantastic of lives have to come to an end and I suppose Nick's stay on earth is also measured, for today he is battling the greatest odds of all -- the odds against survival. Nick is gravely ill in Los Angeles.

The story in Collier's Magazine was in great measure written from the pleasant recollections gained in listening to Nick, Benny Binion, Joe Bernstein and all the other real high-rollers of this and past generations.

In the old days, at about three in the morning, after the Sun was out on the street, I would go to the old Westerner and later the Horseshoe Club Binion owned and sit around fascinated by the yarns of bygone days when gambling was a skillful craft indulged in by artists instead of the big commercialized operation it is today.

Nick the Greek walked into a high-class floating crap game in New York many years ago with $1.6 million and walked out 12 days later wearing a bemused expression, having dropped the largest bundle in the shortest time in the honorable history of crap shooting.

He walked into a Hot Springs stud poker game with $20,000 and emerged seven hours later with $550,000.

He had played for eight days and nights without sleep and there were times he refused to leave the tables although desperately in need of medical help, and was treated by a physician while placing bets and most usually on the "don't pass" line.

He made his first bet in 1911 at a horse track in Montreal and returned to Chicago at the end of the racing season with over a million dollars in his pocket.

He has been alternately wealthy and busted 73 times in his life, by scrupulous count, but always came up with the money to indulge his favorite preoccupation.

And despite the many rumors and inferences as to the source of his money, he has always operated as an independent gambler, played on his own money, avoided tie-ups with gambling houses and hoodlum syndicates, kept his mouth closed about what he knew and paid his markers, or debts of principal, on time.

Flip a penny long enough, he would say, and you'll always get the same amount of heads and tails. And Nick flipped pennies for pistachio nuts or hundreds of thousands of dollars without changing expression or the tone of his voice.

Nick is a sensitive and courtly 6-footer with a cultivated, rather professional air, humanitarian instincts, a sharp, sometimes caustic wit and a talent for conversational counter-punching.

He has a degree in philosophy and believes the head should not be worn for appearance's sake. It was intended as a sounding board for reason and not to be used as a gong.

There has always been an air of mystery surrounding Nick because few people could get close to him and his extreme close-mouthedness. But of all his mysterious qualities, the one that has probably caused the most uneasiness and suspicion among his gambling associates has been his habit of reciting verses, making inscrutable philosophical statements or reading virtually unknown books at times of general stress.

Such qualities are unknown in the fraternity of high-rollers.

Nick the Greek always deplored fame. "In my profession, fame is usually followed by a jail sentence," he would say.

Nevertheless, fame is what he has and in hair-raising abundance. There was a time in Las Vegas when the many thousands of visitors coming to the town were probably more fascinated by Nick the Greek gambling than the fabulous floor shows the hotels paid many thousands of dollars to produce.

The stories about Nick the Greek are legion and few of the old-timers can recall real exploits of gambling without bringing his name into it.

I know most of the stories but the one that has most interest for me now is Nick's fight for life taking place at Mount Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.

He's never battled greater odds.

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