Craps may not be as popular as it once was, but it remains an iconic game to this day. For those of you who aren’t familiar with craps, it is a pure game of chance (just like online slots) where players roll dice down the craps table. That’s all there really is to it.
If you’re lucky, you might get the right combination to secure a win, but the lack of skill is why there are no professional craps players or any players who try to earn a living using a professional craps strategy. It really is up to luck whether you hit or miss each time you roll the dice, even if you do know the odds when you roll.
But despite the game being so unpredictable, some people have claimed big wins, inspiring others to look out for the best online craps games. Here are the lucky craps players who’ve walked away with some impressive prizes.
Archie Karas
Archie Karas was a man who made millions gambling and then lost it all. Born Anargyros Nicholas Karabourniotis, Archie was born and raised in Greece. After a falling out with his father, he ran away from home and made his way to America. It was here that he discovered gambling and used it to make himself enough money to last several lifetimes. And lose it just as quickly.
The Upswing Poker article “The Amazing Story of Archie Karas” describes how he made millions of dollars playing pool and poker, but it never seemed to last. After winning and losing $2 million in Los Angeles, he made his way to Vegas, borrowed $10,000 from a friend and ended up with $17 million just a few months later. He took on opponents in pool and poker and, more often than not, walked away with thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, people soon clued onto the fact that Karas was extremely good and it wasn’t long before there was no one left to play against.
It was this that prompted Karas to switch to craps, where he would bet $100,000 to $200,000 on each roll. At his peak, he had earned approximately $40 million from gambling.
Unfortunately, it didn’t last and just a few weeks into 1995, he’d lost $39 million. He continued to gamble for many years, but he was never able to recreate his hot streak of the early 90s and even had a few encounters with the law.
Patricia Demauro
Imagine being a casual gambler, just out to have a bit of fun, and finding yourself making history after a four-hour hot streak playing craps? Well, this is exactly what happened to Patricia Demauro, a grandmother from New Jersey who enjoyed playing slots.
Time’s article “Holy Craps! How a Gambling Grandma Broke the Record” tells the tale of how Demauro visited the Borgata Casino with a friend of hers to play penny slots. A few hours passed and she’d gotten bored, so she went off in search of her friend. She found him playing poker but not having much luck. He offered to teach her how to play craps and little did the pair know at the time that it would mark the start of an incredible craps record.
Not long after Demauro started playing, word soon spread of her amazing hot streak. A crowd gathered around her to watch her roll the dice and it was only four hours and 18 minutes later that her fantastic feat came to an end. Demauro had managed 154 dice rolls in a row without landing a 7, setting a new world record. Time describes how the odds of this event occurring were roughly one in 1.56 trillion, so not very likely.
Unfortunately, the article doesn’t say how much she won, as Demauro declined to share this information, but it’s safe to say she walked away from that craps table with a lot more money than when she arrived. She still retains the record for the longest craps roll in history.
Stanley Fujitake
Before Patricia Demauro, there was craps player Stanley Fujitake. This Hawaiian from the island of O‘ahu enjoyed gambling at the California Hotel and Casino, but it’s unlikely that he anticipated that during a visit to the casino in 1989, he would go on to set a new record at his favorite game.
GamblingSites.org recalls how Fujitake turned the craps world upside down in their piece “Stanley Fujitake Enjoys the Longest Craps Roll in Sin City History.” Stanley had learned how to play craps from his wife, Satsuko, but he didn’t just learn the game. He fell in love with it. One morning during their visit to the California Hotel & Casino in 1989, Satsuko awoke to find that her husband hadn’t slept on his side of the bed.
That’s because her husband had been on an incredible winning streak the night before. At roughly midnight, he began a miracle run on the craps tables that lasted for more than three hours, with Stanley rolling the dice 118 times before a 7 finally landed, ending his incredible run of luck. He received $30,000 for his original $5 wager, but many others also walked away from the casino with thousands of dollars, making this an even more unforgettable night.
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