Chances Are by Michael Kaplan Page A

of making a small fortune at the tables: start with a large one.
    There is another reason, though, for the natty threads and the diamond rings: gambler’s swank. Instinctively, the high roller understands the mathematics of gambler’s ruin: the smaller your bankroll, the sooner you’ll be heading out of town. The best strategy, then, is to play against other gamblers, rather than the house, and make your bankroll, real or apparent, work for you.
    Archie Karas is a man with a certain reputation in Las Vegas. Over six months starting in December 1992, he struck a remarkable upward curve, known in gambling circles simply as “The Run.” Starting at the Mirage with a borrowed $10,000, he tripled it playing Razz—seven-card stud in reverse, where the worst hand is best. Moving on to the pool tables, he cleaned out a high-rolling visiting businessman at eightball and then at poker; by now his bank was estimated to be around $3 million. Karas then challenged some of the best-known poker players in the world to take him on, individually and alone, at enormous stakes. These, too, he beat. In between matches, he would play craps at a table reserved for him—where his luck was slightly less good. By the end of the run, Karas, who had arrived with only $50 of his own money, was reputed to have won around $15 million.
    The Run is remarkable—and it illustrates many features of gambler’s swank. Karas was rarely matching wallets with the house; the most important phase was the extraction of the businessman’s money at pool, where Karas had perhaps a more realistic view of the probabilities than his opponent. Once Karas’ bankroll was in the millions, he could use it to intimidate at poker, blunting the skills of world-champion players with the sheer riskiness of playing at these stakes. Perhaps the best parallel is the story of one of the discoverers of statistics, Sir William Petty (a man we will meet again later). Desperately near-sighted, he was challenged in 1662 to a duel by the fire-breathing Puritan Sir Hierome Sanchy. What to do? How to balance such frightening odds? As the challengee, Petty had the choice of place and weapons—so he chose a blacked-out cellar and enormous carpenter’s axes. Sir Hierome demurred—proof that wit and gumption can be part of your bankroll as well as money.
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    John Law was born in Edinburgh in 1671, son of a goldsmith in a country perpetually short of gold. Goldsmiths were Scotland’s bankers, in a pawnbroking sort of way, and the young Law was in a good position to see that trade and enterprise were being stunted by lack of capital. Economic theory of the time based the wealth of nations either on bullion or on a favorable balance of trade; Scotland had neither.
    When his father died, Law did what any young Scotsman with a legacy would do: he left. Traveling the Continent, he established a pattern of life that showed the most regular irregularity. He would arrive in a new city and take the best rooms. Splendidly dressed, tall, pale, and long-nosed, he would choose as mistress the local lady who best combined the virtues of beauty, birth, and availability. He would then set up the Game—at which he normally acted as banker, and win all the money of anyone who cared to play.
    The card games of Law’s time were based on chance more than skill; they gave the banker only a small advantage. How, then, did Law win? Much as Archie Karas did. His front—the clothes, the rooms, the titled mistress, the icy calm—made him seem rich and indifferent to failure. Some of his success stemmed from his care and skill, but more from the apparent limitlessness of his funds: an opponent would be more likely to swallow a huge loss rather than return and risk the prospect of gambler’s ruin.
    Scotland, meanwhile, had suffered gambler’s ruin on the largest scale. Convinced that, lacking bullion, its only hope was an improved trade