Nick “the Greek” Dandolos was born in Crete in 1893. Over a career of great renown, he secured the reputation as the last of the gentlemen gamblers and a man of great personal integrity, although some suggest the latter honor was not entirely deserved. Nick was the son of a rug merchant and the grandson of a shipowner. His grandfather sponsored Nick’s coming to the United States, and he became a citizen in 1902, when he was eighteen. His grandfather also gave Nick an allowance of $150 a week. Although he also gained a job selling figs, with his guaranteed stake he quickly moved to gambling action wherever he could find it. First he followed the horses and then turned to cards and dice.
During a career that made him one of the major celebrities of Las Vegas, Dandolos often gave his assessment of the gambling life: “The greatest pleasure in my life is gambling and winning. The next greatest pleasure is gambling and losing” (Alvarez 1983, 115) He might have added the rest of the compulsive gambler’s mantra: “Whatever is in third place ain’t even close”. Over his career he won and lost over $50 million – actually he lost quite a bit more than he won.
Nick the Greek won his reputation as the greatest player of his day and a gentleman from the fact that he would play for the highest stakes available anywhere. When he came to Las Vegas, he gained a cult following among Greek Americans with his big bets. He was a gentleman because he always showed grace when he lost, whether it was a few hundred dollars or several hundreds of thousands of dollars. He could afford to be graceful, because for most games he was staked—he was playing with other people’s money. Many times it was money given to him by compatriots of Greek heritage. Some writers have suggested that his frequent losses, for which his Greek sponsors would forgive him because he was one of them, were caused because he made arrangements with his adversaries across the tables. It has been alleged that he would lose on purpose and receive a kickback after play was over.
Dandolos came to Las Vegas before the Mob had taken over the Strip. He played at the Flamingo when Bugsy Siegel was still alive. A few years later he became a national figure when Benny Binion of the Horseshoe invited Dandolos to play in a poker game against Johnny Moss. Moss and Dandolos went at it one-on-one in the front window of the Horseshoe. The game, or series of games, lasted five months and was a precursor to the establishment of the later World Championship of Poker. The lead went back and forth, but in the end Moss, fourteen years the Greek’s junior, “outlasted” Dandolos.
Although his reputation remained for another decade, Nick the Greek began slipping in the 1950s. He started borrowing heavily, and his losing continued. A collection had to be taken to pay his funeral costs after he died on Christmas Day in 1966. To the end he was a gambler in his heart. When he was asked why people gambled, he responded, “Why? Because they find ordinary life a swindle, a sellout, a ripoff. It’s just eating, working, dying. The nose to the ground and the boss chewing out your ass. Attached to one woman, she growing wrinkled and mean before your eyes. Okay, okay; most people accept it. Most people accept anything and do not balk. But the few who don’t accept, that’s your lifelong gambler”.
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