Famous Poker Legends

Binion’s first love was poker. During the 30’s Benny Binion started by running illegal gambling rackets and bootlegging in Dallas. He is one of the Las Vegas’s last true founders. He arrived in Las Vegas in 1946 and bought the dilapidated Eldorado Casino. Then he renamed the casino to Binion’s Horseshoe and soon after that it became the gambling activity epicenter. The Horseshoe was built mostly for real serious gamblers and not for common tourists.

For many decades, Binion would accept from anyone who walked into his casino a wager of any size. He was willing to make the ultimate gamble. There are many true stories in Binion’s life about high rollers with a lot of money at the craps table, riding on a single roll. In 1970 Binion decided to try and duplicate the success of the match between Johnny Moss and Nick Dandalos 20 years ago. He invited to the Horseshoe the top poker players for what he thought to be the world championship. This is how the World Series of Poker was born. Nowadays, more than 30 years later, the yearly event at Binion’s Horseshoe remains as the world greatest poker event and every serious poker player dreams to be a part of it. Benny Binion passed away in 1989. His family continues to manage the casino.

Jack Straus was called “Treetop” because he was two meters tall and had a big bushy beard. He was a really lovable man and had a reputation for betting every single dollar in his pocket every day. Straus carried around thousands of dollars which were placed chaotically in a brown paper bag. There were many cases in which he managed to lose the bag and he was left flat broke. He wasn’t upset when this happened, he just make comments like “Such is life.” Straus was one of the best No-Limit Texas Hold’em players of his time. In 1982 he won poker’s world championship. For years, the Frontier Casino in Las Vegas organized a major tournament in his name, which attracted poker’s best players. In 1988 he died from a heart attack while participating in a high-stakes poker game in Los Angelis. Straus died doing what he loved best - playing poker.

Johnny Moss was known also as “The Grand Old Man”. He continued playing poker until his 89th birthday. He was playing poker his entire life. Johnny Moss was originally from Texas. During the Great Depression he played in backrooms and illegal gambling halls of the South and after some time he earned his respect as one of the best poker professionals in the world. Moss was the pioneer who turned the game into a spectator event. He participated in the duel on Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas in 1949. That was the greatest heads-up poker match of all-time, when he faced in a 21-week marathon of Five-Card Stud, Nick “the Greek” Dandalos. Later on Moss took over the Dunes poker room and moved to Las Vegas which for many years was the Mecca for high-stakes poker. He won three times the World Series of Poker (he is the only player who has as many victories as Stu Ungar). He died in 1997.