Nick \”the Greek\” Dandolos: Biography, Career and Poker Results

October 22, 2026

Table of Contents

Nicholas Andrea Dandolos, known as Nick “the Greek”, was a Crete-born gambler who spent most of his life in the United States and died on Christmas Day 1966. He became famous for the size of his bets at cards, dice and the racetrack, and for a poker match against Johnny Moss that is told as one of the founding stories of modern poker, although historians doubt much of it. In 1979 he was named to the inaugural class of the Poker Hall of Fame. ^[3][1]

Illustration for Nick — Illustration: World Poker Federation (photo not available).

Nick “the Greek” Dandolos: key facts

Full name	Nicholas Andrea Dandolos ^[3]
Nickname	Nick the Greek
Born	1883, Crete ^[3]
Died	December 25, 1966, aged 83 ^[3]
Country	Greek-born; lived in the United States ^[2][3]
Known for	High-stakes gambling; the Johnny Moss match legend
Poker Hall of Fame	Inducted 1979, inaugural class ^[1]
WSOP bracelets	None (he died before the first WSOP in 1970) ^[6]
Live tournament earnings	None recorded, as of October 5, 2026 ^[2]

Early life: from Crete to America

Dandolos was born on Crete in 1883. According to Card Player, he arrived in the United States as a young man with an allowance from his family, a college graduate with a degree in philosophy and a love of poetry who spoke five languages. ^[3] In a 2008 Card Player essay, the author James McManus wrote that the allowance came from his godfather, a shipping magnate. ^[4]

Where his money came from was never clear. A three-part profile in Collier’s magazine, written by Richard Donovan and Hank Greenspun, claimed that he ran his first stake up to $500,000 betting on horses in Canada, then spent some 30 years gambling in Chicago, New York and New Orleans before settling in Las Vegas. ^[3] Jack Binion, whose father Benny later founded the World Series of Poker, told PokerNews in 2017 that Dandolos did not make his fortune in banking and real estate, as some accounts say: “Even then it was a mystery where his money came from, but probably from family wealth.” ^[6]

The “King of All Gamblers”

The Collier’s series introduced him to a national readership of two million as the “King of All Gamblers”. Card Player notes that the piece was as much public relations as biography: co-author Hank Greenspun owned the Las Vegas Sun and had a strong interest in giving readers a reason to visit the city. The magazine also reported that Dandolos had given away more than $20 million to charities. ^[3]

Stories about him in Las Vegas were common. Sam “The Jeweler” Angel, a gambler who worked as his driver in the 1950s, told the Las Vegas Sun that Dandolos once had him load old cardboard boxes from his garage into a car trunk and drive them to a casino: “It turned out they were full of cash.” ^[9]

Playing style and reputation

Dandolos was a gambler first and a poker player second. He described his approach in his own terms: “I play for the risk, not for the money.” ^[3] His contemporaries remembered his manner as much as his play. Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder, a friend of Benny Binion, said of him: “He recited poetry. He was beautiful with women. He made Omar Sharif look like a truck driver.” Benny Binion called him “the strangest character I ever seen”. ^[4]

In the best-known story about his poker, McManus writes that the Greek “had recklessly chased” an opponent’s pair of nines in a five-card stud hand and hit the card he needed, and that this “weakness for long shots” did not bode well for him. Moss, who is said to have lost that hand, later recalled: “I broke him in the end.” ^[4] Late in life he played limit high draw poker in the cardrooms of Gardena, California, which at the time were only allowed to deal draw poker. ^[10]

The Johnny Moss match: legend and evidence

Dandolos is best known in poker for a heads-up match against Johnny Moss. In the version usually told, he arrived in Las Vegas in 1949 looking for “the biggest game this world has to offer”, and casino owner Benny Binion agreed to set up a no-limit match against Moss as long as it was played in public, near the front of his casino. ^[4]

According to the legend, the two played for about five months, with crowds of 200 or 300 railbirds watching and tourists occasionally buying in for a minimum of $10,000. In one five-card stud hand, Dandolos caught a jack to beat Moss’s pair of nines and won a pot of $520,000. The match ended in mid-May, when Dandolos is said to have stood up and told his opponent, “Mr. Moss, I have to let you go.” Moss is said to have won between $2 million and $3 million. ^[4] Moss later said it was 1949 and that he won $4 million. ^[3]

The evidence is thin. The first published mention of the match was a January 1971 Sports Illustrated feature on Moss by Edwin Shrake, who presented it as a story old gamblers liked to tell and dated it 1951. No newspaper article from 1949 or 1951 mentions the game, Dandolos’s obituaries do not mention poker, and the Collier’s article lists about 20 of his opponents without naming Moss. ^[3] The story became widely known after Al Alvarez included it in his 1983 book The Biggest Game in Town, which linked it to the start of the World Series of Poker. ^[5]

In 2017 Jack Binion gave PokerNews his own account. Moss and Dandolos did play each other in 1949, he said, but at the Flamingo and not in public. A separate public game with several players took place at the Horseshoe in the early 1950s, and Dandolos was not part of it. “The Moss and Nick the Greek game was not the inspiration for the WSOP,” Binion said; the real inspiration was the 1969 Texas Gamblers Reunion in Reno. ^[6]

Greatest achievements

Dandolos died before tournament poker as it is known today began, so there are no tournament results to list. The table below sets out the documented milestones of his life and legacy.

Year	Milestone	Source
1883	Born on Crete	[3]
1949	Plays Johnny Moss at the Flamingo, Las Vegas, according to Jack Binion	[6]
1966	Dies on December 25, aged 83; buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, Las Vegas	[3]
1968	Ted Thackrey Jr. publishes Gambling Secrets of Nick the Greek	[8]
1971	First published mention of the Moss match, in Sports Illustrated	[3]
1979	Inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in its inaugural class	[1]

Poker Hall of Fame, 1979

Benny Binion established the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979, nine years after the first World Series of Poker. Dandolos was one of the seven members of the first class, together with Edmond Hoyle, Felton “Corky” McCorquodale, James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok, Johnny Moss, Red Winn and Sid Wyman. ^[1] The PokerNews Hall of Fame list gives his country as Greece, while the WSOP.com list gives the United States. ^[2][1]

A link in the freezeout story

Dandolos also appears in the history of the tournament format itself. According to The Guardian‘s obituary of Walter “Puggy” Pearson, Pearson suggested the freezeout format, in which play continues until one player has all the chips, to Dandolos, who in turn pitched the idea to Benny Binion. ^[7]

Books and legends

In 1968 the reporter Ted Thackrey Jr. published a series titled “Secrets of a Master Gambler” in the Toledo Blade and the book Gambling Secrets of Nick the Greek (Rand McNally, 1968; Pocket Books, 1970). The book contains the often-repeated tale in which Dandolos showed Albert Einstein around Las Vegas and introduced him as “Little Al from Princeton”. Quote Investigator traced the anecdote back to Thackrey and suspects it is a tall tale. ^[8] McManus also presents the Einstein story as an allegation, not a fact. ^[4]

Final years

Dandolos spent his last days in a hotel in Beverly Hills, playing low-stakes poker in Gardena, and died on Christmas Day 1966 at 83. He was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Las Vegas. ^[3] Both the Las Vegas Sun and the Review-Journal reported his burial on the front page, and Hank Greenspun was one of the pallbearers and delivered a eulogy. ^[4]

In his own words

“I play for the risk, not for the money. A trout fisherman fishes for sport, not for meat. This attitude creates mystery in the mind of the opposition. Nobody wants to put a mystery out of action. They want to see how it comes out.” ^[3]
“I have been rich and busted 73 times in my life. The exhilaration of this form of economic existence is beyond my power to describe.” ^[3]
“Hey, it’s action, isn’t it?” His reported answer when asked how he could play small games after gambling for millions. ^[10]
“Mr. Moss, I have to let you go.” The line attributed to him at the end of the legendary Moss match. ^[4]

FAQ about Nick “the Greek” Dandolos

What was Nick the Greek’s real name?

Nicholas Andrea Dandolos. ^[3]

When was Nick the Greek born and when did he die?

He was born on Crete in 1883 and died on December 25, 1966, aged 83. Some sources give a different birth year, so only the year reported by Card Player is used here. ^[3][4]

Where was Nick the Greek from?

He was born on the Greek island of Crete and lived most of his life in the United States, gambling in Chicago, New York and New Orleans before settling in Las Vegas. ^[3]

What was Nick the Greek’s net worth?

There is no reliable figure. He was known for winning and losing fortunes and said he had been “rich and busted 73 times”. He has no recorded live tournament earnings as of October 5, 2026, because he played before modern tournament poker. ^[3][2]

Did Nick the Greek really play Johnny Moss for five months?

Probably not in the way the legend describes. No contemporary reports of the match exist, and Jack Binion has said the two men played in private at the Flamingo in 1949, not in public at the Horseshoe. ^[3][6]

Is Nick the Greek in the Poker Hall of Fame?

Yes. He was one of the seven members of the first Poker Hall of Fame class in 1979. ^[1]

Did Nick the Greek win a WSOP bracelet?

No. He died in 1966, and the first World Series of Poker was held in 1970. ^[6]

Is there a book about Nick the Greek?

Yes. Ted Thackrey Jr. wrote Gambling Secrets of Nick the Greek, first published in 1968. Some of its stories, such as his meeting with Albert Einstein, are considered doubtful. ^[8]

Related Poker Legends

Read more about Johnny Moss, his opponent in poker’s best-known legend and a fellow member of the 1979 Hall of Fame class, and about Puggy Pearson, who is credited with suggesting the freezeout format to him.