Our Patron Saint, The Greatest Gambler Of All-Time

READ MORE: Gambling, Horse Racing, Poker, Prop Betting, Titanic Thompson

Ever seen Guys and Dolls? Yeah, we haven’t either. But incorrigible gambling author Damon Runyon wrote the story from which the musical was based, and big-time gambler “Sky Masterson” had a real life model - Titanic Thompson.

Thompson was a golf hustler, pool shark, poker ace, card sharp, dice-setter, and most notably a proposition bettor. Anything he could do to exploit an edge, he would. Cheating, lying, hustling - anything at all - so long as he could find that edge. In what was probably his most storied prop, he was challenged to hit a golf ball five hundred yards. Of course, hitting the ball in the dead of winter onto iced-over Lake Erie gave the ball a little extra roll, and earned him a nice payday.

Still, nothing beats a little bad luck, even when the fix is in. We’ll let Michael James from Barstool Sports tell the story:

But my favorite Titanic Thompson bet was the one he made at a Tijuana race track on an 8-1 long shot named Nellie A. Believing in a sure thing, Thompson fixed the race by paying off every jockey in the field and threatening to place a sniper near the finish line to shoot at any horse that crossed the line before Nellie A. Everything was going to plan with Nellie A leading by 150 yards as they headed for home when, suddenly, the horse pulled up with a broken leg. The jockeys, fearing for the lives, tried to rein their horses in but there was nothing they could do to keep them from crossing the wire and Thompson, despite his best efforts, lost his fixed race.

What’s there not to love about this guy? Horses, golf, prop bets, and poker. You can take Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder, Stuey Ungar, and Minnesota Fats, put them in that Jeff Goldblum The Fly chamber, flip the switch, and you’re still not getting half the gambler Titanic Thompson was.*

*This message paid for by the Oddjack for Titanic Thompson in Today’s Poll Committee. No animals were harmed in the making of this post. Member, FDIC.

Greatest Moments In Gambling History [Barstool Sports]
Review of The Unsinkable Titanic Thompson [Jetcafe]
The propositional calculus [Snarkout]