Ten Of The Biggest And Weirdest Wagers In Las Vegas History

Las Vegas is a city that is synonymous with gambling and over the years, while most of the wagering has taken place on a small scale with payouts kept down to just tens to a few hundred dollars, there are people who have come into the city and made epic wins, or losses. This has been achieved only by placing some of the largest and most unusual wagers in the city’s history.

In this article, we’ll examine ten of the people who travelled to Vegas with one thing in mind; to make the bet of a lifetime and become part of the colourful history that has given Las Vegas such a rich and varied life story.

1. The Buried Life Quartet – Four stars of MTV’s show “The Buried Life” decided that to earn a million dollars, Las Vegas was the answer. Between them, they got together $125,000 and placed it all on a single spin of the roulette wheel. They won, doubling their money and then placed the $250,000 on a second spin, which saw them go from big winners, to big losers on the spin of a single wheel.

2. Brian Zembic – Some bets defy belief and Brian Zembic’s certainly enters that category. After arguing with a friend about breast implants, Zembic was challenged to get breast implants of 38C in his chest and wear them for a year for $100,000. Zembic, who had gambling debts, accepted the wager and duly had them implanted. Zembic then won his bet, keeping the implants for a year.

3. Archie Karas – Arguably Las Vegas most revered figure, Karas came to Vegas with just $50 in his wallet and in three years, had turned that into a $17m fortune. Karas often frightened many other high rollers by the fact that he would play for far more than they would, often playing hands for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Incredibly, just a year after he was $17m rich, he had lost almost all his cash, chiefly because he was making $100,000 bets on the roll of a single dice.

4. Bob Stupak – The mega-rich casino owner was used to making high profile wagers and in 1989, he decided to take that a stage further. Confident the San Francisco 49ers would win the Superbowl, Stupak placed $1m on them to win the Superbowl at even money. Sure enough, Stupak’s belief in the team paid off as they beat the Washington Redskins in the game to earn the casino owner a clear million dollar profit from a single bet.

5. Stu Ungar – Bob Stupak returns in this tale about the incredible Stu Ungar. Mr Ungar was a professional blackjack player who had an incredible ability to memorise the deck of cards. Impressed by his skill, Bob Stupak bet Ungar that he could not remember the cards in three decks for $100,000. Ungar took the bet, watched the three decks of cards dealt and then recounted them perfectly to earn himself a tidy bonus on top of his blackjack winnings.

6. William Lee Bergstrom – When Benny Binion, the owner of the famous Horseshoe casino in Las Vegas, first opened his casino he realised that in order to increase his profitability, he would need to attract wealthier gamblers willing to wager more in order to win more. Of course, the flip side of this is that when gamblers struck it lucky, it left Mr Binion nursing a hefty loss. In 1980, William Lee Bergstrom walked into Mr Binion’s casino with $777,000 dollars in a suitcase and placed every penny of it on the Don’t Pass line on the craps table. The thrower rolled the dice and sevened out, meaning that Bergstrom walked away with $1,554,000 from one single throw.

7. Ashley Revell – The UK citizen decided to try and earn himself a new life by taking a once in a lifetime trip to Las Vegas to make a once in a lifetime bet. Mr Revell sold everything he owned, including his home, car, possessions and clothes and took the $135,000 he had raised to Las Vegas, placing it on a single spin of the roulette wheel. Revell picked red and the ball landed in red seven. Mr Revell collected his $270,000 winnings, tipped the spinner $600 and left the casino having doubled his money.

8. Jackie Gaughan and Skylab – Certainly one of the oddest wagers ever made in Las Vegas came in 1979 when El Cortez owner Jackie Gaughan opened a book taking bets on where the wreckage of the Skylab satellite would fall. It is not known how many people took him up on the bet but Gaughan offered odds on a huge number of places, though it is not recorded if anybody won anything once the satellite had crashed to earth in Australia.

9. John Hennigan – One of the most unusual wagers came between avid high-rolling gambler John Hennigan and his friends. Knowing how much Hennigan loved the Las Vegas life, his friends bet him $100,000 that he could not spend six weeks in Des Moines, Iowa. Hennigan accepted the bet believing it to be an easy way to earn $100,000 but returned to Las Vegas after just two days, willingly paying out to his friends.

10. Howard Lederer – The famous poker player was once so obese that doctors had warned him to lose weight to save his health. Through gastric bypass surgery and a diet, Lederer managed to reach a healthy weight and stayed on his diet. When fellow poker player David Grey bet him $10,000 he wouldn’t eat a cheeseburger, Lederer grabbed the burger and wolfed it down, collecting his cash before returning to his diet.

Wagers like those outlined above are part of Las Vegas folklore; they are the colour that adds dynamism, mystique and allure to what is an already an eye-catching and attractive city. While many gamblers will never make the same gets that these ten did, it is interesting to know that some of the incredible stories you hear at the gaming tables in the city may well be true.