Amarillo Slim the Prop Bet King

You may have heard of Amarillo Slim. This is a man that courts as much controversy as you can throw at him, but has his place in poker history as one of the main facilitators of the game of poker in the mainstream we enjoy today.

Thomas Austin Preston Jr was born on December 31st 1928 in Johnson, Arkansas and is most famed for his poker skills, pool skills and skilful proposition betting. More recently he has raced Doyle Brunson on mobile wheelchairs at the 2008 World Series of Poker but he has had his darker moments too. In 2003 he was charged with child molestation charges, against his own granddaughter, charges which were later reduced to misdemeanour assault and then a plea bargain agreed upon. The verdict on Slim is split in the poker world, but he has his place already in pokers colourful history. And it does not come more colourful than Amarillo Slim Preston.

Amarillo Slim loved to proposition bet. If he was not sure he could beat someone straight up he would place interesting props into the mix so he held an advantage. Slim was a great Pool player and he struggled to get a game against fellow gamblers due to his prowess at the game. He challenged a player to a game and offered to play with a walking stick. The player agreed to the bet, believing no-one could play well with a walking stick. What the player did not know was that Slim had been practising hard with the walking stick for some time in the hope of making such a bet and beat him easily.

Another well-known prop bet involved a game of Table Tennis (ping-pong to you Americans) and Slim was known to be pretty good at that game too. No problem, Slim would play with a frying pan. His opponent thought similar to the Pool player, no-one could possibly be any good with a frying pan and he would happily take this mad gamblers money! Wrong again! Slim had been practising with the frying pan and was very good with it. He won the bet.

Slim has had a lot of legitimate success at poker. He was one of the famous group of road gamblers that included Doyle Brunson and Sailor Roberts and recounts many crazy tales about that time in his Autobiography which was released in 2003 entitled, “Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People”. Slim won the 1972 World Series of Poker and then began appearing on lots of TV shows and talk shows thanks to his charisma and personality. Doyle Brunson has been quoted to say that thanks to Slims willingness to be a “known gambler” in a time that gambling was very much frowned upon he paved the way for pokers rebirth as a legitimate profession.

During his poker career Slim won four bracelets over an 18 year period. He won the 1972 main event for $60,000, the 1974 No Limit Holdem $1000 event for $11,100, the 1985 $5000 Pot Limit Omaha event for $85,000 and the 1990 $5000 Pot Limit Omaha event for $142,000. Slim released an e-book called “An E-Guide to No Limit Texas Holdem and continues to play in World Series of Poker events to this day.

He is, as I alluded to earlier, no stranger to controversy. He was reportedly beaten up on January 11th 2009 after meeting a person in a field and coming to blows over a gambling debt he wanted to collect. He has also had gunmen fire three shots into his car whilst running from an attempted robbery on the street from which he emerged unhurt. He is definitely a major character in the history of poker and his autobiography is great reading. If you like gambling history, you should read about the man that is Amarillo Slim.

By Malcolm Clarke