Eric Drache

Eric Drache finished 2nd in the 2009 $10,000 World Championship Seven Card Stud event in the WSOP. I had never heard of Eric Drache until I read this fine piece by Benjo over at the Tao of Poker. I was intrigued by a guy like Drache who literally invented tournament satellites, who helped produce the greatest TV poker show ever (High Stakes Poker) and who had once been responsible for running the WSOP itself.

Benjo told a story of a nice guy who had lots of old timer Vegas guys rooting him on to what was hopefully to be Drache's first WSOP bracelet. The old timers told stories about Drache like the following:

"And he was taking care of the people working for him, too," continued Thor. "One Christmas, he was short of money to pay the dealers their bonuses. He knew those people were like any other people and had been gambling, or doing whatever else they were doing. They were short of money, and he didn't want to leave them broke for Christmas. So what did he do ? He went on the street, and borrowed several dozens of thousands of loan-shark money to give to them. He had to pay juice for months after that, but it didn't matter. Cause he made his people happy for Christmas."

The story begs the question of why he was short of money in the first place. I was curious - so I looked around the Internets for more information on Eric Drache. Wikipedia had this nugget on his page:

In the middle nineties he was prosecuted on federal tax fraud charges and lost his Nevada gaming license as a result, which is required to work in casinos.

Take everything you read on the Internets with a grain of salt (especially Wikipedia) but I found this nugget via a Google search and the picture of Eric Drache seemed to come clearer:

Eric Drache was put in charge of the WSOP. What a joke this was. Poker was now controlled by cheats. It was always controlled before, but it was not this well organized. Eric Drache was a compulsive sports better and soon was losing more at sports than he could steal or cheat. On the occasion that he was let go from the WSOP after running it for years, he had sold many seats for a discount for a quick monetary fix. He must of sold twenty to thirty WSOP $10,000 seats for $8,000 cash before the event. After losing the money he was in a bad situation. Jack Binion covered the loss and nothing was told to the public. However, Eric Drache was no longer running the WSOP. This is the reason that Eric Drache was no longer in charge of the WSOP.

The picture now seemed more fleshed out and understandable. Pure speculation on my part but it seems like a nice guy with intelligence who had skills in poker but who fell prey to a lack of skill in picking winners in sports betting. Using money from the dealers Christmas bonuses or from discounted entries for the WSOP Main Event to be replaced when the Raiders or Lakers or the Yankees or whoever covered the spread. Of course in the gambler's mind it is always "when" and not "if" and when the "whens" fail to pass you end up borrowing money from loan sharks or getting fired from your gig running the WSOP for skimming from the entry money.

The fall and redemption of a guy like that would seem to make a great Hollywood story line. Of course to make it a true Hollywood tale - the guy who invented the tournament satellite would have to win a satellite to get into the 2009 WSOP and he of course would not finish 2nd. In the movie version - he'd have to win it. I'd go to see a movie like that.