A Real Winner

Stanley Sludikoff is a living legend in the gambling industry. He has accomplished so many things during his 80 years of living that I don't know where to begin.

He recently responded to a column I wrote or this website, where I listed my New Year's Resolutions for 2016. One resolution was that I would not take a poker player's final chips. Sludikoff's response: 'Well, I guess that leaves out poker tournaments.' That made me smile and I had to acknowledge that Stanley had scored a point.

I first came across Stanley as a publisher back in the 1970s. He was publishing a magazine called 'Gambling Times' and I sent him a short story called 'Weeping Willie' that he printed in his magazines. It was one of the first pieces of fiction that I ever published in a gaming magazine.

Over the years, Sludikoff has published other magazines as well as books. He became a professional blackjack player and made a lot of money in casinos playing 21. He even published a book on how to win at blackjack using the pen-name Stanley Roberts.

While he was earning his fortune as a publisher and a businessman, he married and the marriage produced three daughters, which is ample evidence that a person can be a good husband, father and citizen as well as a gambler.

For 30 years, Sludikoff has been a member of the U.S. Army Reserve, retiring as a lieutenant colonel. He has a military attitude toward running a business which I have collided with on several occasions -- he is quick to criticize my occasional typos and grammatical mistakes. But he does it as an editor and publisher, and that is always acceptable.

Stanley is a builder. He loves to invent and build things, and more often than not, they take off and turn into something that is commercially acceptable. He is an architect among his other many talents and has worked in city government.

One of his great passions in life is poker. He enjoys publishing stories about the card game and when he has the time, he likes to play poker. But he has a soft spot for his opponents: Stanley doesn't like taking another person's money without giving something back. That is an unusual as well as a commendable trait for any poker player.

Right now, he is between publishing ventures for reasons that are too complex to explain in the limited space for this column. But I know he has other projects on the burner that are still going strong in his eighth decade. I want to take this opportunity to publicly wish him a great and prosperous New Year and to thank him for our ongoing friendship. P.S. Stanley: If you get another gambling magazine going, I hope you continue to buy my stories.

Author: Geno Lawrenzi Jr.

(Geno Lawrenzi Jr. is an international journalist, magazine author and ghostwriter and poker player who lives in Phoenx, AZ. He has published 2,000 articles in 50 magazines and 125 newspapers. If you want to share a gambling story or book idea with him, send an email to glawrenzi@gmail.com ).