Alvin Clarence “Titanic” Thompson (November 30, 1893 – May 19, 1974) was an American professional gambler, hustler, golfer, card player and legendary proposition bettor who became one of the most famous gamblers of the 20th century. Although born in Missouri and raised largely in Arkansas, Thompson developed an important connection to Evansville, Indiana, during the city’s oil-boom era of the late 1930s and 1940s.

In Evansville, Thompson participated in enormous poker games at the McCurdy Hotel, became involved in the Southern Indiana oil business, associated with legendary gamblers including Hubert “Daddy Warbucks” Cokes, Minnesota Fats and Ray Ryan, and continued the golf and proposition-betting exploits that had already made him famous across the country.

Thompson’s son Thomas “Tommy” Thomas was born in Evansville in 1944, further connecting the family to the city.

Over his lifetime, Titanic Thompson became an almost mythical figure in American gambling. He reportedly won and lost millions of dollars betting on poker, golf, pool, dice, shooting, horseshoes and seemingly impossible physical challenges. His associates ranged from professional golfers and pool hustlers to oilmen, mob figures and some of America’s most famous gamblers.

He was also connected to one of the most famous unsolved crimes of the 20th century: the 1928 murder of New York gambler and organized-crime figure Arnold Rothstein.

Early Life

Alvin Clarence Thomas was born on November 30, 1893, in Monett, Missouri.

His father left the family when Alvin was young, and Thomas spent much of his childhood near Rogers, Arkansas, in the Ozark Mountains.

Formal education played only a small role in his childhood. Instead, Thomas developed an extraordinary collection of practical skills.

He became an excellent marksman, learned cards and gambling mathematics, and possessed exceptional hand-eye coordination.

By his teenage years, Thomas had begun the wandering lifestyle that would define much of his adult life.

He left home at approximately 16 and began traveling through the United States, making money wherever he believed he could find an advantage.

Becoming “Titanic”

Thomas eventually became known as Titanic Thompson, although stories differ somewhat about exactly how the nickname originated.

According to the most commonly repeated version, after watching Thomas repeatedly defeat opponents, someone remarked that he ought to be called “Titanic” because he “sinks everybody.”

The nickname appeared not long after the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic and stuck.

Another quirk helped create his permanent professional name. His surname was actually Thomas, but a newspaper reportedly referred to him as “Thompson.” Rather than correct the mistake, he embraced it.

Alvin Thomas became:

Titanic Thompson.

Friends and fellow gamblers often simply called him “Ti” or “Ty.”

The Ultimate Proposition Gambler

Titanic became famous not merely because he gambled, but because he could gamble on almost anything.

His specialty was the proposition bet.

A proposition bet could involve virtually any challenge two people were willing to wager money on.

Titanic might bet that he could throw an object farther than seemed physically possible, shoot a target repeatedly, perform an athletic feat, estimate a quantity, beat someone at golf, or accomplish some seemingly impossible task.

The crucial detail was that Titanic rarely proposed a bet unless he had already figured out how to win it.

Many of his bets involved extraordinary skill.

Others involved preparation, deception or a hidden advantage.

The Famous Walnut Bet

One of Thompson’s best-known hustles involved betting that he could throw a walnut over a large building.

The feat appeared impossible.

What his opponent didn’t know was that Thompson had prepared a walnut shell that had been weighted, making it considerably easier to throw a great distance.

Thompson substituted his prepared walnut and made the throw.

The opponent paid.

It was classic Titanic Thompson: the victim believed he was betting on one proposition while Thompson knew that the actual proposition was something entirely different.

The 500-Yard Golf Drive

Another famous Thompson wager involved a claim that he could hit a golf ball 500 yards with an old-fashioned hickory-shafted club.

At a time when even outstanding golfers could not approach that distance under ordinary conditions, the bet sounded ridiculous.

But Thompson wasn’t planning to hit the ball 500 yards through the air.

He waited for winter.

He then hit the ball onto a frozen lake, allowing it to bounce and slide across the ice until it traveled beyond the agreed distance.

Again, Titanic had won the bet before he ever swung the club.

A Remarkable Golfer

Golf eventually became one of Thompson’s greatest weapons.

He did not seriously take up the sport until adulthood, but his exceptional coordination allowed him to develop rapidly.

He became good enough to compete with some of the finest golfers in America.

More importantly for Thompson, he discovered that golf could produce enormous gambling profits.

Professional tournament golf offered relatively modest prize money during Thompson’s prime.

Private money matches were different.

Thompson could wager thousands of dollars on individual holes or matches.

When asked why he didn’t become a professional tournament golfer, Thompson famously explained that he couldn’t afford the reduction in income.

Golf legend Ben Hogan, who traveled and played money matches with Thompson, regarded him as an exceptional shotmaker.

Thompson also played with or around golfers who became major figures in professional golf, including Byron Nelson, Sam Snead, Lee Elder, Raymond Floyd and Lee Trevino.

The Left-Handed Hustle

One of Titanic’s most effective golf tricks took advantage of his ambidexterity.

Thompson was naturally left-handed but became extremely capable playing from either side.

He could therefore play an opponent right-handed without revealing his full ability.

After the match, Thompson could suggest another wager.

To make the second match appear fair, he might generously offer to play left-handed.

The opponent would believe Thompson was intentionally handicapping himself.

In reality, Thompson was naturally left-handed.

The stakes would increase.

And Titanic would suddenly become a much better golfer.

Ben Hogan and Titanic Thompson

One of Thompson’s most remarkable connections was with future golf legend Ben Hogan.

Before Hogan became one of the greatest professional golfers in history, he participated in money matches involving Thompson.

Thompson had a remarkable ability to identify talented young golfers and use them as partners in high-stakes matches.

Several players associated with his gambling matches later became nationally known professionals.

Guns and Violence

Thompson’s world could also be extremely dangerous.

Large illegal gambling games frequently involved participants carrying enormous amounts of cash. Robberies and attempted robberies were a constant threat.

Thompson routinely carried a firearm.

Accounts of his life attribute five deaths to him.

He was never convicted of murder in connection with those deaths.

Several shootings were determined or accepted as self-defense, generally involving men allegedly attempting to rob Thompson of gambling winnings.

The violence surrounding Thompson contributed significantly to his reputation.

He wasn’t simply a clever card player.

In the gambling underworld, Titanic Thompson was someone people knew could be dangerous.

Arnold Rothstein and the “Crime of the Century”

One of the strangest chapters in Thompson’s life involved legendary New York gambler and racketeer Arnold “The Brain” Rothstein.

Rothstein was one of the most powerful figures in New York’s gambling underworld and was famously associated with allegations surrounding the 1919 Black Sox scandal.

In 1928, Thompson participated in a high-stakes poker game involving Rothstein.

Rothstein lost heavily during the game.

Soon afterward, Rothstein was shot at Manhattan’s Park Central Hotel.

He died from his injuries.

The murder became one of America’s most sensational criminal mysteries.

Thompson became involved in the investigation and later testified during the murder trial of George McManus, who was accused of killing Rothstein.

McManus was acquitted.

Rothstein’s murder remains officially unsolved.

Damon Runyon and Guys and Dolls

Thompson’s reputation became so legendary that he has frequently been identified as one of the inspirations for writer Damon Runyon’s fictional gamblers.

Most notably, Thompson has been cited as an inspiration for Sky Masterson, the charismatic professional gambler in Runyon’s story The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown.

That story became the basis for the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls.

In the 1955 film adaptation, Sky Masterson was played by Marlon Brando.

Whether Thompson was the sole model for Masterson is disputed, but the association became an enduring part of the Titanic Thompson legend.

Titanic Thompson in Evansville

Arrival During the Evansville Oil Boom

Titanic Thompson’s connection to Evansville developed during one of the most colorful periods in the city’s history.

In the late 1930s, major oil discoveries transformed Southwestern Indiana and Southeastern Illinois.

Money poured into the region.

Farmers and landowners suddenly possessed valuable mineral rights. Oil producers, speculators and businessmen arrived looking for opportunities.

And wherever large amounts of newly created money appeared, professional gamblers followed.

Evansville became a major destination.

By 1939, Thompson was operating in Evansville during the oil boom.

For a professional gambler like Titanic, the city was nearly ideal.

There were wealthy oilmen.

There were speculators carrying cash.

There were businessmen willing to gamble.

There were underground poker games.

And there were other professional gamblers arriving from across the country.

For a period, Evansville became one of the important gambling stops in Titanic Thompson’s America.

The McCurdy Hotel

At the center of Titanic’s Evansville story was the legendary McCurdy Hotel.

The McCurdy stood at 101–111 Southeast First Street near Evansville’s riverfront and was one of the city’s most prominent hotels.

During Evansville’s oil-boom period, the hotel became associated with high-stakes gambling.

Accounts of the period describe poker games at the McCurdy involving staggering amounts of money.

In 1939, pots in an Evansville game were reportedly reaching $25,000.

Adjusted for inflation, that represented the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars in modern purchasing power.

Among the gamblers associated with these games were:

• Titanic Thompson
• Hubert “Daddy Warbucks” Cokes
• Ray Ryan
• Minnesota Fats
• wealthy oilmen
• professional gamblers and visiting high rollers

The combination made Evansville an extraordinary crossroads of oil money and America’s gambling underground.

Hubert “Daddy Warbucks” Cokes

One of the most important figures in Titanic Thompson’s Evansville years was Hubert Cokes, widely known in gambling circles as “Daddy Warbucks.”

Cokes was closely associated with Evansville and became a major figure in the city’s gambling world.

He was particularly feared as a pool player.

Titanic and Cokes had known one another for years and possessed one of the most colorful friendships in American gambling history.

They were friends, gambling partners, business associates and, occasionally, bitter enemies.

According to an account later provided by Titanic’s son Tommy Thomas, Cokes helped bankroll Titanic’s trip to Evansville after learning about the enormous poker action created by the oil boom.

Cokes later became suspicious when Titanic claimed things weren’t going particularly well.

He traveled to Evansville himself.

When Cokes arrived, he discovered Titanic was actually winning thousands of dollars.

The two men then used gambling winnings to move into another booming Evansville-area industry:

oil.

Titanic Thompson Becomes an Oilman

Titanic was surrounded by people making fortunes from Southern Indiana oil.

Eventually he decided he wanted a piece of it.

Thompson and Cokes reportedly began using gambling winnings to acquire oil leases and mineral interests around the region.

Titanic recognized that some property owners who were reluctant to sell mineral rights weren’t necessarily opposed to oil development.

Some simply distrusted financial institutions following the Great Depression.

Thompson was, above everything else, exceptionally skilled at understanding people’s motivations.

He used that ability in the oil business just as he used it at the poker table.

The investments worked.

For a period, Titanic Thompson—the wandering gambler who could win money throwing walnuts over buildings—became a legitimate participant in the Southern Indiana oil boom.

His Evansville-area oil holdings generated substantial income.

According to an account from his son, Titanic eventually transferred producing income and a portion of his mineral interests to his wife during their divorce.

The income was reportedly worth approximately $10,000 per month during the 1940s, an enormous amount of money for the era.

Ray Ryan

Another legendary figure connecting Titanic Thompson to Evansville was Ray Ryan.

Ryan became an oilman, gambler, businessman and developer closely associated with Evansville.

Ryan and Thompson moved through the same world of high-stakes gambling and oil speculation.

Both participated in the extraordinary gambling culture created by the area’s oil boom.

The McCurdy Hotel poker games brought men such as Thompson, Ryan and Cokes together with wealthy oil producers and professional gamblers.

Ryan would later become nationally known for his wealth, gambling connections and eventual murder in a 1977 car bombing in Evansville.

Minnesota Fats Comes to Evansville

The Evansville gambling scene also attracted one of the most famous pool hustlers in American history:

Minnesota Fats.

Fats made repeated trips to Evansville looking for action.

The city’s combination of wealthy oilmen and established gamblers made it a natural destination.

Titanic was an excellent pool player by ordinary standards.

Minnesota Fats was something else entirely.

Stories from the era describe Thompson losing significant sums attempting to defeat Fats at one-pocket pool.

Titanic’s friend Hubert Cokes reportedly warned him that trying to beat Fats at his own game was a bad idea.

Titanic tried anyway.

The encounters became another chapter in Evansville’s remarkable gambling folklore.

The Evansville Watermelon Bet

One of Titanic Thompson’s classic proposition bets reportedly occurred in Evansville.

A truck loaded with watermelons was positioned near the McCurdy Hotel.

Beforehand, Thompson had arranged for the number of watermelons to be counted.

He then maneuvered the conversation among gamblers gathered around the hotel toward the question of how many watermelons were on the truck.

Titanic proposed a wager.

He claimed he could estimate the number remarkably closely.

Naturally, his opponents took the bet.

Titanic’s “guess” was almost perfect.

As with many Thompson propositions, his opponents believed they were betting on his ability to estimate something.

They were actually betting against information he already possessed.

It was exactly the type of hustle that made Titanic famous.

Titanic and Cokes Nearly Kill Each Other at the McCurdy

Titanic’s relationship with Hubert Cokes could become volatile.

One story told by Titanic’s son places one of their most dangerous confrontations directly inside the McCurdy Hotel.

Titanic became so angry with Cokes that he reportedly waited in the hotel’s lobby intending to confront—and potentially shoot—him when Cokes came down the elevator.

Cokes apparently knew Titanic well enough to anticipate the trap.

Instead of taking the elevator into the lobby, Cokes came down another way, traveled through the hotel’s kitchen and approached Titanic from behind.

Rather than escalate the confrontation, Cokes casually asked Titanic if he was ready to go to the golf course.

The two men survived the confrontation.

It is a story that perfectly illustrates their unusual relationship: close friends and partners who could apparently contemplate killing each other one day and play golf together the next.

Golf in Evansville

Titanic’s activities in Evansville weren’t limited to poker and oil.

He continued playing high-stakes golf.

Later recollections place Thompson on Evansville golf courses with Hubert Cokes.

For Titanic, golf was never merely recreation.

A round of golf could become a carefully constructed gambling event involving thousands of dollars in wagers and side bets.

By the time he arrived in Evansville, Thompson’s reputation as a golf hustler was already nationally established.

Tommy Thomas — Titanic’s Evansville-Born Son

Titanic’s connection to Evansville also became personal.

His son Thomas “Tommy” Thomas was born in Evansville in 1944.

Tommy eventually followed his father into professional gambling.

As he grew older, he developed extraordinary skill with cards and became known as an accomplished card mechanic.

The Evansville connection continued through Hubert Cokes.

Titanic eventually sent Tommy back to Evansville to spend time with Cokes, who helped educate the younger Thomas about the gambling world.

Tommy later described Cokes as an important influence on his life.

Thus Evansville wasn’t simply somewhere Titanic stopped to gamble.

For a significant period, the city became intertwined with his family, business interests and closest gambling relationships.

Evansville as a National Gambling Destination

Titanic Thompson’s presence also reveals a largely forgotten chapter of Evansville history.

Modern Evansville is rarely associated nationally with the great American gambling circuits.

During the oil boom, however, the situation was very different.

The influx of oil wealth created an environment capable of attracting some of America’s most famous gamblers.

Titanic Thompson came.

Minnesota Fats came.

Hubert Cokes operated here.

Ray Ryan became wealthy here.

Large poker games operated in downtown hotels.

Money changed hands in amounts extraordinary for the era.

For gamblers traveling the national circuit, Evansville became a place where serious money could be won.

Titanic Thompson’s Evansville years are therefore important not only to his biography but to the history of the city itself.

Marriage and Personal Life

Thompson married five times during his life.

His wives were:

Nora Trushel
Alice Kane
Jo Ann Raney
Maxine Melton
Jeannette Bennett

His personal life was frequently unstable, largely because of his constant traveling, gambling and relationships with other women.

He had three sons who survived him.

The First World Series of Poker

Near the end of his gambling career, Thompson participated in another important moment in gambling history.

In 1970, he was among the veteran gamblers who participated in the first World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

The inaugural event was very different from the enormous tournament the WSOP later became.

It was essentially a gathering of elite gamblers playing a variety of poker games.

Thompson’s presence connected the old world of traveling road gamblers to the emerging casino-centered poker culture that would eventually transform professional gambling.

Later Years

As legalized casinos became more common, the world in which Titanic had thrived began disappearing.

Modern casinos were much harder to manipulate than informal gambling games.

Technology also reduced some of his advantages.

Plastic playing cards made certain card-manipulation techniques more difficult.

Long casino craps tables made controlled dice throws harder.

And most importantly, Titanic was getting older.

The man who had supposedly made and lost fortunes repeatedly throughout his life eventually found himself with relatively little money.

He spent his final years in a nursing home near Dallas, Texas.

Even there, he continued gambling.

His son Tommy recalled playing cards against his aging father for money.

Titanic remained intensely competitive.

Death

Titanic Thompson died on May 19, 1974, in Texas.

He was 80 years old.

His death marked the end of a gambling career stretching from the era of traveling medicine shows and riverboat games through Prohibition, the Great Depression, Southern Indiana’s oil boom and the emergence of modern Las Vegas.

Legacy

Titanic Thompson became one of the defining figures of America’s road-gambling era.

Some of the stories told about him are documented.

Others were embellished over decades of retelling.

And some are almost impossible to separate from legend.

That uncertainty is itself part of Titanic Thompson’s legacy.

He operated in a world where reputation mattered almost as much as reality.

He was a gambler, golfer, hustler, marksman, card mechanic, oil speculator and master of psychological manipulation.

He crossed paths with gangsters, professional athletes, wealthy businessmen, oilmen and legendary gamblers.

He was connected to Arnold Rothstein’s final poker game.

He influenced the mythology surrounding Guys and Dolls.

He played golf with future legends.

He participated in the first World Series of Poker.

And during one extraordinary chapter of his life, Evansville, Indiana, became one of Titanic Thompson’s most important gambling and business centers.

The city’s oil boom brought Thompson to Evansville, but the opportunities kept him there.

At the McCurdy Hotel he participated in some of the biggest poker games in the country. With Hubert Cokes he invested gambling profits into oil. He crossed paths with Minnesota Fats and Ray Ryan. He continued hustling golf and proposition bets. His son Tommy was born in Evansville.

For a brief period during the city’s oil-boom years, the worlds of Titanic Thompson, professional gambling, American oil wealth and Evansville history all collided.

It remains one of the most colorful chapters in Evansville’s 20th-century history.

Quick Facts

Birth name: Alvin Clarence Thomas
Known as: Titanic Thompson, Ti, Ty
Born: November 30, 1893
Birthplace: Monett, Missouri
Died: May 19, 1974
Age: 80
Occupations: Professional gambler, hustler, golfer, card player, proposition bettor and oil investor
Known for: High-stakes gambling, golf hustling and elaborate proposition bets
Evansville connection: Gambling, oil investments, golf and family connections during the Southern Indiana oil boom
Evansville gambling headquarters: McCurdy Hotel
Evansville associates: Hubert “Daddy Warbucks” Cokes, Ray Ryan and Minnesota Fats
Son born in Evansville: Thomas “Tommy” Thomas, 1944
Major historical connection: Witness in the Arnold Rothstein murder case
Golf connections: Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Sam Snead, Lee Elder, Raymond Floyd and Lee Trevino
Poker history: Participant in the inaugural World Series of Poker in 1970
Popular-culture connection: Frequently cited as an inspiration for Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls