7 Most Famous UK Gamblers of All Time – 2024 Review

We all know about habits British people have, especially when are talking about them drinking tea at five o’clock. There are so many of them that come to our minds long before we can think about gambling, but we can see that this is one of their favorite activities. The truth is that they have a knack for it. We are not talking about this day and age, with all the online casinos that are available to us. In case you are interested in playing only on legit gambling websites, take a look at casinomotongamstop.com.

This claim can be supported by the fact that there are a lot of different colorful stories about Brits who’ve enjoyed gambling so much. We are talking about many different periods. Therefore, we can conclude that there is some kind of tradition to it. If not tradition, we can talk about a pretty interesting history in this field of entertainment. So, we would like to talk about these characters and the situations they’ve found themselves in. If you are interested in hearing a lot of different stories stay with us until the end of our article.

1. Charles James Fox (1749 – 1806)

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The first person we would like to talk about is Charles James Fox, who should be remembered for a lot of things. He is credited with creating the term “the Honorable one”. He is known as a person who had the exceptional orating skill and that he used it on numerous occasions. His career lasted for almost half a century. Despite him being a person who is remembered as a standout citizen, he had a dark side. He is one of the people remembered as the biggest gambler in the history of the UK. However, he wasn’t a person who can be considered particularly successful at it. At one time, he lost 200k pounds and his father paid a large chunk of his debts at one moment. Plus, Charles James Fox declared bankruptcy twice.

2. John Montagu (1718 – 1792)

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John Montagu is not a known person if we call him by his real name. However, if we say the Earl of Sandwich, pretty much every person in the world knows who we are talking about. Even though he had a lot of different activities, he is best known as the person who named one of the commonest types of food. Naturally, we are talking about the sandwich. Many people don’t know that he asked for a piece of beef put inside two slices of bread due to the fact he got hungry while he was facing a pretty lucky streak while gambling. Even though history could remember him as a gambler, he was written into the history books for his invention of the sandwich.

3. Charles De Ville Welles (1841 – 1922)

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Charles De Welles is probably the best-known gambler from the UK. The reason is that he is the first, let’s say, a commoner who managed to win a significant amount of money while gambling. He was an Englishman, but his family moved to France when he was young. In France, he started to work as an engineer. In 1891, he came to Monte Carlo and started participating in these games, mainly roulette. The amount of money he managed to win is not known. However, we can see that he managed to buy a luxury yacht from the money he won. The end of his life wasn’t as happy, and we still don’t know where his remains are, even today.

4. Kelly Francis (1937 – 2005)

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Kelly Francis was an Australian businessman, who was always interesting in gambling. Even though he had more money than he could count, he didn’t give up on it. In 1999, he lost almost 15 million pounds at one casino in London. At that time, this was the world record when it comes to gambling losses. This would remain a mystery if he wasn’t so open about it. However, at one moment while he was staying in Las Vegas, he managed to win 18 million pounds. Plus, he managed to score 4 million pounds when he returned to the UK after a couple of years.

5. Joseph Jagger (1830 – 1892)

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Joseph Jagger was born in 1830 and he was a common person who worked in a textile factory. At one point in time, he succeeded to save some money and to open his own business in the same line of work. During the 1880s, he visited Monte Carlo with his son and nephew. Since he had textile knowledge, he managed to learn all the peculiarities about how roulette works. With that knowledge in mind, he managed to win 80,000 pounds by playing for a couple of days. When you calculate this amount in today’s money, you can see that he was a millionaire since this sum is more than 7 million pounds.

6. Andrew Black (1963 – Present)

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The only person on this list of ours who’s still alive and well is Andrew Black. We are talking about a person who didn’t have a steady job until his late twenties. However, he is now worth more than 114 million pounds. How did you ask? Well, he is a professional gambler who managed to open one of the first online casinos in the country. He is often regarded as a pioneer of online gambling in the UK. A couple of years ago, he decided that he had enough, he decided to give it all up and sold his business.

7. Beau Nash (1674 – 1762)

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The person we know as Beau Nash had a real name. It was from Robert Nash. At some point, he decided to change his name. He was a veteran soldier and a lawyer. Even though his career wasn’t looking so bright at the beginning, he managed to secure a successful future for himself. He managed to become one of the most successful gamblers in the UK ever. However, his end wasn’t so bright. When he died, he had a debt of 1k pound debt. In his home town of Bristol, there was a casino that bears his name for a long time.