Thomas Austin Preston, Jr. was born on December 31, 1928 in Johnson, Arkansas. He started his career with Doyle Brunson and Sailor Roberts as a rounder, traveling the country and looking for some good gambling action.
In 1972, he won the World Series of poker $10,000 No Limit Hold’em World Championship, to earn a bracelet and $60,000 in prize money.
He attained so much fame that he became a semi-pop culture icon, appearing on such talk shows as, The Tonight Show, 60 Minutes, Good Morning America, and I’ve Got a Secret.
In 1980 Preston hosted the second annual Poker Classic, which would soon become the second most prestigious poker Tournament, eventually becoming known as the Super Bowl of Poker, until it ended in 1990.
In 1992 Amarillo Slim was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame and by 2007 he had four WSOP bracelets to his name.
Milos Forman is making a film based on Preston’s career, and it is rumored that Nicolas Cage is up to play the role of the poker champ.
Preston is divorced, with three children and still resides in Amarillo, Texas.
He has played poker with Willie Nelson, (from whom he won $300,000) with presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, and drug lords Pablo Escobar and Jimmy Chagra; and of course a highly publicized poker game with porn king Larry Flynt, in which Flynt lost $1,700,000.
