Best Gambling Movie Scenes Ever
Gambling, a vice of many a man and woman – but for some just a sport – has been a source of inspiration for a number of great Hollywood movies. There is a number of classic movies that convey the excitement, drama and release that is associated with gambling, regardless if it takes place in land-based casinos, at someone’s home or online. Here are three of the greatest gambling movie scenes ever.
The Gambler
The Gambler (2014) featuring Jim Bennett, played by Mark Wahlberg, is about a literature professor who has an uncanny appetite for gambling. Jim gets into a money pickle because of his habit and reaches out to some dangerous people for more money. He also has good friends who become his frienemies because he has a tendency of siphoning out money from loan sharks. But because in every good movie there is “the girl,” there Amy Phillips, a student of his, who gives our gambler the much-needed support, but ends up as a bargaining chip in a bad trade-off with a loan shark. The twist comes when Jim coaxes a basketball player, Lamar, to underperform so that a wager can be won to the benefit of the loan shark. Even though The Gambler is more about an inflated real-life mix up of someone with a gambling addiction, the movie does have a thrilling gambling showdown that is one for the books. And that’s as far as we’re going to go with the spoilers.
Casino Royale
Casino Royale is a James Bond movie with a memorable gambling scene which involves high-stakes play that ends with in the near-fatal poisoning of Agent 007. That gambling scene sets off the action that will wrap up into one of the most memorable James Bond editions in the last two decades. In it, there is the intrigue of whether all the players are in it to win it or for some other reasons that have more complex ulterior motives working in the background. Upon his return from the dead, Agent 007 puts back on his poker face and poker goggles, and is able to read into the behavior of Le Chiffre. The scene unfolds with on the seat’s edge gambling action that has one of the players, confident of his hand or bluffing, go all in. This move is culminates in all players calling the bet and dumping their chips in the pot and waiting for the calls. Le Chiffre checks and raises, but Bond’s straight flush is the winning hand that takes the money.
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Guy Ritchie’s 1998 near classic Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels has a gambling scene that results in a disaster for the movie’s lead protagonists. A poker battle has a twist due to one of the players being part of a cheeky cheating technique that is only possible with a hidden under the stairwell accomplice. The showdown ends in a major loss for Eddy that puts him and his friends in the worst of positions – they have a week to come up with a major sum of money to repay The Hatchett, a figure of the underground, who took his bar. This scene, that has an unlikely way of winning a poker game – basically defrauding one of the players of his money and his father’s club – begs to ask the question: are illegal poker games worth the bother when online casinos are becoming the norm. Furthermore, will we ever get to see a movie about slots that are played at the comfort of one’s own home? Well, there isn’t any movie material in that but it sure beats the odds at losing your money to your friends. So why not try www.slotswise.com and see if slots work better for you than poker.