INSIGHT POPULAR CULTURE AND GAMBLING
Tere are countless examples of gambling in films and television and more controversially in video games as well. From scams thought up by desperate criminals and high rollers, to intricately staged heists, the industry has given writers a seemingly endless number of plots to work with.
Overall then one would expect that gambling would be portrayed in vastly different ways in popular culture. But actually looking at some of the biggest gambling films over the years actually this isn’t really the case. While casinos provide a great backdrop, and add elements of tension and a cast of colourful character actual plots are fairly limited. In most cases the hero gets the better of the house or skill game rival due to a clever scheme. Or the casino is getting the better of the player because the player has a gambling problem.
Of course that’s not to say that these films are
bad and not all films fall into this pattern. Te Sting (1973), starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman, Te Grifters (1990) based on the Jim Tompson novel of the same name and Casino (1995) directed by Martin Scorsese are just a few of the classic films which use gambling to tell a story in new and innovative ways.
Having said that some of the best gambling films are based on real events. Owning Mahowny (2003) starring Seymour Hoffman is based on Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce clerk Brian Molony. Incredibly Molony embezzled over $10 million from his employers in just 18 months to support his gambling habit orchestrating the largest crime of its kind in the country’s history. Molony was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to fraud, eventually serving only two years of his sentence. Although the film was not a box office success it was nominated for a number of independent film awards and Hoffman was praised for his quietly obsessive performance.
Another film that springs to mind straightaway is of course Martin Scorsese’s Casino the true story of gambler and mobster Sam "Ace" Rothstein who becomes a casino owner after being sent to Vegas to run their casino, which he proceeds to do with resolute efficiency. Based on a book by Nicholas Pileggi the first hour runs very much as a quasi documentary showing the inner secret workings of Las Vegas casinos at the time. Every main character in the film is actually based on a real-life individual. Rosenthal did not have a gaming license as shown in the film but in fact Rosenthal ran four casinos in real life.
More recently there’s been Molly’s Game, based on the autobiography of “poker princess” Molly Bloom. Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin (in his directorial debut) the film follows Bloom (Jessica Chastain), who becomes the target of an FBI investigation after the underground poker empire she runs for Hollywood celebrities, athletes, business tycoons, and the Russian mob is exposed.
While some films focus on the inner workings P34 WIRE / PULSE / INSIGHT / REPORTS
James Marrison Foreign Correspondent G3 Informar! editor
“Virtual sports need to be simple so anyone can use them, but at the same time that does not mean they
cannot be developed. We can focus on animations, user experience, on maybe
introducing different bet types but keeping also in mind how the traditional sports betting works and not deviate too much from that. Simple but also innovative and pleasant are the forces driving us forward.”
of a casino, films with gambling as their central theme focus on the players rather than the game itself. In these films the screenwriters and directors are more interested in using the character’s own addiction and compulsions to drive the narrative along.
Based on a true story of a gambling addiction, screenwriter James Toback wrote Te Gambler about his own experiences. In the well regarded film, bored English professor played by James Caan has a need to put himself in danger born out of some kind of existential crisis. He needs to gamble away money because it puts him squarely in the eyes of the mob who he owes money to. Te gambler makes bets simply to dig himself deeper and deeper into trouble, even arguing that, for him, the fun of betting is losing.
Like Te Gambler many of the best gambling films were made in the 1970’s. 1974 American comedy-drama film California Split directed by Robert Altman starred Elliott Gould and George Segal as a pair of gamblers. In a famous scene Bill and Charlie, bet with each other in a very serious way on the names of the Seven Dwarfs while drunk in a bar. Again the film has an almost documentary type feel. Indeed a number of the extras were members of Synanon, an organization for ex-addicts.
As famed critic Roger Ebert wrote:
“At the end of California Split we realize that Altman has made a lot more than a comedy about gambling; he's taken us into an American
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