by Rhiannon Jacobs
A Quartet of the Top Casino Movies
The online casino business has never been in ruder health, and casinos have been a favourite backdrop for movies for decades. Here are some of the best gambling movies with real-life inspirations to keep you amused during your downtime, and how to find top online casinos if you feel like playing yourself.
Hollywood and Casino Games
Casinos are common settings for movies because the thrill of the chase coupled with high rewards make them a naturally appealing way to create tension and plot twists. They’re also popular and easily accessible to members of the public, making them more inherently immersive than fantastical settings, exciting yet at the same time down to earth. If you’ve taken a liking to casino games in the movies and want to delve a little deeper, it’s never been easier thanks to online Australian casinos.
Best Online Australian Casinos
If seeing the excitement of poker, baccarat, roulette and other casino games has you interested in trying your hand at them for yourself there are plenty of great online Australian casinos to play at. Top gamblers have rated these websites highly, making them just the place for newcomers to explore the world of betting. These online Australian casinos frequently offer welcome bonuses to help players enjoy a great start by either matching deposits or offering no deposit free spins or free cash, or sometimes all of those promos bundled together into an introductory special offer. The best Australian casinos offer hundreds of varied slots to players, some complex and some straightforward, with table game classics such as blackjack, poker, and roulette available in both regular and live formats. Plus mobile players can access sites via their smartphones or tablets. Exciting movie casino escapades based on real-life can be thrilling, but generally, players enjoy a rather more relaxing experience. Even so, if you want to be inspired, read on.
21 (2008)
There are question marks about whether the events of 21 would be possible in the modern world, but the film itself is based on real events. Using advanced mathematics the movie follows the story of a genius professor and his advanced students working together to fleece casinos in Las Vegas. But the trick is that their means of winning money isn’t hacking or a robbery or anything like that. It’s simply using difficult to memorise maths to make the correct play most of the time, shifting the odds from the casino’s favour to theirs. This isn’t illegal but it is frowned upon by betting establishments for rather obvious reasons. Ultimately, jealousies and the division of attention between university work and gambling lead to the group fracturing. Whether they finish ahead in the end is something you’ll have to see for yourself.
The Sting (1973)
Going back a little further in time, The Sting is a classic starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford inspired by cons perpetrated by real-life brothers Fred and Charley Gondorff. The sting is the moment when a con pays off and the trickster takes his mark’s cash, with the victim only realising what happened once the con artists are long gone. And if stings and trickery are your bag then this movie is just the ticket as it earnt no fewer than seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor. Newman and Redford play Gondorff and Hooker, and make the mistake of ripping off an underworld courier. The courier ends up dead and his boss is on the warpath. Can the wily tricksters outwit the crime lord, and can they even trust each other?
Molly’s Game (2017)
Based on the memoir of Molly Bloom, the 2017 film Molly’s Game follows the story of the eponymous protagonist as injury ends her Olympic dream and forces her to drastically change course. With the lead played by the fantastic Jessica Chastain, Molly’s Game looks at gambling from an underground perspective. Moving to waitress at a club in Los Angeles, Molly meets and befriends Dean, becoming his office manager and then helping him run underground poker games. The rich and famous players help her earn a stack of cash simply through tips, but her rising popularity leads to Dean firing her. Yet Molly’s no damsel in distress and she sets up rival underground games, with many poker players preferring to switch to her and abandon Dean. When she catches a player acting unethically her chastisement causes the player to leave, with others following. Molly heads to New York but the stress and rising money worries lead to a downward spiral of drug dependency and Mafia entanglements. An FBI raid leads to her assets being seized, likely largely due to her writing a book that sees her indicted by the FBI. Thanks to help from attorney Charlie Jaffey (played by Idris Elba, with whom Chastain has great chemistry) she manages to escape imprisonment and only receives a fine.
Casino (1995 film)
Casino stars a fantastic cast with Robert de Niro and Joe Pesci playing alongside a stellar Sharon Stone. Their characters are directly inspired by real-life individuals, with Stone’s character Ginger (for whose portrayal she won a Golden Globe) based on Geri McGee. The film follows the rollercoaster romantic relationship between Ace (de Niro) and Ginger, and the tempestuous one between Ace and Santoro (Pesci). There’s betting, romance, tension, criminal enterprise, drug addiction, con artists, murder, and the FBI hot on the heels of the nefarious lead characters whose world turns from glitz and glamour towards an altogether darker path. Ultimately, the mob gets chased out of the casinos, to be replaced by the big guns of corporate business. Besides the main character inspirations, a number of roles are played by the individuals themselves, such as Oscar Goodman and Frankie Avalon.
That wraps up our quick look at a quartet of the best casino movies inspired by real-life characters and events. Have fun if you decide to try betting at the best Australian online casinos, and remember to always bet within your means.
