5 most iconic gambling scenes in movies

There are several reasons why a lot of people have fallen in love with gambling. For one, it gives you the chance to win huge amounts of money–who won’t love that? It also gives you excitement due to the risk and the thrill each game brings.

A slot slowing down can certainly raise your heart rate a little, and a game of poker can be tense enough for you to have a drop of sweat on your forehead. With that in mind, gambling scenes in some of the most popular movies certainly add up to the emotions and help in building up the scene.

If you want to play blackjack for real money, and do it as cool as your favorite celebrities like how they do it in their movies, you have to see them perform and do it in action in their movies. With that being said, here are the top five most iconic gambling scenes in Hollywood movies you must watch.

Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

This movie is known to be one of the most classic heist movies and is even accredited by a lot of fans to be one of the main inspirations for newer heist films such as Now You See Me. In this classic and critically-acclaimed masterpiece of Steven Soderbergh’s, we saw Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and the rest of the star-studded squad pull off one of the smoothest and most impressive casinos heists.

The scenes and the cinematography of it were executed very smoothly that the audience can feel as if they are part of the tricks and execution of the great plan.

Rain Man (1988)

In this film, Dustin Hoffman plays a character with autism that is often called out by his brother (played by Tom Cruise) due to his condition. He later proves him wrong by showing off his impressive skills at the table with card counting and computation, ending with him walking out as a rich man from the casino.

The Hangover (2009)

One interesting trivia about the blackjack scene in this movie is that it is a homage or a reference to “Rain Man.” In this particular scene from the movie, Zach Galifianakis also wears a grey suit like that Dustin Hoffman wore in his movie. In the movie, the character also showed amazing card counting skills on the table that wowed other people, too.

Rounders (1998)

This movie is a popular favorite for a lot of gamblers, and it is for a lot of reasons. Picking one scene from this iconic poker movie can be hard, but if one would choose a “best” from the whole movie, it would be none other than the climactic scene of the film.

In this scene, law school student Michael McDermott (played by Matt Damon) faced off with his rival Teddy “KGB” (John Malkovich) in a Texas Hold’em game. The elements of the game combined with music and perfectly crafted cinematography made the scene a thrilling and tension-filled encounter, despite the lack of real physical action (since the nature of a poker game is not like that).

Casino Royale (2006)

If you would look for the most iconic gambling scene in a Hollywood movie, the list would not be complete without James Bond 007 in his movie Casino Royale.

Played by Daniel Craig in this film, the super-spy of Her Majesty’s Secret Service faced off with his nemesis Mads Mikkelsen’s Le Chiffre in what some people consider to be the most epic poker game in movie history–where Bond won and walked away with $100 million.