However, Danny Ocean ( George Clooney) and his team aren’t planning gamble change money on the roulette table, but they’re planning of robbing one of the three biggest casinos in Vegas owned by Terry Benedict (Andy García). Watching this film makes you want to put on a smart looking suit and a pair of expensive sunglasses to go with it and hit the casino table in Vegas. Thorp could have gone on to cream more money off the casinos this way, but instead wrote a best-selling book called Beat the Dealer (1996).įeaturing all the three major Las Vegas casinos the Bellagio, The Mirage and the MGM Grand, this American comedy-crime film directed by Steven Soderberg has an ensemble cast of well-known actors including Brat Pitt, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle and Andy García. They made over $11,000 in their first weekend.
Over the years the MIT blackjack team has evolved and recruited new members including blackjack celebrities like the Blackjack Babe, Erica Schoenberg, a former model and pro basketball player.Īnd did you know that the first person who proved that card counting could work was actually an MIT professor? In the 1970s, Edward Thorp used an IBM computer to analyse probabilities of blackjack and once he was ready to test this theory, he went on a road trip to casinos in Reno and Vegas with an assistant called Manny Kimmel. The MIT blackjack team made more than $400,000 in their first weekend and became so well-known in US casinos that they ended up having to only play abroad.
They had a series of strategies to win the most hands, but also to defy casino security systems – ie to avoid getting caught card counting. They trained for hours on end to perfect their card counting system so that they could cheat the casinos. In the 1980s a group of students at MIT did actually do this.
This movie is made all the more interesting as it’s based on a true story. The 2008 movie starred Kevin Spacey as MIT professor Mickey Rosa who trains a group of students up to help him fleece the casinos through card counting.
However, it goes without saying that it’s impossible to cheat an online casino – card counting would never work! For example, you can learn blackjack with bgo.com, where there’s a wide choice of blackjack games available.
Most online casinos have demos and other software to increase your comfort level with the game. There are plenty of online resources where you can learn to play casino games such as blackjack. Did you know that Matt Damon is actually a keen poker player in real life and is known to enjoy playing Texas Hold’em with his friends? Unlike his long-time friend and fellow actor Ben Affleck though, he hasn’t taken part in any World Series of Poker Events…Īnother ripping yarn featuring gambling is 21 – although this one is all about the game of blackjack and card counting. Worm disappears and McDermott then is left to shoulder the debt alone and finds himself back at the table with KGB (John Malkovich) who took his bankroll in the first place.Īlthough the movie wasn’t a smash box office hit, it has become a bit of a must-see view for poker fans. And just at the point when they’ve almost cleared Worm’s debt – which they only have five days to do – Worm is caught cheating and they lose everything. The plot follows the two main characters as they play poker to pay off Worm’s debt to a Russian gangster ‘KGB’, who McDermott had lost his entire $30,000 bankroll to at the start of the film.
Rounding is where players move from city to city joining high stakes poker games as they go. One film that depicts the highs and lows of gambling well is the Matt Damon and Ed Norton movie Rounders which follows the story of Mike McDermott (Damon) and his friend Lester ‘Worm’ Murphy who are caught up in the underground poker scene of rounding. The story of the gambler has interested filmmakers for over a century now, with a limitless variety of tales to be told.Īs you sit playing online blackjack or poker, it’s nice to dream about having one of those wins that could change your life forever – which happens so often in gambling movies. When you’re into gambling, it’s great to find movies that focus on a gambler’s story.