Best Hollywood gambling scene?

Off the top of my head, my favorite is the sewer craps scene in "Guys and Dolls" where Big Jule uses dice with no spots. That scene has everything - craps, big action, and one of the best gambling songs ever written ("Luck Be a Lady").

Don't forget The Color of Money (and its comedic cousin Kingpin). I loved the part at the end when Vincent (Tom Cruise) bet against himself, and let Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) beat him in the pool tournament. If I remember correctly the pool tournament was in Atlantic City.

Bill Murray is just hilarious in Kingpin.

Quote: teddys

The Sting is an all-around terrific movie. Nothing in that movie is bad -- probably one of the best movies of the century and definitely the best gambling movie.

Yep. GREAT gambling movie. As a poker player, I particularly LOVE the scene with the poker game on the train.

The thing that bothers me is when it gets mentioned, other poker players will point out the rules that are being broken, particularly, string bets. It's VERY common for Hollywood to use the phrase "I see your bet and raise you..." That's a string bet and against the rules.

However, since the two big players in that game were both cheating, and Paul Newman's character was pretending to be something of a novice, I think doing the string bet was just part of the act. Very nicely done.

My favorite gambling movie is one that often gets overlooked: "Let it Ride".

No outrageous stakes, no professional gamblers with shady pasts, no violence, no drugs, no impossible heads-up pat hands, no seedy backrooms, no depressing undercurrents. Just a bunch of regular guys hanging out at a neighborhood bar, enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime kind of day.

I also like "A Big Hand for the Little Lady".

C'mon, how can you forget about:

Swingers, which painfully reminded me of my first few trips to casinos (Lake Tahoe, mostly) where losing $2 a hand seemed like all the money in the world! Mikey lost a few hundy, but still ...

Rounders, the scene where Mike McD beat Johnny Chan heads-up. Yes, it's cheesy, but don't tell me that ALL of you would like to do that to a poker superstar (especially Jamie Gold, who remains the only player on the planet whom I would slow-roll).

Ocean's 12, I think, where the lady wins a jackpot as a distraction, and the security checks they do on her (heart rate, dialated pupils, etc.) to see if she reacts the way a jackpot winner would react. Not exciting, but definitely interesting ... do they really do that?

Was it the original Casino Royale where they had the baccarat scene? I thought the original was a comedy ...

Quote: ItsCalledSoccer

Was it the original Casino Royale where they had the baccarat scene? I thought the original was a comedy ...

Yep. Great baccarat scene between Peter Sellers and Orson Welles. Peter Seller's character has a system book! It also is a great depiction of the rules of the original "chemin du fer."

The best "scene" has got to be from Vegas Vacation where Clark and Cousin Eddie go to the cheap "Casino" where they have the stupidest games: "Pick a Number Between 1 and 10", "Rock, Paper, Scissors", "Guess Which Hand", "Coin Toss" and, "War". I was floored when I saw the actual game, at the Wynn no less.

Movies that deal with sports betting tend to feel very realistic, since everyone who bets sports can remember the games they thought they had locked up, only to have something horribly improbable happen (e.g Chris Duhon's "meaningless" half court shot in the 2004 NCAAs). So when they break out the black swan event in the movie, it's typically relatable.

That said, "Two for the Money" with Al Pacino and Matthew McConaughey was really terrible.