There is something about the world of casinos that makes them great backdrops for great books and movies. In fact, some of the top best sellers books about casinos have them front and center of the stage. Playing games at online casinos worldwide is a very popular pastime, so it is no wonder that movies and books in this genre are well-received by audiences everywhere. Players, readers and moviegoers have the chance to experience these intersecting entertainment sectors, particularly as new markets open up. The UK was a trailblazer for online casino regulation. In addition, there are now six US states where online gambling games can be played, and Ontario has recently legalized online casinos in Canada.
Casino Royale
Probably the most famous book about a casino which has been made into a movie is Casino Royale. It is so famous that it was not just made into a movie once, but the James Bond classic was remade. Casinos and cards feature prominently in the writings of Ian Fleming. His spy stories featuring James Bond, also known as 007, have thrilled readers and moviegoers over the generations. It is seventy years since it was first published.
Fleming’s Casino Royale spawned the 007 literary universe, and thirteen more books followed in its wake. In total, the books have sold over 100 million copies. Casino Royale kickstarted the longest-running film franchise, and there are twenty-five official Bond movies. The most recent, No Time to Die, was released in September 2021.
The first Casino Royale movie, released in 1967, starred David Niven as Bond. While the early films are associated with Sean Connery, he did not play the secret agent in his battle against LeChiffre. The movie was remade in 2006 and was the first one to star Daniel Craig. In the book, Bond plays Chemin de Fer, a French card game with up to twelve players seated at a kidney-shaped table. The aim of the game is to score 9 with two or three cards. However, the 2006 film version has him playing Texas Hold ’em – mainly due to massive interest in the game of poker at the time.
Bringing Down The House
Bringing Down The House was a best-selling book penned by Ben Mizrah in 2003. The book tells the true story of a group of MIT students who were part of a team that used card-counting techniques to improve their chances of winning at the casino tables. This all happened at the blackjack tables in Las Vegas’s casinos during the 1990s, and the group won more than USD 3 million. Bringing Down the House recounts the story about these bright young things working the system and turning the math into money while keeping the count and remaining in character at all times. The film 21 is loosely based on the book.
The Great Gatsby
Probably no novel epitomizes the concept of ‘bright young things’ more than F Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby. While the focus of the book is on the parties held at Gatsby’s mansion, there are plenty of other locations from which the hedonistic lifestyle continues. The film has a memorable scene of an ‘underground’ nightclub/casino. The entrance is through a private door in a barber’s shop. All the city’s great and good are gathered for the illicit pleasures on offer.
Like Casino Royale, The Great Gatsby has been made into a movie more than once. It was first adapted from Fitzgerald’s novel as a silent film in 1926, but only a vintage movie trailer showing short clips of the film remains. A highly acclaimed and glittering version in 1974 starred Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby alongside Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchannan. Then in 2013, Baz Luhrmann’s totally over-the-top production had a net budget of $105 million and grossed over $353 million worldwide. A star cast included Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey McGuire, with Jay-Z as executive producer. Despite being set in the roaring twenties, it featured a contemporary soundtrack, including Back to Black and Young and Beautiful, which somehow just worked.
Molly’s Game
Tobey McGuire and Leonardo DiCaprio might have starred in The Great Gatsby, but they have an even stronger link to the 2014 memoir Molly’s Game. Molly Bloom ran two underground poker circles, and both of these stars were frequent players. Bloom had been involved in high-stakes poker after getting a job at The Viper Room on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. One of the club’s owners was Johnny Depp, and on her first night, Bloom recalls in her book, she received $3,000 in tips. She then tried to learn as much about poker as she possibly could. When her boss fired her, she decided to utilize her contacts and set up her own poker game.
Bloom became known as the “Poker Princess,” and while buy-in to a game started at $10,000, it went as high as $250,000. Her poker games attracted some of Hollywood’s biggest A-listers. As well as DiCaprio and McGuire, other names of note included Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Macaulay Culkin, Alex Rodriguez and tennis star Pete Sampras. Bloom’s was not a ‘kiss and tell’ memoir, and she protected the identity of her clients, but many of them were reported in the media.
The book and the film tell how ‘Molly’s Game’ got closed down by the fed because one of the participants was running a Ponzi scheme. Bradley Ruderman lost $5 million of his ‘investors’ money in the game, and they were not happy about it. The investors taken in by Ruderman sued Tobey Maguire and other celebrities because they said the cash Maguire had won actually belonged to them. Maguire is referred to as Player X in the film, but the actor playing him has a line about having played a superhero.
Molly’s Game is one of those books that, had it been written as fiction, would have been described as too far-fetched to be true. However, as with 21, sometimes actual events have the strongest narratives. The art is how those stories get told.
The name is Bond, James Bond
Coming full circle, Ian Fleming’s Bond movies might only have featured in one book with Casino in the title. However, he was no stranger to games of luck and chance. You could say that secret agent diced with death and casino games almost equally. He was always portrayed as fearless and up for taking a calculated (and sometimes apparently uncalculated) risk. Casinos and card games feature heavily in Dr. No, Thunderball, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, For Your Eyes Only and Golden Eye. In Goldfinger, Bond plays rummy, Craps in Diamonds Are Forever, Sic Bo in The Man With The Golden Gun and Backgammon in Octopussy.
