Made in the heat of the now-mercifully-cooled World Series of Poker craze, the late Curtis Hanson put an immediate halt to his terrific L.A. It’s maybe the most honest possible card game. The idea that such a game would exist basically sums up Las Vegas, and gambling in general. Clark is so bad at gambling that, at one point at a “discount” casino, he forks over $20 to play a game called “Pick a Number Between 1 and 10?” He guesses “4.” The dealer says “nope, 7,” and … just takes his money. Basically, Clark Griswold develops an addiction to gambling and is tormented by a card-dealer named Marty played - awesomely - by Wallace Shawn.

But you’ll have to just indulge us on this one, because it has perhaps the single funniest, dumbest casino joke of all time. Luckily, a whole lot of them happen to be great movies all on their own.Īll right, so we know this isn’t a very good movie: It’s probably the worst Vacation movie, with the possible exception of that terrible reboot with Ed Helms. We veered more toward movies about the gambling. Few would argue that Rounders is better than Casino, but Casino is less about the gambling and more about the world in which that gambling takes place Rounders is definitely about the gambling. A note on methodology: We tried to make sure we emphasized the gambling over the movie. So, with the release of Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter, we decided to take a look back at some of the best movies about gambling. They usually don’t end up with a calm home life upstate, counting their winnings. It’s not fun to watch someone be prudent and cautious, but to see someone constantly putting his well-being on the line in desperate, irrational hope for that One Big Score … well, gamblers in gambling movies are in many ways just like that veteran cop who takes One Last Case before retirement. Movies about gambling have an inherent drama because, by definition, they’re about risk.

This article originally ran in 2020 and is being republished ahead of the release of Paul Schrader’s The Card Counter.

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