Many memorable movie moments have been heavily influenced by reality and here are a few of the iconic ones to look out for.
Many people go to the movies for escapism, knowing well that fiction is the predominant driving force behind most of it. But often intertwined with the creative license that most movies take are stories based on reality. There are good examples of this to be found in classic movies that feature casinos and poker games.
True stories are great sources of inspiration, and while what happens on the silver screen may look and feel quite different from the initial factual source due to dramatic effects, there is often a great deal of intensity in real-life stories of casinos. Many memorable movie moments have been heavily influenced by reality and here are a few of the iconic ones to look out for.
The world of gambling is changing - and it's moving online. Now, players from the UK, for example, don’t need to fly to Las Vegas or drive to the nearest casino to enjoy slots, poker, roulette, and more. They can do it all from home. Games have also become more accessible. If you're playing at UK casinos listed at https://legalcasino.uk/minimum-deposit/3-pounds/, you can deposit as little as £3 - or even less - to try out slots and other options. The same trend is seen in other countries where gambling is legally regulated.
Still, since online casinos are a relatively recent development, most films featuring casinos focus on land-based venues. But which iconic casino movies were, in fact, inspired by real events?
This is a great place to start because the 1995 blockbuster Casino is based on a non-fiction book called "Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas”. It was written by Nicolas Pileggi, who describes characters like Frank Rosenthal (played by Robert De Niro), a mobster who was ordered to run some casinos in Las Vegas.
Mob enforcer Nicky Santoro (played by Joe Pesci) was inspired by Anthony Spilotro, and Ginger McKenna (played by Sharon Stone) was inspired by former showgirl Geri McGee. The depiction in Casino of mobsters running the Las Vegas gambling scene was all very real, including things like money laundering, which was eventually disrupted by the FBI and led to the downfall of the mobster rule in Vegas.
This casino movie was based on a book called "Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions" by Ben Mezrich. This famously told the story of a group of MIT students and a professor who trained themselves to count cards and perform secret signaling.
The goal was to target blackjack tables with the technique, and it is true that Harvard did have blackjack teams. The story's main character, Ben Campbell, was inspired by Jeff Ma, one of the MIT members, who actually worked as a consultant on the movie. The core story of the movie, featuring Kevin Spacey and Jim Sturgess, was based on reality, although it took a lot of creatively dramatic liberties with things like gambling stakes.
The 2017 feature is entirely based on a true story from a book. The book in question was a memoir by Molly Bloom, who was an aspiring skier. But when injury threw that career off track, she ended up working for someone who was running high-stakes poker games at the infamous Viper Room in California.
Eventually, she started running her own games there, and it was a gambling scene that reportedly attracted many elite movie stars like Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Tobey Maguire. The movie explores the world of these games, which often featured astronomical buy-ins. Even when the FBI crashed the party and targeted Bloom with charges of money laundering and illegal gambling, she remained loyal to her patrons and never disclosed their identities.
This movie is worth an honorary mention for how much research went into it. It’s based on the world of underground high-stakes games of Hold’em poker, specifically, and is an extremely accurate and authentic look at it. The games of poker, the reactions of players, and the depiction of ultimate high stakes are done brilliantly. It’s not so much based on one story, but screenwriters Brian Koppelman and David Levien were part of underground poker clubs in the 1990s, and it is those very real experiences that inspired the movie that features Matt Damon and John Malkovich.
Poker has often been used in movies, from the widely fictional James Bond franchise to more reality-based offerings like the above selection. Casino games usually are a big setting for drama, psychological battles, and how equally fun and risky gambling can be, particularly when the stakes are so high.
