Kevin spacey casino film

• Even the coolest real-life casino stories, like 21 and Casino, need a little doctoring to make a truly great story.
• Most casino movies based on true stories are actually based on nonfiction books about the people and events that took place.
• Casino movies based on true stories often explore the darker aspects of gambling, casino operation, and mob ties.

While some of the coolest casino and gambling movies are fictional stories, there are many amazing casino movies based on true stories of success and loss, triumphs and heartache, excitement and danger. Many of these movies showcase the people and events with some liberties taken for entertainment and storytelling purposes. But that doesn’t stop these films from exploring the unglamorous aspects of gambling, including addiction as well as the emotional highs and lows of being a great player.

Here are five casino movies based on real-life events featuring your favorite casino games.

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21

The film 21, starring Kevin Spacey, Jim Sturgess, and Kate Bosworth, depicts the card-counting escapades of mathematical whiz kids from MIT who team up to win a fortune playing blackjack. The movie is actually based on the book “Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions” that tells the story of the real-life MIT blackjack team that swept the blackjack tables in the s and s. While the book and movie successfully convey the excitement and success of this team, they take quite a few artistic liberties to make the story simpler and more interesting.

The movie is set in the mids, while the specific team members the story is based on played in the ‘90s. Plus, the real-life MIT Blackjack team wasn’t even made up of solely MIT students as the film suggests. One of the founder members, Bill Kaplan, graduated from Harvard University for undergrad and attended Harvard Business School later on. Many other members of this blackjack team went to Harvard and others attended Princeton in nearby New Jersey. 

Another big difference between real life and fiction is that the book and film feature an MIT professor Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) as the team’s leader and mentor. However, this character is actually a conglomeration of Kaplan and the two other leaders, J.P. Massar and John Chang, neither of whom were professors.

The protagonist Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) doesn’t share the same background as the real-life team member he’s based on. Ben came from a household that struggled with money, while the real-life inspiration, Jeff Ma, came from a well-off family. Both Campbell and Ma wanted to go to Harvard Medical School, but Ma didn’t need to save his blackjack winnings to pay for it. What’s more, Ma and fellow team member Jane Willis never had any romantic relationship like Ben and Jill did in the movie. In fact, Ma recruited Willis and her then-boyfriend to join the team.

The film was spot on showing how Ma and his teammates used code words to inconspicuously communicate the count at each table they played. When Ben first joins the team, he reads a book called “Bet the Dealer: A Winning Strategy for the Game of 21,” which isn’t just a prop. It’s the same book the real-life team used to develop their winning strategy! You can buy and read it for yourself to improve your own blackjack skills.

Another part the movie got right is just how well these players pulled off this card-counting scheme, especially since none of them had significant gambling experience prior to joining. But in real life, Kaplan, Massar, and Chang formed a legal partnership called Strategic Investments to source venture capital for the team’s bankroll. At one point, the team had earned a % return for investors AFTER team expenses. However, the players suffered multiple losing streaks and got banned from multiple casinos, so Strategic Investments was disbanded in

The book is considered nonfiction, though the real-life MIT team members and critics alike have pointed out its frequent use of artistic liberty. But 21 is one of the best contemporary films to watch if you love blackjack. It’s got great emotional stakes for the characters and intense confrontations with casino security who catch on to their plan.

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Casino

Directed by Martin Scorsese, Casino is a classic film based on the true story of casino manager for the mob, Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal. The movie is based on the nonfiction book “Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas.” During the ‘70s and ‘80s, Las Vegas was a rougher city than it is now, with mobsters and kingpins running many of the casinos and following their own rules when it came to punishing cheaters. And this film explores the dark, dangerous lives of the mob-connected casino world.

Unlike 21, this movie is set in the same time period in which the real-life events that inspired it took place. Though names have been changed, many of the main characters featured in the film are based on real people. Robert DeNiro’s Sam “Ace” Rothstein is based on Rosenthal, and his wife in the movie, Ginger McKenna played by Sharon Stone, is based on Rosenthal’s wife Geri McGee. Joe Pesci plays Nicky Santoro, who’s a stand-in for mobster Anthony “The Ant” Spilotro. 

Casino stays pretty true to the real-life personalities and events. For example, Sam Rothstein is denied a gaming license, and the real Rosenthal didn’t get one either. To get around this, the mob gave him alternative titles that had nothing to do with his real job to throw the feds off their scent. Pesci’s Nicky Santoro is banned from every casino in Vegas, just like Spilotro. At the end of the film, Ginger McKenna dies of a drug overdose like her real-life counterpart did.

There are some pretty crazy parts of the film that some have doubted were real, like Sam Rothstein surviving a car bomb. But this isn’t all fiction. In fact, Rosenthal actually survived this attempted assassination as Sam does in the film. Another moment is the Aces High show filmed at the Tangiers Hotel. In real life, Rosenthal hosted his own show from the Stardust that featured guests like Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope. Lastly, Rosenthal confirmed that, under his management, a cheater was punished by getting his hand smashed with a hammer as it happens in the film. The key difference is that this man was part of a large cheating ring, and Rothstein wanted to “send a message.”

And there are multiple things the movie didn’t quite get right or changed completely. For one, Sam Rothstein manages just one hotel casino, the Tangiers. But Rosenthal ran three casinos simultaneously: the Fremont, the Hacienda, and the Stardust. While the film is based almost entirely on Rosenthal’s management of the Stardust Casino in particular, the filmmakers changed the name to the Tangiers for legal reasons. Finally, the Spilotro brothers were beaten to death as their counterparts, the Santoros, are in the film. However, the real-life murder took place at a mobster’s home in Illinois, and the bodies were later transported and buried in a corn field in Indiana.

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Boardwalk Empire

Okay, so Boardwalk Empire isn’t a movie or purely casino-focused, but it’s a fantastic TV show from HBO that depicts the bootlegging and backroom gambling world of Prohibition-era Atlantic City, New Jersey. If it wasn’t for this seedy part of history, Atlantic City casinos might not even exist! And it has a very distinct style that’s reminiscent of the film Casino. That’s because the pilot episode was directed by the Oscar-winning director Martin Scorcese, famed director of Casino.

Boardwalk Empire follows the dicey political career and downfall of fictional character Enoch “Nucky” Thompson, played by Steve Buscemi. The initial concept and many events throughout the show’s run are based on the book “Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City,” which explores the life of some of AC’s most prominent figures.

One such figure was Enoch “Nucky” Johnson, a local political figure who helped make Atlantic City into the bustling gambling mecca of the East Coast that it is today. He was a leading political figure during Atlantic City’s early days, serving as treasurer of the county. He was also a successful bootlegger who managed the import of liquor into AC and had ties with both the Chicago and New York mobs. And it’s this character on which Buscemi’s Nucky Thompson is based.

The first few seasons of the show feature a man named Jimmy Darmody, who is Nucky’s protege. Darmody’s real-life counterpart Jimmy Boyd was Nucky Johnson’s right-hand man and friend. In the show, Darmody becomes the leader of the rebellion group trying to take over Nucky’s bootlegging territory, and Nucky kills Darmody for this betrayal and to protect his operation. However, no such thing happened with the real-life Boyd and Johnson.

A few things the show did get right include Babette’s, the club featured in the show. It’s based on the real-life Babette’s that existed during the ‘20s and ‘30s and it, too, was known for housing illegal activity, including backroom gambling. In addition, you’ll see that Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) always wears a red carnation in his lapel, and that’s exactly what Nucky Johnson did, too.

Overall, this show has five amazing seasons full of fascinating historical fiction that’s great for gambling aficionados, history buffs, and average viewers alike.

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Molly’s Game

Molly’s Game is a movie based on the memoir of the same name that covers the intense story of a woman who ran an underground poker ring for the Hollywood elite and other prominent, wealthy figures.

The story goes that Molly Bloom was on her way to the Olympics as a skier when she suffered a terrible injury that ended her athletic career. She decided to take a year off before law school to spend time in Los Angeles, where she ended up working as a bottle service waitress at a club. She then started serving in the club’s back rooms where celebrities and other big wigs played private poker games. She got really good at managing these games on her own, so she started her own ring. But the feds get involved when someone running a Ponzi scheme loses all of his investment money at the table and his investors come after her to get it back.

What’s great about this film is that Molly Bloom, the woman this film is based on, wrote and shopped her memoir to filmmakers. When Aaron Sorkin said yes, he also had her on set to consult on the film and try to make it as accurate as possible.

Here are a few smaller details that show just how accurate this film is. In the movie, Molly makes $3, in tips on her first night at the club, which Bloom writes in her book. Dean Keith, based on club owner Darin Feinstein, yells at Molly about bringing “poor people bagels,” also in her memoir. When Molly started her own games, the buy-in started at $10, but went up to $,, making the stakes that much higher and the players that much more prestigious. Bloom confirmed this on a talk show.

Many of the major events in the film occurred as Bloom recalled them in her book. Molly eventually let people play on credit and took a cut of the pots to keep her finances in check. She requested protection from Russian mobsters, who wanted a cut of her profits in return. When she tried to refuse, she was, indeed, threatened at gunpoint as depicted in the film. Molly also publishes her memoir in the film to try to recoup funds and pay back her mom who sold her house to pay for Molly’s legal fees and bond. This obviously happened in real life, too.

In the memoir and in the film, some names were changed to protect the identities of celebrities who hadn’t been outed by the civil suit against Molly and her celebrity players. However, Player X (Michael Cera) has all but been confirmed as Tobey Maguire. Cera’s portrayal, based on the events in the book, paints Spiderman as a pretty huge jerk, behavior that’s been referenced by many Hollywood colleagues who’ve worked with Tobey Maguire. Idris Elba plays Molly’s lawyer in the film, but this character isn’t based on Bloom’s real-life lawyer Jeff Walden and is Sorkin’s own creation. And the name of the club she starts working at is changed from The Viper Room to The Cobra Lounge.

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High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story

This film is a biopic about Stu Ungar, a professional poker and gin rummy player who suffered with drug addiction and problematic gambling. The film is a series of flashbacks that explore Ungar’s life and what led him to the present moment: his last day on earth.

Like in the movie, Ungar was a genius gin player as a child and learned how to gamble from his father. He transitioned to poker, another world where he experienced a lot of success. We see him win major tournaments, like the World Series of Poker Main Event, but the movie couldn’t include all of his major wins because Ungar has a lot.

One potential inaccuracy reviewers point out is that Ungar seems less ornery at the poker table than he did in real life. In fact, a dealer even said that Ungar was one of the worst players they’ve encountered. The few feisty interactions and outbursts in the film seem to be a conglomerate of Ungar’s sometimes unruly table behavior. But the film focuses more on showing the other, more private side of Ungar that audiences didn’t see at the table. This provides us a glimpse into who he really was as a person, not just as a player.

The film also depicts his gambling and drug addictions. But some reviewers claim the film didn’t do enough to visually depict the effects his drug addiction had on his appearance. Michael Imperioli, who played Ungar in the film, looks relatively healthy throughout the lows of this addiction in the film and even at his death.

High Roller is a must-see gambling movie about one of the greats and the struggles he faced.
After catching up (or rewatching) these fantastic casino films based on true stories, live your own casino story by playing your favorite games at an online casino in New Jersey. You never know what wager might make you the next inspiration for a must-see casino classic.