Gambling is a big deal. With the growth of the internet and the rise of online gambling, players are no longer limited to visiting their local casino. Now, people can play on foreign websites where they can bypass know your customer checks, try new games, and even attempt to win bigger prizes. However, when it comes to gambling in popular culture, perhaps no medium has drawn attention to the pastime than the silver screen. Movies have played a big role in entertainment for more than 100 years, and cinema-goers have found themselves drawn time and time again to gamblers in films. And if you wondered why that might be, here are some of the reasons.
Drama And Suspense
A good film should, ideally, have moments of drama and suspense. And you know what else has moments of drama and suspense? That’s right, gambling. The simple fact is that audiences love the moments of uncertainty that a great film can provide. Every move the character makes can ratchet up the tension, which makes for a more exciting experience. While many real-world gamblers are just playing for the money, things are, very often, a bit more high-stakes in the movies.
Just think of the most dashing big-screen gambler, James Bond. In Casino Royale – the movie’s title should be a hint – 007 faces off against terrorist financier Le Chiffre in an attempt to bankrupt the villain and force him to claim asylum in the UK in exchange for his network’s secrets. Or, to take a game you probably won’t find at a casino, how Luke Jackson wins a bet that he can eat 50 eggs in return for the respect of his fellow inmates in Cool Hand Luke. Whichever version you prefer, there’s a sense of drama that naturally follows gambling and betting that draws viewers in and gets them emotionally involved in the characters who do it.
Risk Taking On And Off Screen
In a lot of cases, movie watchers are drawn to characters with whom they can identify and relate to. This, however, leaves us with something of a conundrum. A lot of people gamble, but a lot more don’t. So, it makes sense to say that it can’t just be real-world gamblers who are intrigued by film characters who gamble. This is because, in movies, gambling can be a stand-in for taking a risk. Throughout most of the English-speaking world, people are more likely to take risks, according to the Global Preferences Survey. This means that, at least in theory, everyone has done something where the outcome is uncertain or has taken a risk of some kind, so this makes things relatable.
Also, in a good movie, the actions of the characters have an impact on the audience’s emotions. They will worry about whether or not the character can pull a win off, or what might happen if things go wrong. And there’s also gambling as a metaphor – sometimes less than a metaphor – for following your dreams. For example, in the 1998 cult film Rounders, the character of Mike McDermott, played by Matt Damon, has to figure out whether he wants to follow the path of becoming a lawyer or, instead, become a professional poker player. While most of the film’s viewers might not have risked everything to follow their dreams, they might well have wanted to.
Mastery And Rebellion
In any gambling-related movie, there will come a moment where someone pulls off a move so audacious that the audience has to gasp. There is a crossover between gambling films and heist movies – something Ocean’s Eleven understood instinctively – because watching someone pull off a betting coup is like watching a master thief at work. There’s the chance to see someone do something that shouldn’t be done, but is. And it’s, quite literally, about someone calculating the odds and pulling off an audacious feat. Gamblers can also seem to control something that is, at its very core, random and chaotic, while it can also be good to see someone, no matter how fictional, show their mastery of something.
Another trope about gamblers, or at least their movie versions, is that they are people who may always play by the rules of a card game, but not by the rules of society. A professional gambler doesn’t work a nine-to-five job, but lives by their skills and their wits, which can make for some excellent drama. Often, someone’s adoption of gambling could show that they are on the run, whether from the law, poverty, or their own emotional problems. If you look at a film like The Cincinnati Kid, you can see that movie-goers in 1965 were both enthralled by the characters’ skill at poker and also the allure of an outsider lifestyle.
Ultimately, people who like movies often like characters that gamble because, as always with the cinema, it helps them get vicarious thrills. It is always enthralling to see someone demonstrate a high aptitude for something, and there’s always the thrill of both the outsider life and that of gambling itself.
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