Gambling has always played a significant role in movies. With the evolution of online casinos, more people became involved in gambling, and even the sci-fi genre started to show various casino games in movies. Some of them also invented a new type of casino game. This article will examine five movies that have casino games on it and explain why they are so popular.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
The space casino theme is very popular in Star Wars. There is a scene in the movie where protagonists visit an alien casino. For some people, it was very fruitless and did nothing for the plot, but in many cases gambling featured in films is very important, as it adds more tension and unpredictability to the action sequence.
Star Wars is perhaps also known to the fans for inventing a card game called Sabacc. It is undoubtedly the most prominent form of gambling featured in a sci-fi movie. It has been widely used in other Star Wars movies as well and gained worldwide popularity.
Star Trek
Another very famous franchise, which features a well-known game of poker. This is actually the real poker, however, it is then explained throughout the movie that a game was played on the Earth.
In the franchise, Leonard McCoy is the one who teaches Captain Spock how to play. It should also be admitted that most directors watch or even play poker just to see how they should set up the scene, while the actors play live online poker game in order to get the reactions and game sense they need to replicate on the screen. It is very useful because when you are directing a movie or star in it, real reactions are very important. This was the case in Star Trek as well. Even though live poker at that time did not exist, they played the game in real life to adjust to the role.
The Hunger Games
We have mentioned poker and an alien casino, though it is also important to discuss betting, which is featured in The Hunger Games. As you know from the movie, people are chosen to take part in a survival event, where they are actually fighting each other. The movie depicts bets, which demonstrates who is the favorite to survive and who is not. As the main protagonists Katniss and Peeta progress, their popularity increases among punters.
The addition of betting in this movie was mainly aimed to create an environment, which would be very tense and show viewers, that people are so ruthless they are even willing to place bets on the death/survival of youngsters.
In Time
Another movie that features poker in it. The movie tells us about people who stop aging after 25. At one point in the film, Will Salas(Justin Timberlake) visits a casino, and he manages to win 1,100 years worth of playing time in poker. The scene is very well-designed and provides additional enjoyment to the viewers.
X-Men Origins: Gambit
We have reached a superhero movie about a famous Wolverine, and there is a particular scene in the film when he comes face to face with Gambit, a superhero playing poker and doing amazing things with the help of cards. Though the scene is very briefly shown, Gambit looks very badass, and he is the sole superhero in the Marvel universe who uses tarot cards as a superpower.
People widely acclaimed the addition of Gambit in X-Men, however, he did not manage to get a standalone film, after Marvel acquired the rights on the characters of X-Men.
