The advanced technology and online world have created a new option for people that are looking to make their free time more entertaining. During the weekend, people usually take their laptops and google for a good movie that can impress them. On the other hand, people that are chasing fun with more sense of adrenaline would create an account on an online casino and test their luck with games like roulette, poker, baccarat, etc. But what if you can make a “cocktail” that is made of these two things?

Movies based on gambling are pretty popular among certain groups of people. If you are not a big fan of movies, then you are probably not even aware of how many options you actually have. To find more answers and hear some recommendations, I suggest you check the list below. I have included all the factors that are relevant to an average person that loves gambling and is looking for a movie that will keep his attention until the very end. Let’s find some options together!

Wake in Fright

This movie is pretty old, and it was released in 1971. However, just because it is old, that doesn’t mean the movie can’t keep the attention of a modern gambler. For some people, this is actually the best gambling movie in cinematographic history.

The main character of this movie is Gary Bond. Believe it or not, he is actually a successful and beloved teacher that works in an Australian school. He lives and works in a small town where the majority of people are big fans of beer.

The bad surroundings and environment negatively impacted the professor’s Bond way of life and mentality. Apart from drinking habits, he got addicted to gambling. I won’t say what exactly happens and how his gambling journey ends up. However, something that we can say is that things are going from worse to even worse. I strongly recommend you check this movie!

The Gambler

The name of this movie does not tell the whole story. While it certainly explains the movie is based on gambling, it does not relieve some important facts. Before everything, it is worth mentioning that the creator of this movie is James Toback. The younger generations probably do not know a lot about his life. He had many scandals in public and the easiest way to describe his behavior is “problematic”.

This movie is actually describing his gambling addiction. It describes how passionate about sports betting he was. However, the movie itself does not focus only on that. Through the screenplay, James Toback tried to explain that he was a self-destructive person. Gambling addiction was just an outcome of his dissatisfaction with life and the lack of emotions that he needed so much. He explains that, when he started gambling, he was just going deeper and deeper.

Croupier

Another movie with an interesting title that deserves to be on this list is Croupier. The movie was released in 1998 and the main character is Clive Owen. I’m sure that most youngsters haven’t heard about him. He truly didn’t have an appropriate movie appearance in the last 20 years. But Croupier certainly was one of the best deals he made in his career!

In this movie, Clive Owen is Jack, a successful novelist that has one big problem. He is investing a lot of effort to find a way to make easy and quick money. However, criminal activities didn’t attract him that much. So, he decided to start a gambling journey and try to make himself rich that way!

As stated above, many people claim this was the best role ever Clive Owen has had. He shows precisely how anxious, depressing, and sad the life of an average gambler is. After watching this movie, you will never allow yourself to become addicted to gambling! More precisely, you will start understanding why gambling should be an entertainment activity and not a way of making money.

The Card Counter

Neither of the previous three movies is recorded in the 21st century. Because of that, it would be unfair not to mention at least one movie that was recorded recently. Currently, The Card Counter was released in 2021. The main character is Oscar Isaac. He is a professional gambler who dedicated his entire life to this activity. It was some sort of a full-time job for him because he was going from one casino to another for the entire day.

However, he was not doing that to become rich at all. Gambling was a way to forget about his past as well as everyday problems and bring some entertainment and fun to his life. People often start to do self-destructive things to forget about the pain. Instead of doing bad things, it would be much better to ask for help instead of visiting casinos, drinking alcohol, or doing a bunch of other things.

Conclusion

There are multiple reasons why we recommend these four movies. Logically, the main one is an interesting and entertaining storyline full of different emotions. Apart from that, these movies are educational as they precisely describe the life, behavior, and feelings of each person addicted to gambling. Roulette, poker, and other games should be a source of fun and nothing more. If you earn money – be happy! If not, don’t be sad. You made your free time more exciting, and you achieved your goal. That is the only way to avoid all the problems the main characters from these movies were struggling with.

There’s no doubt about it – Marvel are at the top of the world right now. They’ve got the single biggest franchise of all time (no, seriously, they’ve grossed over $13.5 billion dollars at the box office over 17 movies – for comparison, the 24 James Bond films have only scored $7 billion), they’ve got their characters on anything from lunch boxes to mobile games (with the most successful one, “Marvel: Contest of Champions”, estimated to make a staggering $250,000 PER DAY), and the trailer for the latest instalment, “Avengers: Infinity War”, becoming the single most watched trailer on YouTube within hours of its release. With Iron Man and Captain America being international legends comparable to Luke Skywalker or Mickey Mouse, it’s kind of hard to believe that a mere ten years ago Marvel wasn’t in the best place, financially speaking.

In the 1990s, Marvel was in a REALLY tough spot. The story behind it is kind of fascinating – around that time, several news stories suddenly started popping up about people discovering their old Superman and Spider-Man comics, with the issues of their first appearances selling out for amazingly huge prices. Suddenly, people realized that comics were actually valuable, and many got it in their heads that maybe they, too, could invest in first issues of comic books and sell them for hundreds of thousands of dollars in 50 years’ time. That led to multiple first issues selling a staggering amount, most of which were bought by collectors and people who had no intention of ever reading the comic’s contents. But hey, if more people were buying comics than ever, what was the problem? Well, the thing is, while the first issue sold a ton, most of those sales remained unopened and unread. And since nobody read them, nobody cared enough to buy the second, third or fourth issues, leading to a market crash before the end of the decade that ultimately led to Marvel declaring bankruptcy.

To get out of that tight spot, Marvel needed to do make a lot of hard choices that were inevitable, yet would continue to haunt them to this very day. The worst part was that they sold a ton of their movie rights to various movie studios (for example, Spider-Man and Ghost Rider went to Sony, the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Daredevil went to Fox, the Incredible Hulk went to Universal, etc). And, of course, just a few years later they also made a deal with slot developer Playtech to release slots based on properties owned by Marvel Comics. And while Playtech kept their end of the deal, releasing comics based on the comic book incarnations of Spider-Man and Wolverine, most of their slots were loosely and unofficially not based on comics, but on their movie adaptations. Slots like The Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four and Elektra claimed a comic book inspiration, but were clearly meant to tie into big movies released around the same time.

But Playtech didn’t truly start to shine until 2008, when the Marvel Cinematic Universe was born. Their Iron Man slots were all fantastic, featuring various different features, and their Thor slot even had pictures from the movie as it symbols! The slot was based on a property that Marvel owned, so using the actors’ likenesses was A-OK for the first time since the deal happened. And let me tell you, all of the slots released during that time were AWESOME! Each featured a different gimmick/feature, very high production values and even wholly original music, which is just so rare in slots. But alas, it wasn’t meant to be. In 2009, Marvel was purchased by Disney – a company with a notoriously anti-gambling stance. Right then and there, they announced that they would be honoring the deal Marvel made with Playtech, but wouldn’t renew it – meaning that the developer wouldn’t be able to make any new slots after 2013. While 2012’s “The Avengers” wasn’t the last Marvel slot ever made, it most certainly felt like a grand, epic swan song to the entire saga.

While Playtech weren’t allowed to make any more slots after Iron Man 3, which marked the very last Marvel-themed online slot ever made, all of the games – alongside their shared Marvel jackpot – would remain online, where they would continue to be enjoyed for years to come… But even that had its end. As of April 2017, every single Marvel-themed Playtech slot was taken down in what, frankly, felt like a petty move that Disney made to express their displeasure over the fact that Playtech are now working with WB/DC on slots themed after their properties. Playtech are planning to rebrand the slots and return them to action, but it’s not going to feel the same. Here’s to you, Marvel slots! It was fun while it lasted.

In my previous blog post, I touched upon the importance of playing at safe and licenced online casinos. Yet it occurred to me that I did not delve particularly deep into the topic. It is pretty self explanatory why you should choose a reliable and trustworthy operator to play with. After all, when you play casino games with real money, you need to divulge your sensitive personal data. If that were not strictly protected, then there is every chance that you could become a victim of fraud. Yet how do you go about verifying that a casino is safe? You can save yourself a lot of aggro further down the line by using these few simple tips to ensure you are choosing an operator that you can trust.

UKGC Licenced and Regulated – You should always check that a casino holds a valid licence from the United Kingdom Gambling Commission. All online casinos that provide their services to players in the UK must possess this licence by law. It is a clear indication that the operator has proven that they follow strict standards regarding player protection. Simply look for the UKGC logo in the footer of the casino site to verify it is licenced. If such a licence is not held by the casino, then avoid them at all costs.

Fair Games and Payouts – Reputable operators will enlist the services of independent testing agencies to check their random number generator (RNG) and the outcome of game results. Accredited organisations such as eCOGRA, TST and GLI, amongst others provide such services to online casinos. They produce payout reports, detailing the percentage of all money bet that is paid back to players. If an online casino displays such reports on their site, you can be confident that the fairness and integrity of games has been independently verified.

Secure Financial Transactions – The best online casinos use sophisticated technical security to ensure that your private, sensitive data is kept strictly protected. All financial transactions that take place on the casino website should be encrypted to ensure that they cannot be intercepted by third parties and potential fraudsters. To ensure that the casino site protects transactions, you should look out for the padlock symbol in the address bar of the web browser. What’s more, many operators will display the logos of the companies they use to protect their site. Some such names include Norton Secured, McAfee and Thawte.

Use Online Resources for Research – There are many useful resources to be found on the internet that can help you identify a safe casino. Take for example www.safecasinos.org.uk which gives lots of hints and tips for separating the good operators from the bad. They also rank and rate legitimate online casinos to help you find the best match for you. By choosing a casino featured on their site, you can be sure you are opting for a reliable and trustworthy operator.

What do most people think of when someone mentions casino games? Well, Las Vegas, of course! Then, there are those who picture Atlantic City’s iconic boardwalk. And, then, there are those who recall European gambling landmarks, such as Monte Carlo and the French Riviera.

Despite getting all that attention, the USA is a hot mess when it comes to gambling. The problem arises because of the unclear gambling regulations. On the one hand, states can make their own decision whether to legalise (online) gambling. On the other hand, federal law forbids it. And then, there are the tribal casinos, which cannot be touched either by the state or by the government because they are on Native American reservation land. It’s quite puzzling and there’s a lot of grey area. For example, taking sports bets on a server located in the U.S. or over U.S. telephone lines is illegal, whereas placing bets on the internet yourself is legal. But the status of helping other people make bets on the internet is grey area – a U.S. citizen may get away with it or get imprisoned, it’s arbitrary.

Actually, only two months ago, online gaming suffered another blow when Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas filed a bill on the Senate agenda which aims to ban online gaming and poker. At a time when most players are looking forward to having iGaming legalized in more and more states, this backward action is really shocking.

But what about the UK? Well, my friends, I’m happy to report that we’ve got it all figured out quite nicely over here. We’ve got the most competitive online casino market in the world and you know what that means – the more the competition, the better the conditions for the players. Indeed, we’ve got choice.

There are plenty of licensed casinos – to spot these, look out for the seal of the UK Gambling Commission, which is your guarantee that the operator is legal and regulated. Of those casinos that are legal to play at – and don’t you even consider playing at the unregulated ones as that would be a waste of time and money – there are many that serve you tasty bonuses on a silver platter. It’s up to you to make your pick. So is the case with games. There’s an astounding variety of slot machines, roulette and blackjack variants, as well as other not so popular card and table games. Finally, all those regulated online casinos offer excellent customer support and a wide range of payment options.

Whatever your preferences, if you’re in the UK, you’ll be able to enjoy your favourite games at a sleek online casino. There will be free play money and many other bonuses generously offered to you. But most importantly, this will all be 100% legal. So, if you like gaming and live somewhere on the glorious British Isles, you should feel really lucky. There are, of course, things you can do to build up on your luck but we’ll get to that in some other post.

Hi, pals, Neal here. Welcome to my blog.

This is my very first post and I’m excited to finally make this blog a reality. I’ve been thinking of starting a blog like this for a long time. You see, I’ve been gambling for ages.
I’m a gambler in all the glamour of the term. I’ve travelled to famous places with the sole intention of gambling. I’ve been in Las Vegas a number of times. I’ve been to Monte Carlo. I’ve played at the famous casino in Bad Homburg.

I also love watching casino movies. You know, nothing you wouldn’t expect. I’ve seen Casino Royale, both the original from 1967 and the remake with Daniel Craig from 2006, so many times that I’ve lost the count. I love The Sting (1973) and Maverick (1994). And have you watched the classic Cincinnati Kid (1965)?

But my biggest passion right now are online casinos. Online casinos are such a great opportunity for both experienced players and newbies, for high rollers and those who’d rather place small stakes. It’s amazing how you can have all that fun without leaving your house. It’s a whole new world of possibilities.

So, that’s what I plan on writing about – the world of casino games and gambling in Europe and the UK. I’m thinking of sharing with you my opinion on games I’ve played and casinos I have found rewarding and welcoming. I’ll probably write many reviews and give you the occasional piece of news. But we’ll see where my good intentions will take us.

For now, if you like playing casino games or are thinking of joining an online casino, keep an eye on my blog as more posts are coming soon. Also, feel free to write to me and ask any questions or make suggestions about topics I should cover.