LOS ANGELES (AP) — The stakes. The well-known faces. The luxury non-public rooms. The intelligent dishonest schemes.
The federal indictment of a big-money poker ring involving NBA figures on Thursday, by which unsuspecting wealthy gamers have been allegedly enticed to affix then cheated of their cash, echoed a long time of flicks and tv, and never simply due to the alleged Mafia involvement.
Fictional and precise poker have lengthy been in form of a pop-cultural suggestions loop. When authorities described the supposed circumstances of the video games, they may’ve evoked a run of display screen moments from latest a long time.
Poker in ‘Ocean’s Eleven,’ ‘Molly’s Sport’ and ‘The Sopranos’
A 2004 episode of “ The Sopranos ” confirmed a really related mixture of celebrities and mobsters in a New York sport whose gamers included Van Halen singer David Lee Roth and soccer Corridor-of-Famer Lawrence Taylor, each taking part in themselves.
In 2001’s “Ocean’s Eleven,” George Clooney finds his outdated heist buddy Brad Pitt operating a poker sport for “Teen Beat” cover boys including Topher Grace and Joshua Jackson, also playing themselves. Clooney spontaneously teams with Pitt to con them. And the plot of the 2007 sequel “Ocean’s Thirteen” facilities on the high-tech rigging of on line casino video games.
Requested in regards to the relevance of the movies to the NBA scandal, which got here quickly after a narrative out of Paris that might’ve come straight out of “Ocean’s Twelve,” Clooney instructed The Related Press with fun that “we get blamed for everything now.”
“’Cause we also got compared to the Louvre heist. Which, I think, you gotta CGI me into that basket coming out of the Louvre,” Clooney stated Thursday evening on the Los Angeles premiere of his new movie, “Jay Kelly.” He was referring to thieves utilizing a basket carry to steal priceless Napoleonic jewels from the museum.
2017’s “Molly’s Game,” and the real-life memoir from Molly Bloom that it was primarily based on, may nearly function manuals for methods to construct a poker sport’s attract for fascinating “fish” in the identical methods and with the identical terminology that the organizers indicted Thursday allegedly used.
The draw of Bloom’s video games at hip Los Angeles membership The Viper Room weren’t NBA gamers, however Hollywood gamers like Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and “The Hangover” director Todd Phillips. (None of them have been accused of any wrongdoing.)
Within the film written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, Bloom, performed by Jessica Chastain, describes the best way a well-known actor acts as an attractor for different gamers, the identical approach officers stated Thursday that NBA “face cards” did for the newly indicted organizers.
The unnamed actor, performed by Michael Cera, was not less than partly primarily based on the “Spider-Man” star Maguire.
“People wanted to say they played with him,” Chastain says. “The same way they wanted to say they rode on Air Force One. My job security was gonna depend on bringing him his fish.”
In her e-book, Bloom described the attract for the gamers she drew.
“The formula of keeping pros out, inviting in celebrities and other interesting and important people, and even the mystique of playing in the private room of the Viper Room added up to one of the most coveted invitations in town,” she writes, later including that “I just needed to continue feeding it new, rich blood; and to be strategic about how to fill those ten precious seats.”
Bloom would get caught up in a broad 2013 nationwide crackdown on high-stakes non-public poker video games, in all probability the best profile poker bust in years earlier than this week. She received a yr’s probation, a $1,000 tremendous, and neighborhood service.
There have been no accusations of rigging at her sport, however that did not make it authorized.
The legality of private-space poker video games has been disputed for many years and broadly varies amongst U.S. states. However typically, they have an inclination to carry consideration and prosecution when the host is profiting the best way {that a} on line casino would.
A quick historical past of flicks making poker cool
Poker — and dishonest at it — has run by films, particularly Westerns, from their silent beginnings.
Outstanding poker scenes characteristic in 1944’s “Tall in the Saddle” with John Wayne and 1950’s “The Gunfighter” with Gregory Peck.
“The Cincinnati Kid” in 1965 was devoted totally to poker — with Steve McQueen bringing his unmatched cool to the title character.
A pair of flicks co-starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman actually raised the sport’s profile, although.
Within the opening scene of 1969’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Child,’ a hyper-cool Redford is taking part in poker and refuses to go away till one other participant takes again a dishonest accusation.
In 1973’s Greatest Image Oscar winner “The Sting,” Nineteen Thirties con-men Newman and Redford search revenge in opposition to a giant fish and run a collection of more and more daring playing scams that might’ve come from Thursday’s indictments. Newman out-cheats the person at poker to set him up for the massive con, a phony radio horse race.
The Eighties noticed a dip in display screen poker, with the topic largely relegated to the TV “Gambler” films, starring Kenny Rogers, primarily based on his hit track.
However the finish of the last decade introduced a poker boomlet from the elevated legalization of economic video games.
Then, at probably the right second, got here “Rounders.” The 1998 Matt Damon movie did for Texas Maintain ’em what “Sideways” did for pinot noir and “Pitch Perfect” did for a cappella: it took an outdated and standard phenomenon and made them widespread crazes.
Quickly after got here explosive progress in on-line poker, whose gamers usually sought out large face-to-face video games. And the event of cameras that confirmed gamers’ playing cards — similar to the tech allegedly used to cheat gamers, in accordance with the brand new indictments — made poker a TV spectator sport.
The “Ocean’s” movies and the overall mystique they introduced piled on too.
Clooney, speaking in regards to the broader set of busts Thursday that included alleged playing on basketball itself, identified that his Cincinnati Reds have been the beneficiaries of sport’s most notorious playing scandal, the 1919 “Black Sox” and the fixing of the World Collection, “so I have great guilt for that.”
“But you know there — we’ve never had a moment in our history that we didn’t have some dumb scandal or something crazy,” he stated. “I feel very bad for the gambling scandal ’cause this was on the night that, you know, we had some amazing basketball happen.”
—-
Related Press author Leslie Ambriz contributed to this report.
