What Movie Gambling Scenes Deliberately Get it Wrong?

Adding gambling scenes to a movie is a surefire way to inject some extra excitement and develop the characters. However, some of the most interesting movies with gambling scenes have intentionally misrepresented things, sparking online discussions about their intended meaning.

The roulette scene in Rain Man stands out as being a moment that’s difficult to interpret. In this four-time Oscar winner from 1988, Dustin Hoffman plays the character of Raymond. He uses his incredible memory and skill to perform complex calculations, even though he flouts casino etiquette by touching the cards. So, when he heads to the roulette table with Charlie (Tom Cruise), we expect him to succeed. Raymond looks bewildered when his prediction of the number 20 fails to win, and the fact that this is never mentioned again leads some viewers to believe that it was part of a cut scene that should have been deleted.

Yet, perhaps the real reason for this scene is to show that Raymond doesn’t have any magic powers and can’t predict the outcome of games of chance like roulette any more than anyone else. A look at the range of different ways of playing online roulette at Paddy’s shows that a random outcome is the key in different versions like Quantum Roulette and Lightning Roulette. This game has evolved to include live-streamed dealers and random multipliers to add variety, but it essentially retains the same gameplay in which no one knows which number the ball will land on.   

If there remains doubt over whether the roulette scene in Rain Main is a mistake or part of the plot designed to show us that Raymond isn’t using special powers to win games of chance, there are no such doubts over the blackjack scene in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. In this 1997 film, Mike Myers plays the suave spy who ends up playing blackjack at a table with Number 2 (Robert Wagner).  

Powers fails spectacularly to understand the rules, insisting that he wants to stand on a total of just five. While this is another game that’s evolved with new types of presentation and side bets among the changes, the goal has always been to try and reach 21. Standing on five makes no sense, and even a complete newcomer to the game should know that Powers could safely hit with no risk of going bust.

The Beatles’ 1964 movie A Hard Day’s Night helped introduce the group’s sense of humor to a wider audience. Wilfrid Brambell plays Paul McCartney’s grandfather and at one point plays baccarat but calls out bingo when it’s his turn to play. This is a simple card game where he only had to bet on the banker or player’s hand but appears to have confused it with another game.

You don’t need to be an expert in the casino games mentioned to understand that in two of these cases, the writers have deliberately introduced some mistakes to add humor to the selected scenes.