Gambling and Hollywood has a close connection that many poker fans may have missed noticing, which is why this article aims at rectifying this oversight for all poker fans who are movie lovers too. Take a look below at some interesting, thrilling, incredibly strange and even classic poker films that have given the card game loved in America, European and now the world over some of the best lines and scenes through the past 100 years!

Smooth and often slick card playing has often been used by Hollywood filmmakers to add a zing to their movies, especially those with an adventurous gambler in it. Some of course, clearly demarcate the good from the bad and it is not unknown to find casinos and smoke rooms associated with indecent or immoral characters or to indicate the contrast between right and wrong too. However, silly scenes like in ‘House of Games’ and movies like ‘Maverick’ and ‘Honeymoon in Vegas’ only focus on the improbable side of poker gaming.

To take a look at poker down the years, the very first record most cine fans have of a poker movie is the oldie titled ‘A Cure for Pokeritis,’ released in 1912, in which a wife thinks she can remedy her husband’s style of losing poker games.

But just like the absurd thing that always draws attention and generates talk, of which we have spoken in regard to movies, there have also been some really good card playing scenes shot in Hollywood. This includes a movie titled ‘California Split’ released in 1974. Poker fans agree that till date this is one of the best cinematic attempts on portraying an authentic story of sports betting, card games and typical gambler characteristics, like sleeping well into the afternoon! Except for its weak ending and poor audio quality, the movie by Robert Altman (of Mash television series) was a sincere attempt at capturing the true spirit of the game. Elliot Gould and George Segal who pursue the game for a heady rush essayed the characters of Gardena poker players. The movie also stars Amarillo Slim, a renowned World Series of Poker champion!

Then there is the 1973 release, called ‘The Sting’ where the storyline revolves around a boozy cheater played by blue-eyed Paul Newman who manages to out-hustle another cheat portrayed by Robert Shaw in a board poker game set aboard a train by needling the latter! This film highlights the sophisticated poker game where polite veneers hide actual strategies for winning the pot!

Another really fast-paced poker movie is titled Run (released in 1990) with Patrick Dempsey as the protagonist who is involved in an illegal card game just to kill some time; the movie is set in the period before casinos were licensed to operate in New Jersey. It shows good poker etiquette with the hero tipping the dealer and an authentic reaction of the protagonist to the second-hand smoke generated in typical poker rooms. The climax of the film shows a violent player forcing the hero to draw a single card, indicating a twist in the tale in what viewers get to learn about Gestapo poker.

And of course, how can any list for films be complete without mention of the 1950 classic, ‘The Gunfighter’ starring Gregory Peck as a fierce gunfighter representing the Wild, Wild West who, though wanting to settle down to a nice, quiet life, must keep up his notoriety just because regular squirts want to mess with him to earn a name for themselves. Two great poker scenes consist of a regular dispute between 3 old coots and the next is staged in a barber shop where townsmen try to talk a new man entering the local salon into joining their game, but he refuses with the famous line, “I wouldn’t sit in this game with cards I made myself!”