Who Wins Big at the Movies? The Best Casino Scenes Ever

There are many iconic casino movie scenes; the most famous is from the 2006 Casino Royale Bond film that features a new but dashing 007 taking on the velvet suit-attired Le Chiffre in a high-volt and heavy staked tournament of Texas Hold’em, while the gorgeous Vesper Lynd and her dark purple Roberto Cavalli dress steal the scene.

The Bond movies are rich fishing grounds for casino scenes, but they aren’t the only place to go for slots with bonus and free spins. Many glamorous and funny movies can give us an insight into casino life without actually visiting.

Casino Royale is a film that epitomizes style, and if you must fight all the way down a flight of stairs, it might as well be a marble staircase in the Grandhotel Pupp in Czechia doubling as the Hotel Splendide in Montenegro.

Ocean’s Eleven Keeps the Glamour Going

From the gorgeous location and beautiful outfits of Casino Royale to Ocean’s Eleven, 2001, keeps up the style overload with striking suits and clever card play. The best Ocean’s Eleven casino scene is when Rusty teaches some local celebrities and card sharps some tricks in the back of the Vegas MGM Grand.

All players cut a dash; the suits stole the show while the actors drifted seamlessly into their roles and four more films. The Ocean’s ladies didn’t really get a look in until Ocean’s 8. The mainly female spin-off of the Ocean’s trilogy takes on an elaborate heist with style and grace and subverted expectations.

Casino scenes also have plenty of high-grit, low-rent excerpts deliver more than movie fans expect. In Goodfellas (1990), card play is secondary to the edgy undercurrents.

Goodfellas (1990) Gives a Gritty Performance

Spider forgets to get Tommy’s drink during a poker game, and Tommy overreacts. The themes throughout this film are edgy and dark, which is not really a reality but adds to the movie’s cult status. Goodfellas is filmed mainly in the dark, while the overview and feeling portrayed by Casino Royale and Ocean’s Eleven are sunny and bright even when filmed inside.

The casino used in Goodfellas was actually the Riviera Casino in Las Vegas Boulevard South and not the Tangiers, as we are led to believe. Closing down the Riviera was impossible, so the scenes were filmed late into the night and early morning. 

The real Tangiers Hotel has never existed; most people presume it was built, torn down, and reconstructed, but it is a myth based on the real Stardust Casino built on the strip in 1958 and owned by the mob.

The Stardust was not a profitable hotel without mob money, so it shut down in 2006 and is now the Resorts World Las Vegas, a Chinese-themed casino and resort. Every casino scene in these iconic movies is worth watching, but the scene in Goodfellas wins because of the Tangiers/Stardust hotel backstory.