Although nothing can top the real highs and lows of both the brick-and-mortar casinos or online gambling, cinema provides a very unique way to experience a variety of approaches to gambling.
And, there’s not a better medium for watching gambling films than with Netflix.
The viewing menu of Netflix gambling movies has increased through the years, with old favorites like Vegas Vacation (1997), Croupier (1998), Wild Card (2015), Animal World (2018) being replaced with some fresher Netflix gambling titles to be watched.
If you are looking for some excellent gambling films to binge-watch on the world’s premiere streaming platform then check out our list of the best Netflix gambling movies available to subscribers as of this writing:
Win It All
- Year Released: 2017
- Streaming Release: April 7, 2017
- Genre: Romantic Comedy
- Language: English
- Director: Joe Swanberg
- Writers: Jack Johnson, Joe Swanberg
- Runtime: 1 hour, 28 minutes
- IMBb Rating: 2/10
The plot here is great. Gambling addict Eddie Garrett (Jake Johnson) is asked to hold on to $50,000 by a Chicago criminal as he spends time behind bars. But Eddie, a parking lot attendant outside Wrigley Field, dips into the money and loses the money early in the film.
The criminal Michael promises to pay Eddie $10,000 to watch this mysterious duffel bag for him while he spends 6 months in prison. But temptation gets the best of Eddie and he opens the bag and finds the money along with several strange objects. And we’re off.
Star Johnson directed, edited, and co-wrote the screenplay to this fun Netflix gambling movie—which made its world premiere on March 11, 2017 at South by Southwest (SXSW) film, media, and music festival—in which Eddie tries to rebuild his life and falls in love.
Eddie’s love interest is Eva (Aislinn Derbez) and his sponsor Gene (Keegan-Michael Key) suggests he join a $15,000 buy-in game at a casino after Eddie calls him and says he is down over $21,000. Gene chastises Eddie at first, then decides to help him.
Eddie starts to attend gambling counseling and ultimately gets a job from his brother Ron (Joe Lo Truglio) to try to make the $20K. But Michael gets released from prison early and calls Eddie looking for his bag. That’s when things get even more interesting.
Although the gambling is pretty much limited to the end of this title, this is one of the gambling movies on Netflix worth watching.
21
- Year Released: 2008
- Genre: Drama
- Language: English
- Director: Robert Luketic
- Screenplay: Paul Steinfeld, Alex Loeb, Ben Mezrich
- Runtime: 2 hours, 3 minutes
- IMBb Rating: 8/10
Based on the Ben Mezrich book Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions (2003) the movie 21 is the story of six MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) students who were trained in card-counting.
A nominee for the People’s Choice Awards for the Best Drama in 2009, this Netflix gambling movie stars Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Bosworth, Jim Sturgess, Aaron Yoo, Liza Lapira, Kie Chinh, and Jacob Pitts. 21 is a true story and worth a look.
The six MIT students try to beat Las Vegas casinos by counting cards, and they are successful. But you know there is more to this movie and this story. So, give it a watch.
In its opening and second weekend after the premiere, 21 was #1 at the Box Office in both the US and Canada. To date, this Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) and Netflix gambling movie has made $159,808,370 worldwide and counting.
Molly’s Game
- Year Released: 2018
- Genre: Biographical Crime Drama
- Language: English
- Director: Aaron Sorkin
- Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin
- Producer: Mark Gordon, Amy Pascal, Matt Jackson
- Runtime: 2 hours, 20 minutes
- IMBb Rating: 4/10
Based on the true story of Olympic-class Skier Molly Bloom, this movie stars Jessica Chastain (Molly Bloom), Idris Elba, Kevin Costner, and Michael Cera and is another one of the gambling movies on Netflix now currently worth consideration.
After Bloom sustains a serious career-ending injury training for Mogul Skiing for the 2022 Winter Olympics, she decides to take a year off and heads to Los Angeles and become a bottle service waitress instead of immediately attending Law school.
In LA, Bloom meets a Real Estate developer named Dean who makes her office manager. Soon she is running his underground Poker games which involve large stakes and celebrities at “The Cobra Lounge.”
After seeing Bloom becoming increasingly free of her position and closer to a mysterious Player X, Dean fires her. Molly, having none of that and confident about the contacts she has made, soon opens her own underground games out of a rented hotel penthouse.
This movie had a $30 million budget and had made $59.3 million at the Box Office, so this STX Entertainment and Sierra/Affinity distributed film has done alright for itself and is among the better Netflix gambling movies to check out when you can.
Casino Royale
- Year Released: 2006
- Genre: Spy
- Language: English
- Director: Martin Campbell
- Screenplay: Paul Haggis, Neil Purvis, Robert Wade
- Runtime: 2 hours, 24 minutes
- IMBb Rating: 04/10
The 21st of Eon Productions James Bond series, Casino Royale sees Danie Craig making his first appearance as James Bond. Agent 007 is on an assignment to try to bankrupt terrorist Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) in a game of high-stakes Poker at the Casino Royale.
Casino Royale made its world premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in the UK on November 12, 2006, and made its theatrical debut in the US a day later. The movie was the 4th-highest grossing film of 2002, making over $616 million worldwide.
In the Netflix gambling movie, Bond fights the evil terrorism financier Le Chiffre in both Madagascar and Montenegro but the actual scenes were shot in the Bahamas and the Czech Republic respectively.
Based on the book by Ian Fleming, the original Casino Royale (1967) with David Niven as MI6 British Secret Service agent James Bond is also well worth a watch.
Croupier
- Year Released: 1998
- Genre: Neo-Noir Detective
- Language: English
- Director: Mike Hodges
- Producer: Jonathan Cavendish, Christine Ruppert
- Runtime: 1 hour, 34 minutes
- IMBb Rating: 0/10
Another nice Netflix gambling movie is Croupier, starring Clive Owen as a writer who after being hired as a croupier—the person responsible for helping run table games in terms of bets and payouts—at a casino, it would make interesting fodder for a wonderful novel.
Interior monologues, in the style of the early detective films in the Noir style, make up a decent part of this movie which was disqualified from any Academy Award possibilities after being shown on TV in the Netherlands.
Familiye
- Year Released: 2017
- Streaming Release: May 1, 2019
- Genre: Crime, Drama
- Language: German
- Directors: Sedat Kirtan, Kubilay Sarikaya
- Screenplay: Sedat Kirtan, Kubilay Sarikaya
- Producer: Moritz Bleibtreu
- Runtime: 1 hour, 38 minutes
- IMBb Rating: 4/10
Familiye is the touching Black-and-White story of an ex-convict Danyal Tanis (Kubilay Sarikaya), who after the death of their parents, tries to hold his dysfunctional family together in Germany.
Danyal has to deal with one brother with a compulsive gambling problem named Miko (Arnel Taci) by trying to repay his debts and with another brother with Down Syndrome, Muhammed (Muhammed Kirtan), and is on the verge of being sent to a public facility.
To try and make things right, the oldest brother tries to repay one’s debts and stop the relocation of Momo. The soundtrack for Familiye is wonderful, but being in German may make it hard for some to fully enjoy unless they are fluent in it or don’t mind subtitles.
Lay the Favorite
- Year Released: 2012
- Genre: Crime, Drama
- Language: English
- Director: Stephan Frears
- Screenplay: DV DeVincentis ,Beth Raymer (Book),
- Runtime: 1 hour, 34 minutes
- IMBb Rating: 8/10
One of the most underrated gambling movies on Netflix is called Lay The Favorite (2010), and it is based on the memoir of the same name by author Beth Raymer and tells the story of the life of beloved pro sports gambler and Las Vegas resident Alan “Dink” Denkenson.
In the movie, Denkenson—who recently passed away at the age of 69 after a battle with cancer this Spring and Summer—is played by Bruce Willis and is named Dink Heimowitz. He’s a professional gambler in Sin City, from New York, and is intent on getting the best of life via betting.
We see aspiring cocktail waitress and former private dancer and sports gambling prodigy Beth (Rebecca Hall), learning about betting through Dink and slowly falling in love with him. But Dink’s wife Tulip (Catherine Zeta-Jones) isn’t too keen on the new relationship.
Although a bomb at the Box Office—it cost $20 million to make and had only generated $1.5 million—this colorful slice of writer Raymer and Denkenson’s chaotic lives at that point in history is a great look at both the legal and illegal sides of Sports Gambling.
Lay The Favorite premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2021.
Documentaries Can Provide Great Options Too
The rotation of gambling movies on Netflix is constantly changing and the streaming service is always a great source of entertainment for gambling subject matter. Be it based on reality like many of these or fictional like Casino Royale, Netflix always has something.
Perhaps, a surprising area on Netflix that offers a solid gambling viewing experience is the platform’s documentary section.
Untold: Operation Flagrant Foul (2022) is the tragic story of former NBA Referee Tim Donaghy who was caught gambling on and fixing the games he was actually refereeing.
Hey, who needs screenwriters and fictional accounts of any betting craziness when we had guys like Tim Donaghy around making sure that the ball (and the betting bucks) always bounced his way?
