December 27, 2022
Must Watch: Vegas Casino Boss Rates 7 Casino Heists In Movies And TV | How Real Is It?
We already know that Hollywood movies about casinos and gambling are embellished quite a bit. In this video from Insider, Brian Stanton — casino executive and Director of Table Games at Station Casinos — rates seven famous casino heist movies based on how realistic they are.
We’ve already watched one casino boss break down famous scenes from your favorite gambling movies, but there are a few other movies that got left out. Stanton tackles a few of the casino movies we’ve written about, including Croupier and Casino. But he focuses on heist movies, like Ocean’s Eleven and Ocean’s Thirteen as well as 3000 Miles From Graceland.
He uses his 20 years of industry experience to debunk our burning questions, like “do cheaters get dragged to a back room and beaten up?” and “is it that easy to break into a casino vault?”
We learned some pretty interesting facts about casino security from Stanton. Managers regularly walk the casino floor, and they have a lot of key signs they look out for when sniffing out suspicious activity. And they’re looking at both players and dealers, just in case there’s collusion. Though he’s not officially a cheating expert, Stanton also explains some of the most common types of cheating he’s seen or heard about on the Strip, like dice sliding in craps, past posting in roulette, and using devices at any table games.
He also gives us some insider knowledge on how casinos deal with card counters. When reviewing The Hangover, Stanton confirms that card counting isn’t illegal but that it’s definitely frowned upon — people won’t be hauled away like in Casino but rather politely asked to leave the table and refrain from playing blackjack. He also points out that Zach Galifinakis’ character learning to count cards in one day just by reading a book is pretty much impossible.
One of the biggest takeaways from this video is that casinos are a lot different than they used to be when it comes to identifying, catching, and dealing with suspected cheaters. Learn how cash is really handled in a casino, what they do when they find a cheater at a table, and whether a theatrical heist a la Danny Ocean could even be pulled off.