The allure of the casino world is remarkable. It is a captivating world where skills and luck meet. In recent years the gambling industry has developed to become one of the biggest industries in the world. Due to the rise in gambling major film production companies like Netflix have released several entertaining casino documentary films. These documentary films provide informative experiences and depict the risk and thrill of playing casino games and hitting it big. Casino documentary Netflix allows people to get a glimpse into the high-stakes world of gambling as a whole.
Here are the top seven casino movies Netflix you can explore the casino world through
Free to Play (2014)
| Free to Play | |
| Release date: | 2014 |
| Genre: | Documentary/ESport/Action |
| IMDB score (out of 10): | 7.6 |
| Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating: | 76% |
Esports became a major part of the video game industry in 2010. During this period several individuals started pursuing a career in esports while some developed a gambling addiction. This documentary by Valve follows three professional gamers from around the world Benedict “HyHy” Lim, Danil “Dendi” Ishutin, and Clinton “Fear” Loomis. Each player had one common goal to win the first International Dota 2 tournament and take home the $1 million prize.
Clinton “Fear” Loomis is an American player from Oregon. He is older than the other contestants but he led the multinational team Online Kingdom. All Fear hopes for is to win the tournament and finally prove that he is heading somewhere in life.
Benedict “HyHy ” Lim led the Singapore team Scythe Gaming. His mother and aunt highly disapproved of his decision to become a famous professional gamer as his grades were suffering. He felt that only winning the $1 million grand prize would show his family that his gaming career was respectable.
Danil “Dendi ” Ishutin was among the Ukrainian team Na’Vi. Dendi lost his father to cancer and turned to playing Dota 2 to cope with his loss. Dendi’s mother revealed that he and his father used to go fishing and have a tight bond. After his father’s death, Dendil stopped going fishing and instead put his all into his gaming career.
Fear team finished 7th place and he was able to earn his mom’s respect. HyHy’s team finished third place and took home $150,000. HyHy was successfully able to convince his girlfriend to get back with him. Dendi led his team NA’Vi to victory, taking home the grand prize of $1 million. with a newly found peace of mind, Dendi went fishing for the first time after his father’s death.
In this casino documentary Netflix each story unfolds through interviews with the players, their friends, and their families. Valve made sure you don’t have to experience playing at online 5 dollar deposit casinos before you understand this story about esports. Valve pulled at all relatable human threads heartbreak, high expectations, and loss to share a true story about the esports scene.
High Score (2020)
| High Score | |
| Release date: | 2020 |
| Genre: | Documentary/docuseries |
| IMDB score (out of 10): | 7.4 |
| Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating: | 78% |
This casino documentary Netflix series focuses on the history of classic video games. The history of video games can be traced as far back as the 1950s. During this timeline, computer scientists started developing simple simulations and games. In 1962 a group of MIT students led by Steve Russell developed the first game on a video display Spacewar. It wasn’t until the 1970s that true commercial development of games began.
The mid-1970s were the best for the video game industry. The first ROM cartridge-based home consoles including the Atari video computer systems arrived. The home console market flourished and arcade video games Space Invaders and Pac-Man were released. This era was covered in the first episode of High Score.
Each episode of high score tells a tale of various aspects of gaming history. High Score episodes touched on the early 90s console wars, the general cultural intensity of Nintendo, and the rise of digital RPGs. With major gaming luminaries from that evolution acting as the viewers’ guide and sharing design and manufacturing history. High Scores interview subjects are
- Gail Tilden (Nintendo)
- Roberta Williams (King’s Quest)
- Richard Garriot (Ultima)
- Akira Yasuda (Street Fighter)
- John Tobias (Mortal Kombat)
High score tries to blend the interviews and a visual atmosphere to create an interactive story. The series also featured the iconic voice artist Charles Martinet who portrayed Mario to narrate the gaming history series. The amount of material in High Score is outstanding but combined into a 6 episode series seems chaotic.
The first episode started with Tomohiro Nishikado narrating in detail the creation of the space invaders. We see him imagine Tokyo being invaded by large robotic spider-like creatures. We can see him pull out pages of the original drawings of the monsters in Space Invaders.
Then Tomohiro follows up by explaining the decisions that drove what the final game’s character looks like. In the first episode, there’s a sense of inspiration that sets a tone. High Score also includes a famous story of failure, the ET for the Atari 2600. High scores video games story celebrates games. It presents it as a medium where the limits are only a single person’s imagination.
The Queen of Versailles (2012)
| The Queen of Versailles | |
| Release date: | 2012 |
| Genre: | Documentary |
| IMDB score (out of 10): | 7.1 |
| Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating: | 95% |
The American dream is an ideal that drives several US citizens to work towards creating a life for themselves. In 2007, When David and Jacqueline (Jackie) Siegel first sat for producer Lauren Greenfield cameras they were living the unlimited version of the American dream. The Queen of Versailles is a documentary film about the billionaire couple David and Jackie Siegel.
David Siegel was the founder of the successful timeshare business Westgate Resort in Florida. He and his son Richard work in the business together to sell people a luxurious relaxing timeshare vacation. Jackie Siegel is 30 years younger than her husband and was smart enough to get employed as an engineer at IBM. She traded her working-class life and education for a modeling life in NYC.
The documentary starts with the Siegels in the middle of the construction of their 100 million-dollar Versailles house. The family had outgrown their 26,000-foot home with eight children, domestic and exotic pets, and live-in housekeepers and nannies. The design of the house was inspired by the Palace of Versailles and the top of the Paris hotel. The Versailles house at 90,000 square feet located outskirts of Orlando would be one of the largest single-family homes in the US.
With David Siegel running his successful timeshare business, the Siegel family was among the wealthy and politically influential in the country. The family lived an opulent life before both Westgate and the US economy were badly affected by the subprime mortgage collapse. With economic devastation and the Siegel business on the verge of collapse, each episode shows the family struggling to scale down their lifestyle.
The Siegels were forced to lay off several workers and sell off most of their assets to pay off creditors. Some of those assets included the Versailles mansion. David becomes an irritable crank as he and Richard try to find solutions to prevent the bankers from closing the Vegas property. To cut down costs the construction of the new house was halted, most of the servants were laid off, and pets were neglected. The casino documentary Netflix ended with none of the family issues resolved.
Betting on Zero (2016)
| Betting on Zero | |
| Release date: | 2016 |
| Genre: | Documentary/Thriller |
| IMDB score (out of 10): | 7.2 |
| Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating: | 100% |
Multi-level market (MLM) businesses work by selling their products through person-to-person sales. It involves selling products to family or friends and hiring others to do the same. With most MLM, individuals can make money in two ways
- Selling the MLM products to actual customers
- Recruiting others (distributors), and earning commissions based on the products they buy and sell.
Most people who invest and participate in MLMs make little to no money. Most MLMs turn out to be illegal pyramid schemes and steal everything and that’s what betting on zero sheds light on.
Betting on Zero is a documentary film directed by Ted Braun that follows the hedge fund titan Bill Ackman’s short crusade to expose Herbalife. Ackman makes a billion-dollar bet that Herbalife would soon collapse, one of the biggest gambles ever. This was a part of Ackman’s crusade to expose Herbalife as the largest pyramid scheme in history.
Ackman goes on to insist that Herbalife Nutrition deliberately targets low-income individuals and immigrant communities robbing them of their life savings. He strongly insisted that the Herbalife corporation operated on a pyramid scheme. Ackman made it known to the public that his actions were motivated by a moral desire to the fraud that had particularly negatively affected Latino consumers.
Herbalife launched a counterattack, accusing Ackman of being a market manipulator looking to make a fortune from short-selling their stock. Ackman’s long-time nemesis and Wall Street billionaire Carl Icahn joined hands with Herbalife in their counterattack on Ackman.
Ackman was able to find an ally in Chicago activist Julie Contreras. It was Julie who rallied the Latino community to get the federal government to intervene on their behalf. Ackman was able to achieve partial vindication in a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission.
An investigation was conducted after which Herbalife agreed to restructure its practices and pay $200 million in consumer relief. Herbalife did not participate in betting on zero Netflix. Ted Braun’s invite to Herbalife CEO, current distributors, and Carl Icahn to appear on record was declined. However, Ted sourced other archival footage of these people.
All In: The Poker Movie (2009)
| All In: The Poker Movie | |
| Release date: | 2009 |
| Genre: | Documentary |
| IMDB score (out of 10): | 6.6 |
| Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating: | 45% |
Poker is one of the most popular casino strategy games. It is one of the oldest casino games as it’s been around since the 1800s. There was a period between 2003-2006 in which poker games became more popular around the world. This period was called the poker boom. During these years, the online poker player pool significantly doubled in size each year.
All In: The Poker Movie is a documentary film directed by Douglas Tirola. This poker documentary production started at the height of the online poker boom in 2009 and features interviews with poker experts and celebrities such as
- Phil Hellmuth
- Matt Damon
- Frank Deford
- Annie Duke
- Kenny Rogers
- Ira Glass
- Chris Moneymaker
All In: The Poker Movie narrates the story of how the poker boom started in the underground clubs of NYC. The film went into detail and touched on how the famous casino games went on to be played online, at home, and in casinos around the world. It tells the story of how the us government shut down the 3 largest poker websites in the world to put an end to the poker boom. This casino documentary Netflix tells a complete tale of the rise, fall, and rebirth of poker.
To an extent you may assume all in is a cross-examination of the cultural rift the internet has cultivated between different generations of of poker players. All In: The Poker Movie goes beyond cultural rifts, it highlights the corporate corruption in the US. The major online poker companies that were shut down pulled all types of Ponzi schemes associated with Goldman Sachs and others.
During the interview with Matt Damon, he went on to discuss his work on rounders. Rounders is a 1988 movie about the underground world of high-stakes poker. Damon shares that Brian Koppelman “Rounders” co-screen writer is sort of glad the government implemented laws regarding poker. This is because it allows the game to most likely become an outlaw sport again. Tirola Guardiola director of All In would seem to share the same perversely happiness with Koppelman to an extent.
Inside the Edge: A Professional Blackjack Adventure (2019)
| Inside the Edge: A Professional Blackjack Adventure | |
| Release date: | 2019 |
| Genre: | Documentary film |
| IMDB score (out of 10): | 7.2 |
| Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating: | – |
Blackjack is a widely played casino banking game around the world. A casino baking game is a less skilled card game in which one or more bettors play against a banker (dealer) who controls the game. Blackjack is from a worldwide family of casino banking games known as 21. Blackjack players do not play against each other, they play against the casino.
Inside the Edge features the world’s elite professional blackjack player. The documentary film directed by Chris Buddy follows the life of KC who takes on casinos for millions. KC is a second-generation professional blackjack player who concludes his blackjack career by backpacking across the United States. KC goes from casino to casino playing to win while trying to evade local law enforcement and casino surveillance.
KC has it rough in his line of work. From having to be on his best game to counting every card and making split-second decisions that could result in wins and losses. KC has to make sure he is never caught which is the most stressful but thrilling part of the film. The casino documentary Netflix shows KC on his good days and bad days. Despite being a professional player in gambling there is always the luck factor.
KC had to disguise himself in several ways to get past casino facial recognition systems and not draw attention to himself. As one casino gets wind of his next move he has to adapt and strategize. Due to KC’s outstanding ability to adapt, casinos must implement changes and the loops start over again. At some point, a casino was able to identify his RV plate number, and they passed the info to other casinos.
This affected KC’s plans and he was unable to get past the casino’s front doors ruining his blackjack strategy. Inside the Edge also offers great visual insights into the gray area of card counting and the advantages of players. Director Chris Buddy also invited a few of the members of this blackjack secret society to offer their insight into the life of a professional gambler. Some members talked about the troubles one can get into when messing with a casino.
The Great Hack (2019)
| The Great Hack | |
| Release date: | 2019 |
| Genre: | Documentary/Action |
| IMDB score (out of 10): | 7 |
| Rotten Tomatoes freshness rating: | 85% |
Data can be used to weaponize social, cultural, and political warfare. The Great Hack is a documentary film directed and produced by Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim that analyzes the Cambridge Analytica Scandal.
In 2013, the SCL group formed the subsidiary group Cambridge Analytica so it could be involved in the US elections. Cambridge Analytica was responsible for collecting massive data. The data the firm collects was meant to be used in a sales strategy for creating massive campaigns that personally address users.
The result of the campaign ended up affecting the UK and US politics. This casino documentary Netflix follows professor David Carrol who found out Cambridge Analytical claimed to have 5000 data points on every American voter. David went on a legal journey with Lawyer Ravu Naik of ITN solicitors to reclaim his data.
As Cambridge Analytica processes user data through the SCL in Britain, David’s complaints fell under British jurisdiction. In early July 2017, David successfully filed his complaint with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. Due to David’s complaint, SCL was fined £15,000 for lack of compliance with the UK ICO. This led to the social media company Facebook paying £500,000 for lack of transparency and security issues related to the harvesting of data.
As David Carrol’s legal journey unfolded, investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr kept on researching Cambridge Analytica’s influence. This led Carole to Christopher Wylie the whistleblower. Wylie explains how mass harvesting of data and microtargeting were used to influence countries’ elections.
In an exclusive interview with Carole for the observer, Wylie describes how psychographic profile techniques were employed in scraping Facebook user data. He mentioned that all that was done with the help of Cambridge University professor Aleksandr Kogan. These claims were what made the Cambridge Analytica scandal public. It led to Christopher Wylie testifying in the UK parliament and naming Brittany Kaiser the former director at Cambridge Analytica.
Final Thoughts
The world of casinos and gambling has always been fascinating. The powerful industry continues to undergo remarkable developments and remains an inclusive source of entertainment all can enjoy. If you have a major interest in the world of casinos you can gain valuable insights by watching the above-mentioned documentaries on Netflix.
Most casino documentary Netflix have inherent drama because they are all about being informative and entertaining. A look into the lives of professionals trying to get one over the house, and the tricks they employ is captivating. Our top seven casino documentary films will take you through the triumphs, losses, excitement, and danger of the casino world.
