Ever seen a fictional game within a movie or book and wished it existed in real life? You’re not alone. Lots of people have lobbied developers to create fictional games that appeared on TV without success. The reason is that there’s little information about the games and so developers shy away from creating them.
In this article, we’ll focus on games of chance that would make great casino games. The gambling industry gets inspiration from a wide range of topics, anyway. For example, a number of famous sci-fi movies like ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Ex Machina’ have inspired real money slots.
You can find hundreds of sci-fi themed slots at popular casino sites like these here but there are no real-life versions of the games we’ve highlighted below. Without further ado, here are four fictional gambling games we wish existed in real life.
#1: Pick a Number Between 1 to 10 in Vegas Vacation (1997)
Vegas Vacation is a comedy film starring Chevy Chase, Wallace Shawn and Beverly D’Angelo. It’s an average movie to say the least. A food preservation expert, Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase), wins a bonus and decides to spend it on a vacation with friends in Las Vegas.
The entire flick revolves around the Griswold family in Vegas. They visit places like the Hoover Dam, where Griswold creates a leak and has to climb through scaffolds to survive. In one scene, Griswold visits a casino and magically becomes so addicted that he has to play a game called, “Pick a Number between 1 to 10.”
It’s a simple game where a dealer writes one number (1 to 10) on a piece of paper and Griswold has to guess which one it is. The food preservation expert bets $20 in the game and picks number 4. But the dealer says he had number 7 and he loses. He ends up gambling away $22,600 in the night.
Although “Pick a Number” isn’t the most complicated game out there, it would make a great game if you like games with good odds. The odds of winning are 10 to 1, much lower than the 37 to 1 odds roulette offers or the 40% house edge in Keno.
#2: The Craps Games Featured in The Cooler (2003)
Imagine if there was a game that could be manipulated to payout generously. Wouldn’t you want to play it daily? Such a game doesn’t exist in real life. But in the 2003 comedy film starring William H. Macy, The Cooler, there are some craps game that get hot or cold when Bernie Lootz (William Macy) is around.
The film’s plot is based on William Macy as a “cooler,” an unlucky gambler that causes bad luck to people when he gets close to the tables. Of course, this increases the profits of the Shangri La Casino managed by Shelly (Alec Baldwin) until one day when the tables turn.
Bernie falls in love with a waitress, Maria Bello as Natalia. And suddenly, he starts to manipulate games to payout often instead of withhold money. Naturally, gamblers at the casino start to win a lot of money but this angers Shelly. He ends up leaving his job but not after winning a lot of money from craps and falling in love with Natalia.
#3: The Cash Machines from Color of Money TV Shows
The Color of Money was a TV show broadcast on Britain’s ITV in 2009. It was a short seven-episode show canned due to poor viewership. Despite that, it was an interesting show with a gambling game that would give players a better chance at winning than many modern casino games.
It featured cash machines fitted on stands. Each machine graced a different color and was loaded with £1000 to £20,000. The game involved contestants who would get cards showing an amount of money to target on the machines.
The best part was that contestants had ten chances to hit their targeted amount. Let’s say the target was £5000. A contestant could call shout once the machine started running at any time. If it stopped at £1000, they would call again on a different machine until they hit or exceeded £5000 (their target), at which point they would win.
The problem was that the machines started at £0 and had a limit beyond which calling “stop” would mean a loss. So, it was common for players to call “Stop” when the machines were counting at less than £1000 or pas their limits. And as a result, they ended up calling all machines without reaching their targets.
Because the cash machines had guaranteed money in them, they would make good casino games to some people. Sure, they had their rules but some people would try their luck and probably win consistently.
#4: The Roulette Wheels from Run Lola Run (1998)
In movies, actors and actresses are either too lucky or too unlucky in Las Vegas. No movie depicts this better than Run Lola Run, a German film starring a young woman whose boyfriend had just lost a bag full of cash for his drug-dealing boss.
The movie is a series of events as Lola imagines how she can find the 100,000 Deutschmarks needed to save her boyfriend’s life. In one imagination, she runs to a bank with the aim of robbing it. But she’s distracted by his father whom he finds with a mistress. She then runs into a supermarket to rob it but gets apprehended.
In another episode, Lola runs into the same bank she found her dad. But she does not find him. She gets out and runs aimlessly until she gets into a casino. There she wagers 100 marks on the number 20 and wins 3500. She bets the entire sum plus her original 20 and get this—screams too much until the roulette wheel stops at number 20 again. She wins 129,600 marks.
She scatters away to find her boyfriend Manni who was about to meet his boss. Manni explains he had found his bag and returns it to his boss in front of Lola. He then asks her what was in her bag at which point she smiles as they walk away.
