Both fictional and real-life gambling games have appeared in various Science Fiction movies over the years. Here’s a look at some of the most memorable…
Star Wars
From the original Star Wars movies to the recent reboot films, games and gambling have often featured in the galaxy far, far away. Fans will know the holographic chess-like board game of Dejarik that’s played on the Millennium Falcon in the first-released Star Wars picture, and the Canto Bight casino that features in Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. There were undoubtedly underhand betting games going on in the infamous Mos Eisley cantina in the original Star Wars movie too. But the most famous gambling game from the series of films is Sabacc. It’s mentioned several times throughout the Star Wars films, but the card game is most well-known as the game in which Han Solo won the Millennium Falcon from Lando. Fans finally get to see the game being played in the 2018 movie Solo: A Star Wars Story. According to the Star Wars movies, Sabacc was invented by The Ryn for fortune telling, but it later spread throughout the universe. You can even now purchase and play the Sabacc game on earth!
Hunger Games
In the famous book and movie series, people bet on the odds of competitors surviving the ruthless Hunger Games. Twelve districts in the nation of Panem are forced by the Capitol to choose one boy and one girl to participate. The tributes from these districts must then compete against each other by fighting to the death. People in the Capitol bet on the participants, and the odds can go up or down during the games. That’s demonstrated when the heroes of the movie Katniss and Peeta begin The Hunger Games as outsiders but soon progress to become two of the favorites amongst the watching audience.
Star Trek
In the Star Trek movies and television series, poker has long been played by characters. The original series sees Doctor McCoy teaching Mr. Spock to play. In The Next Generation, senior staff on board the starship Enterprise introduce the game to Data. The sentient android decides that the game can be mastered by using simple mathematical processing. However, he soon learns that bluffing is just as integral to mathematical calculation, and, being an android, he cannot figure out how to master the art of bluffing. (Are you a better bluffer than Data? You don’t need to wait hundreds of years to find out. You can play poker, and other games, right now online at Casumo.)
In Time
The concept of the 2011 movie In Time, which is set in 2169, is that everyone stops aging at twenty-five, due to genetic engineering. After people reach their 25th birthdays, a one-year countdown begins on a device attached to their arms. When it reaches zero, a person dies instantaneously. So, time has become a commodity in this dystopian world. That means it can be traded. Time can be transferred between people or kept in a time capsule. Like anything that can be traded, time can also be stolen and gambled. In a memorable scene in In Time, the protagonist, Will, visits a casino and wins over 1,000 years of time by playing poker.
Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome
Throughout history, people have betted on fighting games, from the gladiatorial days of Rome to 21st-century boxing matches. And in the future, things don’t change much. That is according to the dystopian post-apocalyptic movie Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. The title of the third film in the series references the classic scene in which Max must fight to the death in an arena known as the Thunderdome. Cheering and jeering spectators bet on who will win the fight. At least a draw outcome is impossible, because as the character Dr. Dealgood says, “Two men enter, only one man leaves.”
