Rounders Bombed—Then Became a CLASSIC | Bulwark Movie Club

Summary

Bulwark Movie Club: “Rounders” Bombed—Then Became a CLASSIC

Podcast: Bulwark Takes — Movie Club
Date: October 29, 2025
Episode Theme: Revisiting Rounders — Its Cultural Journey, Gambling, and the Movie’s Enduring Appeal

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Episode Overview

The Bulwark Movie Club—featuring JBL, Sunny, and Sarah—delves into the 1998 poker film Rounders, examining its underwhelming initial release, transformation into a cult classic during the online poker boom, and the ways it encapsulates the thrill and peril of gambling. The group explores the film’s character dynamics, its unique filmmaking context, and how Rounders anticipated a cultural poker craze. Broader issues such as gambling’s social impact, the ethics of online betting, and recent gambling controversies in the news weave throughout their lively, confessional discussion.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Rounders’ Place in Movie and Poker History

• Rounders bombed at the box office but became a generational classic in dorms and among poker enthusiasts, especially as the online poker boom took off in the early 2000s.
• “It becomes one of those basic cable, classic dorm room DVD movies that everybody watches and passes around.” — JBL [02:12]
• The movie’s timing missed the poker mainstream by a few years; its enduring appeal predates and then rides the "Chris Moneymaker" World Series of Poker effect.

2. Character and Actor Dynamics

• Matt Damon stars just after Good Will Hunting, with Ed Norton on the verge of Fight Club fame.
• “It’s this kind of perfect storm of talent, and then nobody went to see it.” — JBL [01:52]
• John Malkovich’s iconic (if wild) portrayal of Teddy KGB is a fan favorite:
  “John Malkovich is so fun in this movie...he’s not in that many scenes, but the ones he’s in make the whole thing worth it.” — Sarah [41:18]
• The supporting cast (John Turturro, Famke Janssen, Gretchen Mol) gets significant attention—including a sidebar on Turturro’s banner year (including The Big Lebowski).

3. The Movie’s Gambling Thrill and Realism

• Sarah confesses her love of gambling and how the film captures both the adrenaline highs and “the slough of despond” of loss:
  “The feeling is tremendous. And when you’re down, the feeling is the slough of despond.” — Sarah [05:23]
• The hosts align on the film’s authenticity in rendering gambling’s emotional swings; it resonates especially for those who know (or have chased) the real highs and lows.

4. Inside Poker—Technical Accuracy and Accessibility

• Early reviewers called it “Good Will Hunting 2” for Damon’s savant in cards paralleling his Will Hunting character.
• “It’s a movie that is hard to clock the first time you watch it unless you are very steeped in poker language...so much lingo, it is so dense and not...hand holding.” — JBL [12:05]
• The movie is structurally mysterious, almost noirish in tone, and intentionally doesn’t hold viewers’ hands on the technicalities.

5. The Poker Boom & The Culture Shift

• Sunny traces poker’s rise in American culture to a 1996 Harper’s article, which seeded interest pre–Chris Moneymaker.
• “This Harper’s piece created the poker craze in America, and Rounders comes out—by now poker is everywhere.” — Sonny [13:35]
• Rounders “comes out too early to hit the wave,” but Bill Simmons (and others) later help cement its pop-culture status [16:08].

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Character Arcs, Villains & Allegorical Readings

6. Who Is the Real Villain in ‘Rounders’?

• Teddy KGB: “Not actually the chief villain” — Sonny reads the film as an allegory, with Teddy as a relatively benign “devil” in Mike’s descent.
• Grandma & Worm: Seen as the real villains for their betrayal and cheating.
• Gretchen Mol’s character (Jo): Is she a villain or savior? The answer—“depends entirely on whether or not you believe that Mike should be a gambler or a lawyer.” — Sonny [38:33]
• John Turturro’s Knish: Paragon of virtue or just another “straight" guide? Hosts debate if he’s as virtuous as he seems, especially compared to Jo. [41:48–43:55]

7. Notable Quotes & Interpretations

• “KGB has a code...give him his money, I’m done playing.” — JBL [39:57]
• “Characters with codes are good, which is why John Malkovich really does—even though I think that accent—if you were less...you have to be in it.” — Sarah [40:03]
• “The movie does not work without his [Malkovich’s] performance.” — Sonny [41:35]

8. Allegory & Morality

• Sonny: “Rounders is actually an allegory and a version of Dante’s Inferno...he meets a series of devils of increasing badness.” [23:38]
• Debate: Is the film’s conclusion a victory ("following your dreams") or a tragedy (damnation by gambling)? [25:38–30:10]

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Gambling—Personal Confessions, Social Commentary, and Policy

9. Host Confessions and The Ethics of Gambling

• Sarah: Extensive youthful gambling stories; Sunny: A (formerly) talented online amateur.
• They compare casino games: blackjack and craps as “community games” vs. adversarial poker [17:46].
• “The only way those things work—it’s got to be an honor among thieves type situation.” — Sarah on poker’s social contract [52:21]

10. Online Poker, Bots, and ‘Fish’

• “Nobody should play online poker because online poker is now dominated by bots...they let the human fish win just enough to keep them from getting up from the table.” — Sonny Bunch [19:20]
• Prefer in-person games for authentic play; buy-in levels regulate skill brackets.

11. Recent Cheating Scandals & Loss of Innocence

• Recent news of cheating in high-stakes, mobbed-up poker clubs discussed after a big FBI bust [48:18].
• “In the real world, these are all scumbags who are just stealing money from people. That's what it comes down to.” — JBL [50:24]
• Surprise and outrage at loss of honor among thieves—contrasting Rounders’ world with reality.

12. Sports Betting, Public Policy, and Public Concern

• The hosts collectively have shifted from libertarian views (“people are going to gamble anyway”) [56:51] to believing that ubiquitous, app-based gambling is a public harm.
• “Tying people's bank accounts to endorphin delivery devices that are in their pocket...is destroying families, it’s putting people in debt.” — Sunny [57:18]
• Online sports betting leverages personal data to maximize profit and loss; concern for regressive, predatory effects, especially on young men [51:26–57:37].

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Fun & Memorable Moments

Notable Quotes:

• On Gambling’s Feelings:
  “The feeling is tremendous. And when you’re down, the feeling is the slough of despond.” — Sarah [05:23]
• On John Malkovich's Performance:
  “His body is, like, live. And the way he splashes the pot with his hand…Don’t splash the pot!” — Sarah, imitating Malkovich [41:03]
• On Being Cut Off:
  “John Turturro cuts him off. He knows he’s in trouble…no, I won’t give you the money, because it’s just going to send you further down this path.” — Sarah on Knish [41:40]
• On Legalized Gambling:
  "Tying people's bank accounts to endorphin delivery devices that are in their pocket all the time is a terrible, terrible thing." — Sunny [57:18]
• On How to Win at Blackjack:
  “The way to lose at blackjack is just to keep betting the same thing the whole time. The way you win is to pick your moments.” — Sarah [65:11]
• On the Unbelievability of a Scene:
  “There’s only one utterly implausible thing in this entire movie...Famke Janssen breathily says to Matt Damon’s character, ‘I could stay,’ and he says no. I’m sorry. That is utterly implausible.” — Sonny [46:41]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:10] — Rounders and the 90s indie era context
• [03:15] — Sarah’s gambling confessional
• [08:23] — The agony of losing big in cards
• [13:35] — The origins and spread of the poker craze
• [23:38] — Allegorical reading: Dante’s Inferno and the film’s “devils”
• [37:56] — Is Gretchen Mol a villain or an angel?
• [39:45] — Teddy KGB’s code and the film’s climactic scene
• [52:21] — Cheating in the real world vs. the code in Rounders
• [56:51] — Policy debate: online sports betting and its harms
• [65:11] — Debate over J.B. Pritzker’s gambling win and blackjack lore

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Conclusion & Tone

The Bulwark team’s episode on Rounders is spirited, playful, and personal—mixing deep-dive movie analysis with real-life gambling confessions and contemporary policy critique. They capture why Rounders stands as a classic for gamblers and film fans, while also casting a wary eye on how gambling’s proliferation has changed culture and personal lives. The hosts agree: "Everybody loves Rounders," but their passionate arguments over codes of honor, the perils of cheating, and culture’s evolving relationship with risk-taking ensure a lively listen for anyone—whether or not you’ve been dealt into the game.

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“Everything in moderation. Gambling is fine, but you can’t and shouldn’t do it all the time.” — Sarah [64:06]

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Transcript

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[JBL]

Back to Bulwark Movie Club. I am really excited to be talking.

[Sunny]

About movies with my good friends here.

[JBL]

Sarah and jbl and we are talking about one of our, one of my.

[Sunny]

I don't know about you guys, I.

[JBL]

Won'T speak for you. One of my favorite indie era like the 90s Indies era movies, Rounders, which was not a huge hit, not a huge hit on initial release, got a lot of buzz and became really kind of a seminal movie as the online.

[Sunny]

Poker boom took off. A few few years later Chris Moneymaker wins the World Series of Poker.

[JBL]

But Rounders itself is a is, is.

[Sunny]

Like a fascinating just movie qua movie.

[JBL]

Because it stars Matt Damon right after he has won the Oscar for Good Will Hunting. Right he has won the screenplay Oscar with Ben Affleck and he stars in this movie with Ed Norton who is.

[Sunny]

Himself a kind of up and cominging.

[JBL]

Star right before he is in Fight Club with Brad Pitt. It's a, it's just this, it's this kind of perfect storm of talent and then nobody went to go see it.

[Sunny]

Nobody, nobody went to see this movie.

[JBL]

And then it catches a second life on cable, catches a second life on dvd. It becomes one of those basic cable classic dorm room DVD movies that everybody.

[Sunny]

Watches and passes around.

[JBL]

The basics here pretty straightforward. Mike McDonald's who is played by Matt.

[Sunny]

Damon is a poker player.

[JBL]

He plays in the local games in New York City. He's putting himself through law school by winnings the his. He's grinding out 2030 grand a year just just taking down pots at these games and he is paying his way through school and then he loses it all one night loses it all in Teddy KGB's joint.

[Sunny]

I think JBL is going to do.

[JBL]

A good Teddy KGB for us in a minute.

[Sonny Bunch]

Pay him. Pay that mean his money.

[JBL]

Throughout the show he will be doing this. So just as a heads up, that's what he sounds.

[Sunny]

That's, that's what John Malkovich sounds like as Teddy Gage. Heb.

[JBL]

And loses all his money and then in short order loses his girlfriend, is about to fail out of school and decides I gotta. I gotta save my friend Worm, who is out of prison. Played by again, Ed Norton. By just being good at cards, just being. Being very good at poker. And he does it good for.

[Sunny]

It's a real feel good story.

[JBL]

Sarah, you are, I think you are.

[Sunny]

More of a gambler than jbl. Jbl, you're not a gambler, right? You don't.

[Sonny Bunch]

No, I love gambling. I love watching gambling. I do not do very much of it myself, but I like to watch other people gamble.

[JBL]

See that, that you're, you are the.

[Sunny]

Sort of person who hovers at the blackjack table behind. Yeah.

[JBL]

Sarah, does that drive you insane when somebody does that to you in a, in a casino? Does that drive you absolutely bonkers?

[Sarah]

No, it's okay with me if people want to watch. That's fine. The only problem I have is when the person hovering behind me is one of my friends and or siblings who is trying to tell me, you must get up and leave. Like, I've taken your debit card. I want you. It is 4 in the morning. When I left you at 11:30, you said you'd be right up and you're not.

[JBL]

Would I gamble? When I left you at 11:30, you had a full pack of cigarettes and.

[Sunny]

A full stack of chips and now you have neither. And we've, we got to go.

[JBL]

We gotta get, we gotta get.

[Sonny Bunch]

We gotta be at the airport in 20 minutes.

[Sarah]

And look, I'm glad we're talking about this movie because it's a good opportunity for me to do a bit of a confessional about me. And it. Because it's gonna relate to how I take movies like this, which is I am a degenerate gambler. I love gambling. I love, I love cards. And I do. Then the reason this movie works for me when I know that as a quality question, I could, if I was really doing my. Let's pick this apart and we'll go through it. I have a lot of things I can point to where I'm like, all right, guys. And I'll just Give you my top line, which is that the movie itself, I think, does not establish particularly high stakes for our character in terms of his goal. The stakes get high because he gets himself in trouble. But like his. The reason he's doing everything is because this is a man with a dream. And the dream is to play in the World Series of Poker and to sit at the table with the greats. Okay. That's. The stakes is that he needs to do that. And you're sort of like, okay, like you've got a dream. I see. Sure. But. But the stakes in the movie in terms of when he's sitting at the table. And I think if you are someone who gambles, this hits hard on this because the. The thing is, when you're up, the feeling is tremendous. And when you're down, the feeling is the slough of despond like and those. As it carries you through those two things. And I just. I know this feeling and like, it's actually, I know it especially when I was young, right. And I was in my early 20s and I lived in Delaware and I was so bored and I would drive.

[Sonny Bunch]

I would drive many times a month. Were you at AC when you lived in Delaware? Real talk.

[Sarah]

I. Especially by my third year when I just had a little bit of scratch, I was going a lot and it was like a thing where I will.

[Sonny Bunch]

What was your preferred casino?

[Sarah]

Were you at the Taj Question? Question. I bet I was. I don't remember though, because as I got older, I did much more Vegas gambling. And once I didn't live in Delaware, I didn't go to Atlantic City, but I used to drive up there with my roommate. And I mean, we would. I would get home from work and we'd be sitting around like, watching tv, and she'd be like, do you want to go? And I was like, oh, yeah. And like, we'd go at like 90.

[Sonny Bunch]

Pulse trips to Atlantic City, baby.

[Sarah]

I swear to God. There was a time where I had to do a radio interview about something policy. And I did it from a parking garage at like 7:30 in the morning after being awake all night. It's like I obviously never did the underworld life of all of this. But the like, at being at a time when losing $200, like, hurt. And so the. The stakes, meaning if you made some money, it really mattered and if you lost some money really mattered. I can just. I can feel it in my bones. I feel the adrenaline in my bones. It's not the thing I'm most proud of. It resonates with me, the idea that you should not do this as a grown adult with children because it gets people in a lot of trouble. But I love it.

[Sonny Bunch]

Sarah, do you know that Sonny has spent a little bit of time as a professional poker player himself? Or a semi amateur, an amateur.

[JBL]

A talented amateur.

[Sunny]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[JBL]

First of all, first of all, I just want to say one thing. That. That. What was that line?

[Sunny]

The sl. The SL of desp.

[JBL]

Slow of desp.

[Sunny]

That.

[JBL]

That's a great. That is the perfect phrase for the look on Mike McD McD's face when.

[Sunny]

He loses that big hand 10 minutes into the movie. Because we have all been there.

[JBL]

Everyone who has ever played cards in any real way, or even like, even.

[Sunny]

Just like casual casino way, has.

[JBL]

Has had the, like, dealer bust out a six card 21 on you when.

[Sunny]

You'Re sitting there with your 20 just holding on, trying it be like, I need my.

[JBL]

I need to make rent this month.

[Sunny]

That would be great.

[JBL]

That. Is that.

[Sunny]

That look on his face. That look on his face as he watches his $30,000 disappear into Teddy KGB's.

[JBL]

Pocket is one of the finest bits.

[Sunny]

Of acting, I think, in Matt Damon's very long and prosperous career.

[JBL]

JBL describes me. I was not a professional or even semi professional or even like serious amateur player. But I did play enough online poker in 2003, 2004, right before. Right before it got banned. Right before. Right.

[Sunny]

Right in that.

[JBL]

Right in that nice, meaty spot where lots of dumb people were playing poker.

[Sunny]

For the first time.

[JBL]

I made enough to pay for my flight and hotel in Las Vegas twice.

[Sunny]

Just on what.

[JBL]

And I was. And that was. That always made me very happy. That that was like just a little bit of just enough skill to get by. But I watched these games. I watched the games that Mike McD is in, and I'm like, all of.

[Sunny]

These people would destroy me.

[JBL]

I would be the guy with the.

[Sunny]

Name tag sitting down at the Atlantic City casino getting. Getting taken in an hour. Like, that's me.

[Sarah]

Yeah. And same. Like, I'm not. You know, I just. I just love the idea of there's a card and it is face down, and when it goes face up, your fortunes change. Is just to me, like, the way that. That's my body. And so I love a gambling movie. I watch all the gambling movies. And I was surprised actually to see the Unrotten Tomatoes, like, when I went to watch it, because I've watched this movie 20 times and. But like. Like, I haven't watched it Although I rewatch it kind of a lot. But I maybe haven't seen it in some years, a few years. And I had never noticed that it gets a really low rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And I went and read some reviews from the time and I was like, you know, I agree with all of this academically, but what you are all missing is just that this movie hits the gambling thrill like it hits it. And so you feel it. And so, like, it is a great watch. And it does something that I think, one, something in the reviews that I had not clocked was how much people say this is like Good Will Hunting. Two, because he is. He, the Matt Damon character is a bit of a savant around cards, just the way the Will Hunting character is a savant. And also he is somebody who is aspiring toward a life of the squares, right? He's in law school. He is trying to ride into a more respectable place. But of course, his friends are still of the underworld, of the gambling underworld in the way that sort of the Ben Affleck, the working class drunk drinking characters are. And so I hadn't quite caught the parody or how the parallels of that, which was fun to notice.

[JBL]

But it's also just one of these.

[Sunny]

Weird coincidences of filmmaking, right? Because this movie was written years before Good Will Hunting came out.

[JBL]

The.

[Sunny]

The guys who were the guys who wrote it, Brian Koppelman and David. David Levine, David Levy and I don't know how to pronounce his name. Sorry.

[JBL]

Is. They, they.

[Sunny]

They said that one day Harvey Weinstein, who was the producer on this Is a Miramax movie, just called him up and said, my guy Matt Damon's in your movie. They're like, okay, but fine. You know, it's a, it's a, it's just, it's an interesting coincidence more than anything else, but it is one of those great coincidences that, that I think.

[JBL]

Hurt the movie with critics, as you say, Sarah, it's. It's also. I, I think I believe this is entirely true. It is a movie that is hard.

[Sunny]

To clock the first time you watch it unless you are very steeped in poker language.

[JBL]

And nobody at this point, including myself, I, when I was, when I watched.

[Sunny]

This movie for the first time, I had, I had, I had not read Doyle Brunson's books. I was not, I was not reading Phil Hellmuth. I was not watching, know about Chris Jesus Ferguson.

[Sonny Bunch]

You didn't know who Chris Jesus Ferguson was?

[JBL]

I didn't know who Daniel Negronu was.

[Sonny Bunch]

Johnny Chan.

[Sunny]

Johnny Chan. I might have actually Because I probably had, you know, he was, he was big. He was a big name even then.

[JBL]

But like, I didn't know. I didn't know. It wasn't my, wasn't my world. And I think a lot of people.

[Sunny]

Watching this movie for the first time.

[JBL]

There'S so much lingo, it is so dense and not. There is not a hand holding explanation.

[Sunny]

For everything that happens in the movie. There is a little bit up top and then like explaining the rules. But if you don't know what like Omaha High Low is, there are scenes in this movie that won't make any sense to you.

[Sarah]

Like it just it or even the basics of poker where like they're checking back and forth like it is very hard. I think if you don't know it to be like, why is this important? Like, you don't. If you know it, your adrenaline is going up as they do it because you see that the chess playing back and forth of it. But if you don't know, you're just like the movie kind of tells you you get to see who wins, but you have no idea why that just happened.

[Sonny Bunch]

So this is one of the reasons the movie, I think, aged incredibly well. So I don't know if you guys know this, but the poker craze in America dates to 1996, I believe. And it comes from an article in Harper's, and it's called Betting Big at the World Series of Poker. And it is a piece in which a writer sets out to write a piece about the World Series of Poker he is going to play in the World Series of Poker. And over the course of the piece, he makes it to the final table. And this thing becomes an absolute sensation. And the ripples from that go outward and create in the same way that Starbucks created coffee culture in America, this Harper's piece created the poker craze in America. And Rounders comes out. And we're still in very early poker years, but by now poker is everywhere. Everybody knows what a river card is right now. And so you can drop into this now and the culture is soaked in poker and can immediately pick up on everything in ways which seemed incredibly technical and oblique upon release.

[JBL]

And the film is, it's structured a.

[Sunny]

Little bit like a noir with the voiceover and the kind of the smoky streets of New York City.

[JBL]

So there is, I think there is.

[Sunny]

An intentional element of mystery to it, trying to keep this thing a little bit mysterious. They don't want to, they don't want to hold your hand too hard. But the McManus I had forgotten that started as a Harper's piece because I read the book Positively Fifth street, his book, which is like an expanded version of the same story and is really good. If you have not read or listened to Positively Fifth street, you should. It's fantastic. But I had forgotten about that.

[JBL]

But again, it's one of these things.

[Sunny]

Where the culture hits an inflection point based on that. And also a technological change.

[Sonny Bunch]

Yes. The online poker, which allows the injection of people who were previously not card players. So you wind up with guys like Chris Moneymaker. And so Chris Moneymaker is the other apocal event when the World Series of Poker is won for the first time by a guy who comes from the.

[JBL]

World of computer poker and has the.

[Sunny]

Unlikely name of Moneymaker, which is amazing. I mean, like, it. You know, it.

[JBL]

That is a.

[Sunny]

That is just a.

[JBL]

That is a thing that you cannot buy.

[Sunny]

That is just a. It's a, It's a perfect. It's a perfect sort of thing.

[JBL]

And so again, this is.

[Sunny]

This movie comes out too early to hit that wave. People don't. People don't. People aren't familiar with it and it kind of dies, and then it goes.

[JBL]

On to this second life. And it helps that you have guys.

[Sunny]

Like Bill Simmons, like one of his. He was one of the big early boosters of, of. Of rounders. And I remember there was an early awards column he did that was all quotes from rounders. And like, I remember sending that to all my friends, being like, this is amazing.

[JBL]

This, this is the.

[Sunny]

This is good writing is what this is.

[JBL]

This is. This is the best.

[Sunny]

So it was, that was. That was a lot of fun.

[JBL]

Now, Sarah, you are not a poker player.

[Sunny]

Right? You are.

[Sarah]

So I play poker with my friends. I've got a poker table. But it's not what I go to Vegas to play because I feel. And it's funny because some of it's just what I like. Like, I like blackjack because especially if you're going to sit in a casino, it's a community game, Right. Where you play against the dealer. Whereas poker is adversarial with everybody at the table. And so, like, if I'm going to have fun. But there is a part of me, every time I see this movie or others about poker where I think I need to do this. I need to. I need to get into being a skill game. Yeah. Because I do. I like to play craps and I like to play. And I like to play blackjack. Those are like the two games. And part of What I like about craps, it's like a physical thing is like instead of sitting, you stand and you know, and it is, there's a communal element, right? You're like rooting for the person with the dice and you, you know, you're watching, there's like a lot going on. Whereas poker is, and this movie makes, this is like a big sort of theme throughout the movies. You're not playing the cards, you're playing the man, right? And so this is about people who sit and size people up. And it's a dominance game, which appeals to me but means I have enough self control to know, like, I don't get in the ring if I don't have the necessary skill level. Like, because this is, it is a skill game, not a luck game. And blackjack's kind of a skill game. Like you've got to know a certain number of things. But like for me, for example, right, I'm someone who hits on 16. That is, that is me. Like, I always hit on 16.

[Sonny Bunch]

This shocks me about you.

[Sarah]

I never would have guessed cards unless I've seen, unless I've seen too many face cards.

[Sonny Bunch]

Even if he's showing a three, the dealer showing a three, you're hitting on 16.

[Sarah]

No, no, no, no. Different thing. But like it like sort of things being equal, there's a dealer has a face card showing and I have 16 I'm going to hit. Whereas I think a lot of people don't hit. And that's like a way I play, it's a rule. But like poker is a. And that's actually interesting to me. I don't play online, I don't enjoy online stuff. And part of the reason is how do you play the person? If poker is so much about the people sitting around the table, who they are sizing them up, understanding how they play, getting in their head, what is the value of the online poker?

[Sonny Bunch]

So I wrote about this a couple years ago and nobody should play online poker because online poker is now dominated by bots. And the bots are calibrated to make sure that they let the human fish win just enough to keep them from getting up from the table. So it is not an honest game. If you are playing online these days, it is. You're. You are a sucker. If you sit online, the only place you should sit is in, in person with people. But I don't know, Sunny, when you go to a physical casino in meet space and you sit, how can you be sure you're at a table in the right skill bracket? Is it just because of the buy in?

[JBL]

Oh yeah, yeah. It's all about, it's, it's.

[Sunny]

Well, for me anyway it's about money level because when I go.

[JBL]

When I, the last time I went.

[Sunny]

To Vegas, I walked by the, I walked by the poker room and I just kept going. I like, I couldn't even, I couldn't even bring myself to sit down because I'm so out of practice. I was like, I'm gonna embarrass myself. This is, this is not gonna be good for anybody.

[JBL]

But when I go, I sit down.

[Sunny]

At a, either a 1, 2, no limit game or 3, 6 or a 2, 4 limit game.

[JBL]

And like that, that, that is a.

[Sunny]

Low enough stakes that it attracts people who are about as good as I am. Usually frankly a little bit better at this point because I'm so out of practice. But like. And you can't lose that much money. There is, is the thing, right? You're. If you go to a one to no limit game, the buy in is probably $300. Like if I lose $300, that's not ideal, but it's also not going to, it's not going to break me. If I sit down at like a, if I sat down at like a, I don't know, 5, 10 game, the, the buy in there is probably a thousand. So it's. Yeah.

[Sonny Bunch]

I mean, 300. And for how long it would take you to lose. It is probably about as long as it would take to see a show and you'd probably pay 300 for tickets to the show. So like in terms of dollars per minute of entertainment, that's, you know, this is so funny.

[Sarah]

This is what people do in Vegas while they're gambling is they do the mental math about what they're paying for the entertainment of sitting at the table playing versus what else they might otherwise do.

[Sonny Bunch]

Yeah. Do you know that? Do you guys know this? I. Sarah knows this. You may not. Sunny, we have a friend, friend of the BU who has a World Series of Poker bracelet.

[JBL]

Hey, Jeremy, you mentioned it.

[Sonny Bunch]

Love to you, big guy.

[Sarah]

Yeah. Hey jvl, here's something you might not know, which is that Sunny and I are going to Vegas together in just a few weeks because we have Indie Fest and it is in Vegas. It is our friend John, friend of the pod. Also John Ralston who runs the Nevada Independent, has his Indie Fest. Sunny and I are doing a panel. Summer. Well, summer's gonna be there with us and then we're gonna hang out.

[Sonny Bunch]

You have to go sit at a Table. You have to go sit and play a little poker together.

[JBL]

We can play blackjack or poker.

[Sunny]

Whatever Sarah wants to do. I'm. I'm down for.

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[Sonny Bunch]

Questions for you guys, because what I desperately want to do is to make the case to you that Teddy KGB is the real hero of Rounders. I can't do it. I can't actually do that. I. I think Teddy is not the hero. But what I think is he's not the. He's not actually the Big Bad. He's not the chief villain. Because I believe that Rounders is actually an allegory and a version of Dante's Inferno in that what is happening is that Matt Damon's character is being guided through the various circles of hell by his guide Kanish, taking the place of Virgil, and that Knish is escorting him through. And he meets a series of devils of increasing badness. Right? Increasing levels of sinfulness. And they include kgb. But kgb, I think, is the most benign of them. Petra Also quite benign.

[Sunny]

This is the Famka Johnson.

[Sonny Bunch]

Famka Johnson, who we can do a whole 20 minutes on her character if you'd like. Then Gretchen, Mal's character, his girlfriend, who is one of the real villains. And then finally Worm, and then the worst person of them all is Grandma. These are the true villains of it. And what has to happen is in order for him to be reborn, Matt Damon's character has to make his way past each of these characters as he descends further and further through the depths of hell before he can finally emerge out the other side on Easter Sunday morning, so to speak. Reborn as a man with enough bankroll to go to Vegas. Have I convinced you? The Catholic reading of Rounders?

[JBL]

No, it's. It's interesting that you. Because, because Sarah. Because something Sarah said earlier that the. The. The movie is. Is the goal. The goal. The stakes of the movie are Matt Damon's character needs to get money so.

[Sunny]

He can go to Vegas. And this is very low stakes really.

[JBL]

But that's not actually the stakes of the movie. The stakes of the movie are. Mike D. Mike D needs to go straight. The, the real, the real lesson of this movie is that Mike D needs.

[Sunny]

To stop gambling and stop playing poker and he needs to be a lawyer and be a productive member of society.

[JBL]

And he is turned from that path by everybody in his orbit. He is. And he goes to, he goes to Sin City at the end of the film.

[Sunny]

He is damned at the end of the movie.

[Sarah]

Is he.

[Sonny Bunch]

Or is it. Or is it the.

[JBL]

I mean, he is.

[Sunny]

Should he be straight?

[Sonny Bunch]

Well, I don't. Here's a real question, Sarah. Should Matt Damon go straight? What is the. By the rules of Moon, you look at this movie, do you believe that the lesson is yes, he should go straight. He should be a square.

[Sarah]

So before I answer, or do you.

[Sonny Bunch]

Think he's living the dream?

[Sarah]

Well, actually. Okay, I'll answer it in this way, is that. I'm glad he goes to Vegas. All right. He's a man following his dreams. I think people should follow their dreams. Here's though, one of the beats that I think is pretty silly in the movie that I had not thought about before is that they pump a lot of drama into the character of the judge, Martin Landau, who is the law. He is. He's like the. He's also his law school though professor in some way. And so they have this relationship and there's a great scene where Matt Damon's character shows up to the judges poker game and tells them all what cards they have by reading them all. And he's using it to get them to give him like a summer internship clerkship. Yeah, clerkship. By demonstrating this. And they're.

[Sunny]

All.

[Sarah]

These old men are very wowed by him. And the. And so at some point, Damon and Matthau have dinner or drinks, and Matthau tells him this story about how his parents wanted him to be a rabbi. And. And instead he became a judge. And so he deeply understands this notion of foregoing what somebody wants you to do to do this other thing. And when Matt Damon gets himself in real financial trouble, he goes to see this person because no one will give him any money. And he asks for 15 grand, and the judge, professor gives him 10, writes him a check on the spot. And it is imbued with this sense of, I see you, son. I see you striving to be that thing that you want to do. And I have a debt to repay. And I was a little bit like, dude, you went from being a rabbi to a judge. He's going from being a lawyer to a poker player. Like, I don't. I sort of found that the beat of that a little silly, because here's what I don't do. This is the one part I sort of can't get behind in the movie, which is that the real, like, denouement is that Matt Damon gets to go with. To play the World Series of Poker. And that's. That's just. That is about dream following. And okay, sure, fine. But, like, where the stakes of the movie actually sit are when his buddy Worm draws him back into the gambling life, away from his girlfriend, another law student who, you know, he could go have a normal square life with. And his buddy Worm pulls him back in. Worm is a degenerate cheater at cards.

[Sunny]

Importantly, a cheater. Not just a cheater.

[Sarah]

No, no.

[Sonny Bunch]

He's a cheater in life at cards. His whole. He is not a card player. He is a card sharp, right?

[Sarah]

And so he gets Damon in trouble because it is in some ways a story of friendship, right? Where Matt Damon is trying to, like, vouch for this guy and people will believe Matt Damon's character, but not Worm. And so the. The. That. That where he gets in financial dire straits where people are going to come kill him or break his legs because of worms, gambling debts. Like, those are the stakes of the movie. That's where the movie's interesting. The higher level stakes of can this guy, you know, leave the law profession and become a World Series of Poker player. I was like, I could take or Leave that.

[JBL]

Well, it is. So I, I, I kind of agree with this. Except, except he, again, he should be.

[Sunny]

Going the other way.

[JBL]

He should be going to law school.

[Sunny]

Corrupting him is the point of the movie.

[JBL]

Worm and everybody else in this movie corrupt him. And he, and he leaves and he goes to do. But the, But I want to, I want to jump back to the, the.

[Sunny]

Question of Worm and KGB and Grandma.

[JBL]

For a second, because, jbl, you said.

[Sunny]

Something interesting, that Grandma is actually the big villain of the.

[Sonny Bunch]

Yeah, Grandma's the worst character here because Grandma is a pimp and a loan.

[JBL]

Shark and Honor, he's a traitor.

[Sunny]

I mean, this is the lowest circle. This literally the lowest circle of hell.

[Sonny Bunch]

Yep.

[Sunny]

In your metaphor, he is a, he is a betrayer. That puts him in the lowest circle of hell.

[JBL]

I will just say in the context of the film, not the metaphor.

[Sunny]

In the context of the film, Grandma's doing an interesting thing because he is the frontman for Teddy KGB. Right? He is. He is doing this on Teddy KGB's behalf.

[JBL]

Teddy KGB wants Mike McD to have no money because Teddy KGB wants to.

[Sunny]

He says this. He says, you are mine, you know, if you don't have, if you don't have the money.

[JBL]

But then the question is, what does.

[Sunny]

He actually want to do with Mike McD?

[JBL]

Because he doesn't want it.

[Sunny]

There's no money in killing Mike McD. There's no money in breaking his legs or breaking his thumbs up. This is what Grandma wants to do because Grandma's a petty thug. He just wants revenge for the slights he has suffered.

[JBL]

Teddy KGB is smart.

[Sunny]

He's a man with a code. He's smart.

[JBL]

He knows what he's doing. He wants Mike McD for a different reason. And what I would propose to you, JBL, is that he wanted to own Mike McD so he could siphon his.

[Sunny]

Winnings off of him.

[JBL]

He wanted to turn.

[Sunny]

He basically wanted to turn Mike McD out and make him, make him.

[JBL]

Put him on the streets and make.

[Sunny]

Him win him poker money.

[JBL]

And that is, that's kind of interesting. It's not.

[Sarah]

They don't.

[JBL]

It's, it's very subtle. They don't really get into this. But that is kind of an interesting little element and angle of all this, which, again, gets into the whole world.

[Sunny]

Just being kind of scummy and gross.

[Sonny Bunch]

Well, but there are honorable guys like Knish, who, When, when, when Mikey McD is down to the felt, Knish says, I'm happy to front you. I'll take 50% of your winnings. And if you lose, it's on the house. Right? I mean, there are honorable versions of this, but, but what Teddy is angling for is probably not. Not honorable.

[Sarah]

But can I just say this is a weakness of the movie. Is that Sonny? I, I can, I can see what you're saying, but you made that up. Like that is nowhere in the actual movie.

[Sonny Bunch]

Oh, I think it's there.

[Sarah]

Where.

[Sonny Bunch]

Well, he says you'll be mine. I mean, when he does.

[Sunny]

He does.

[Sonny Bunch]

When he says you'll be mine, like.

[Sunny]

Yeah.

[Sonny Bunch]

It's the only reasonable interpretation. I don't know. That's what I've always thought it meant.

[Sunny]

Yeah.

[Sonny Bunch]

But maybe, maybe this was just me inventing headcanon.

[Sarah]

I, I guess, I mean, I, I guess I don't need everything to be spelled out for a movie that like, lives with this voiceover to get very explicit about everything that is wildly opaque for an interpretation. And, But I mean, I guess, sure, I mean, certainly that is where the stakes of the movie are, is in that relationship. It's why they bookend it with the. In terms of he loses all his money to him in the first pot and that is what. He's out. He's out after that. He's lost 30 grand. His law school tuition, you know, his girlfriend. He's made promises to his girlfriend that he is not going to keep gambling. And then they gets pulled back in. And the, the, the final game with Teddy KGB is a mixture of him wanting to win his money back, retribution for that, that loss, but also like the need to beat him. Right. The need to not suffer the indignity of that loss again.

[Sonny Bunch]

Just know that he can win.

[Sunny]

Sticking it in you.

[Sonny Bunch]

I have a question. Some problematic questions. Might as well do it. Is Gretchen mall, the girlfriend, one of the villains?

[Sunny]

Yes.

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[Sunny]

I mean just in terms of the film itself, she is just, she, she is not supportive.

[JBL]

It's one of these very, there's a.

[Sunny]

Very classic like trope of mid mid-90s, early aughts, like bad girlfriends. And she is like a number one version of it. It's, it's, she's just like, okay, that's.

[Sonny Bunch]

Sonny Bunch saying that, not me. Jvl I am, I am waiting for Sarah to hear her opinion before I pronounce on this.

[Sarah]

I know you think she's the villain. I mean, what it's like I, I, I known you for years talking about everything. Of course you think she's the villain. I think villain. I think, yeah, but well, so mid tier villain. I would, it depends on which way you come at this. So I will say being in a relationship with someone, right. She doesn't see that he loves this. Right. She is somebody who, and so to me like the villain is the person who wrote this character because she is only there to give Matt Damon a reason for getting on the straight and narrow and kind of a, you know, ham handedly I think constructed one. Like it's just like clear. He gets the pretty girlfriend who also goes to law school and he becomes a lawyer. And this is the path of a normie square guy who he come and he goes through this about how his childhood, he went to prep school, but only because his father was the janitor. And so he got tuition. And so this is his chance to like level up in life. But it's not really what he wants. But it's not her fault that he's told her, yes, I want this. Like I messed up by losing my, by gambling away my tuition. That's not the life I want. I want this different life. And so he's, when he, he goes through the movie saying, I made promises. That's true. He made promises to her. And so she is be, she is with him because he said, I want this life. Okay, so he's made that choice. She didn't like.

[Sonny Bunch]

See, that's what I was gonna say.

[Sarah]

She didn't give. No, it wasn't, she didn't give him an ultimatum of, you know, before or if she did. They don't tell us that. But of course for me I do certainly like you do spend the whole movie being like, okay, then leave. Like he clearly this is who he is and like this is what he's passionate about. And so, like, there's no part of me that thinks he should have stayed with her. But I also don't think she's a villain. She's not wrong for believing him, that he wanted the life that she wanted.

[Sunny]

She's actually the hero of the movie.

[JBL]

Cause she's trying to keep him on the straight and narrow. She is the one who's trying to save his soul. She is the angel dangling redemption, and he rejects her.

[Sonny Bunch]

So if you believe that, the message of the movie is that it's a tragedy because Mike should not be a professional gambler. He should be a lawyer. Then she is the angel. Right? She is his guardian angel. Totally right.

[Sunny]

He rejects her.

[Sonny Bunch]

Yeah.

[Sunny]

Three times he rejects her.

[Sonny Bunch]

How about Petra? Do we have thoughts about Petra?

[Sarah]

Wait, you didn't say what you thought about Gretchen Moll. You have to.

[Sonny Bunch]

No, what I think is that it depends entirely on whether or not you believe that Mike should be a gambler or a lawyer.

[Sarah]

Okay. Do you think he should be a gambler or a lawyer?

[Sonny Bunch]

I mean, for the purposes of this story, I think that he should absolutely be a gambler.

[Sarah]

So do I.

[Sonny Bunch]

For the purposes of how I live my life, he should fucking go to law school. This is. I am incredibly risk averse. So it's different. But I'm just trying to live with the rules of this movie. And I think in the rules of this movie, Mike is meant to play.

[JBL]

Poker for a living within the rules of this movie.

[Sunny]

She is absolutely the villain of a villain of the movie. Not the villain. Worm is the villain.

[JBL]

The real villain of this movie is.

[Sunny]

Worm, who is a bad person person throughout. Who corrupts Mike, who pulls him back into this life, who cheats, who has.

[JBL]

No honor, who has no code. And this is why. And this is why. KGB is not a villain. This is why, at the end of the movie, kgb, who has been treated as this dangerous, sketchy figure throughout the film, he's the one guy in the.

[Sunny]

Game you don't want to fuck with, as they say.

[JBL]

Mike gives him. Mike razzes him. He takes all his money, and then he razzes him. And he says, I'll go busting you up all night.

[Sunny]

And.

[JBL]

And his goons come towards his goons.

[Sonny Bunch]

Try to go after him. Yeah.

[JBL]

KGB is like, no, no, he won. Give him his money. I'm done playing.

[Sunny]

That's it. That's. This is.

[JBL]

This is how we.

[Sonny Bunch]

KGB has a code.

[JBL]

KGB has a code.

[Sonny Bunch]

KGB has a code.

[JBL]

Characters with codes are good, which is.

[Sarah]

Why John Malkovich really does. Even though I think that accent. If you were less. You have to be in it. You have to be in it for what John Malkovich is doing. I happen to be in for it, but if I took myself out of it for five seconds, I would be like, what is John Malkovich doing? What is this accent? What is this slightly gay, gay Russian?

[Sonny Bunch]

Just like, young man coming in for.

[Sunny]

Kviki.

[Sarah]

So unsatisfied he's eaten his Oreos. His tell is listening to the last.

[Sonny Bunch]

Time I stick it in you. And then he does this after he says, stick it in you, and he starts gesticulating. He also does a thing with his eyes and his mouth, which I can't recreate.

[Sunny]

Yeah.

[Sonny Bunch]

And the movie only gives you like a quarter of a second of it. But it's so good and everything. Like, his mo. His body is, like, live. And the way he splashes the pot with his hand.

[Sarah]

Oh, yeah, don't splash the pot. I was. Splash the. I can't do it.

[Sonny Bunch]

He's amazing.

[Sunny]

Daemon totally breaks, by the way, when he does the hip floppy thing, he just. He just, like, loses it for a second. It's like, okay, that's. That's what we're doing.

[Sarah]

John Malovich is so fun in this movie. And. And so if you're. If you're in it, you just are like, yes, I.

[JBL]

And.

[Sarah]

And. And he's one of those. It's one of those movies where he's not in that many scenes, but the ones he's in make the whole thing worth it.

[Sunny]

The whole thing.

[Sonny Bunch]

The movie does not work without his performance.

[Sarah]

No, it doesn't.

[Sonny Bunch]

John Turturro, John, he's so good in this movie. Yeah, Knish is so good.

[Sarah]

So what I like about him is, like, so this guy's like a grunt. Like, he plays for money because it's his job. It's his living. And so he has. He has child payments, whatever. So he is. He plays because he has to. And this is how he's. Was his chosen profession. And he looks out for Matt Damon, especially by doing the thing. And this is why. Jvl, here's my. Wow. The one thing I'll say about your problematic take is if you think that Gretchen Mall's character, the girlfriend, is a villain and Knish is a hero, I call bullshit on that because they do the exact same thing. John Turturro cuts him off. He knows he's in trouble. He knows his life is even at stake. And he says, no, I won't give you the Money, because it's just going to send you further down this path. And so Knish and Gretchen Mole are in the same bucket of activity, the same view on how this should go. And I think it is interesting that she becomes a bad guy while Knish.

[Sonny Bunch]

Becomes a good guy only at the crisis point. Right. That is a reversal for him. Her consistent view is that Mikey shouldn't be playing poker. John Turturro only cuts him off when he believes that Damon has hit bottom. And he's never pushing him. Right. And this is the other thing. He's never pushing Mikey in either direction. He offers to front him money to get back into the game if that's what he wants. But then when Mike says, hey, can I have that truck route? He's like, yeah, you can have my truck route. Like, he's not pushing one way or another on Mikey. He is a guide, not an instructor.

[Sarah]

I don't know about that. I mean, he. He helps him kind of, like, stay in if that's what he wants to do, because he views it as a job. She's also saying, do this as a job, like, be a lawyer. Live this life. And Knish is also advocating for a life of sort of sobriety in the. But it just. It just so happens that Knish is doing it in the context of poker.

[Sonny Bunch]

Yeah, Fair. Fair. I love everything about Turturro's performance here, too. And when they. When. When Mikey is telling him about the time he sat with Johnny Chan in. In Atlantic City, and Knish is just like, his eyes start bugging out, and you could see he's right there where he's riveted with this story, and he just wants to, like. It's such a great piece. Gosh, it's such a great piece. What'd you make of Petra?

[Sunny]

I'm sorry. Just one more thing on John Turturro.

[Sarah]

Cannot wait to talk about petra.

[Sunny]

John Turturro's 1998 included rounders, of course, but also the Big Lebowski.

[JBL]

And he got game like that is a killer.

[Sunny]

1998. That is a very good year for any character actor.

[Sarah]

When did he do Quiz Show?

[Sunny]

That was a couple of years before. That was like, 94, I think. Yeah, 94 is for sure.

[Sonny Bunch]

Turturro is one of these guys who I just. For no reason, I just imagine being an unbelievably good hang.

[Sarah]

He just makes every movie better. He's one of those actors that, if he's in it, I'm probably going to watch the movie because I Feel like his choices are good.

[Sonny Bunch]

Well, also, he's the best part of Transformers. Transformers is a terrible movie, and he's fantastic at it.

[JBL]

Well, he works with great directors.

[Sunny]

He works with Spike Lee. He works with the Coen brothers. He works with Michael Bay. I mean, it's just the Troy thing.

[JBL]

All right. You want to talk about Petra? Jbl?

[Sonny Bunch]

I just wonder if you guys think that Petra is a villain or a. Or what?

[Sarah]

You just think she's hot.

[Sonny Bunch]

I don't. Did not say that. I did not say that.

[Sunny]

Petra.

[JBL]

Is Petra a villain or. No, Petra's not a villain.

[Sunny]

She's just.

[JBL]

She's more of a cog in the machine.

[Sunny]

She's not.

[JBL]

She's not. She is. She's just working at the.

[Sunny]

The. The Chesterfield, right? She's just.

[JBL]

She is following the code of their organization, their. Their lifestyle, right? Which is that Mike McD has come to the Chesterfield and he has vouched for Worm and.

[Sunny]

And said, give, Worm. Put Worm on my tab. And Worm is the one who betrays that trust.

[JBL]

She could have come a little bit.

[Sunny]

Earlier to him and said, hey, Worm has left your tab open. You owe us money starting, you know, today.

[JBL]

She could have. She could have been a little bit better there, but she's just.

[Sunny]

She's just. She's just part of the. She's just part of the scenery, really.

[Sarah]

I do think she represents from, like, the girlfriend perspective an alternative for him, which is he could they. They clearly have had a relationship in the past. She's clearly spent the night at his apartment before she offers to do it again.

[Sonny Bunch]

While I talk about unrealistic moments, there's only one utterly implausible thing in this entire movie is when Famke Janssen breathily says to Matt Damon's character, I could stay. And he says, no, I'm sorry. That is utterly implausible.

[Sarah]

Sure. Well, he is just gotten out of a significant relationship. And also, she came there to take money from him because he owed it. And she says, thanks for making that easy for me because she's making the rounds to do pickup of the cash that people owe collections. But the least.

[Sunny]

The least believable strongman collection agent of all time.

[Sarah]

I also had the same thought, like, this is who you send to go pick up the cash. This is.

[Sonny Bunch]

She's on a top. She was a Bond villain, sure.

[Sarah]

But this is. This is actually one of the things that makes rounders really work. And it's one of the things that. I think it makes Sopranos work or any show that or movie that is about kind of the underworld or the criminal world, because for them to, to function, you have to believe that there are still rules, right. If, if, if, if it's all like, well, it's all scumbags who are going to knock off a pool, a poker game at any point, then no one would play, Right? And so there is the, the, the extent to which the enforcement of the rules of this particular world work is something that draws you in and you can live there. And that's why what Teddy KGB does at the end is so important because this whole thing only works if there are rules.

[Sonny Bunch]

SARAH this brings us to the current news where yesterday we got word of the gigantic gambling ring that has been busted up, including a bunch of NBA players and coaches. Chauncey Billups. The most interesting aspect of which is that there's a whole bunch of mobbed up poker clubs where all of the games are crooked. And so in the real world of what allegedly the FBI just broke up yesterday, places like the chesterfield and Teddy KGB's poker joint are all crooked. Yeah. And the mobsters running them do not operate by the code. They were using special glasses with marked cards and transmitters which are letting them know what cards the other guys are holding and stuff. Have you read the details?

[JBL]

Cameras under the table nuts. Cameras under the.

[Sonny Bunch]

Absolutely nuts.

[JBL]

I mentioned this in the slack and.

[Sunny]

Sam yelled at me because I clearly hadn't read the story that it was.

[JBL]

That it was about, but I, but like when I first saw the story, I assumed it was a sports gambling story and there was a player who.

[Sunny]

Was like shaving points and like taking dives and getting, leaving games early in order to, you know, help people win prop bets.

[JBL]

But then there's the second poker avenue of it that I was deeply offended, but I was, I was outraged by this Chauncey Billups running, running a scam poker game because I don't look, in many ways I'm a naive child. I go through life thinking that people.

[Sunny]

Want the best and are honorable and decent.

[JBL]

And poker is one of those worlds where even when you see it on the Sopranos, it's, you know, they have the high stakes game with like David.

[Sunny]

Lee Roth and Lawrence Taylor, right. Like it's just a game where guys.

[JBL]

Are getting together and they're playing cards or you, or you have like rounders where you have Teddy KGB who's mobbed up with the Russian mob, but it's still a straight game. And at the end of the game he doesn't mess up.

[Sunny]

Mike McD right he's like, you take his. You pay that man his money. Get him out of here.

[JBL]

In the real world, these are all.

[Sunny]

Scumbags who are just stealing money from people. That's. That's what it comes down to.

[JBL]

And I, I found that so much more offensive than the sports gambling aspect of it, for reasons I can't really articulate other than like, but that's, but.

[Sunny]

Poker is a game of skill. That's it.

[JBL]

That was that. Like, you take money, you take money from sports gamblers. I don't care.

[Sunny]

Because those guys are all degenerates anyway. They're all just. I, I don't.

[JBL]

Sports gambling. I want to, I want to ask.

[Sunny]

I actually have a question for Sarah about sports gambling and public opinion on it that maybe we can get to in a second.

[JBL]

But the, the, the poker, the live poker, cheating, I found deeply offensive in a way.

[Sunny]

In a way that's really surprised me.

[JBL]

I was, I was like, hurt by it.

[Sonny Bunch]

Does it surprise you, Sarah?

[Sunny]

Because I was shocked.

[Sonny Bunch]

I don't know why. Like, Mafia people cheated cards too. Like, like in retrospect, like, oh, of course I should have assumed this, but I didn't.

[Sarah]

I guess it surprises me in the. For the reason I just stated, which is the only way those things work. It's gotta be an honor among thieves type situation. Otherwise, I always think about this with every movie that, whether usual, suspect anything, where they're getting together a crew to do a heist or to do a thing, right? Everybody's gotta be on the level. They've gotta believe that everyone's not gonna turn around and sh. Them or not give them their cut or whatever. And, and for all I know, because I don't actually experience these worlds unless it's through a movie, it makes total sense that a bunch of people who are involved in a bunch of scumbaggy things also turn out to be scumbags. That is like, actually, that should probably just be axiomatic. But I think that I just sit there and I'm like, well, the only way that this actually works, the only way you get people to put down a million dollars and are at play, these big hands as if they believe at the end of it, everybody honors what happens. And that's happening in this movie. And if it's not happening in the real world, then I don't know what to tell you.

[Sonny Bunch]

What's the world coming to?

[Sarah]

I hate cheaters, though. The, the, like at the game. Like if you cheat at cards. And this is why Worm is such a particularly Repellent character because not only does he cheat, but he has been repeatedly told by the Matt Damon character I play straight up. And Worm, like, is dealing to him from under the deck, gets caught by the police officers that they're playing with, which, I mean, just. That guy is so stupid. And this is where some of it just start. Does. If you look at it a little closely, you're like, is Matt Damon still friends with this guy?

[JBL]

No, that. That actually.

[Sunny]

That totally tracks for me. That track. It track both that Worm is not able to control himself and also that Matt Damon would continue to be friends with him. We've all got friends because Worm went.

[Sonny Bunch]

To prison for him.

[Sarah]

That's true. They do give you.

[Sonny Bunch]

That didn't rat. So I find Worm interesting because he's introduced as, like, this is just what Matt Damon might have looked like had he gone bad. But that's not actually what he is. Worm is a con man, and Matt Damon is a professional. Right? And we know, actually, because we are told that when they first get together in school, they're setting up point shaving schemes. This is how Worm starts. Is like, we convinced guys on the high school sports team to take a dive for us so that we could win a bunch of money in bets. And Worm says when Matt Damon pulls him out of a game to say, you got to say, I'm watching you cheat those guys. You got to stop. And Worm is like, I can't do that. I see a mark, I take him down. Like, it's like he has this. It's a fake moral code because it's. He's inventing it to cover for his compulsion, but as if, like, you know, like, stupid people should not have their money. Like, this is, you know, I got to do it. And that's. He's a very different figure, which is why he. He is in one circle of hell. And. And Mikey has to make his way past him.

[JBL]

Just one.

[Sunny]

One instant correction.

[G]

Worm.

[Sunny]

Worm got kicked out of school for Matt Damon. He went to prison for credit card scams or something, if I remember correct.

[Sonny Bunch]

Thank you.

[JBL]

I have a question about.

[Sunny]

About online gambling, Sarah. Does this ever come up with the focus group people? Is.

[JBL]

Is. Is gambling an issue that is starting.

[Sunny]

To get so bad that people are like, what are we. Why are we doing this?

[Sarah]

Yeah. So I'll tell you, this is like a business one. But we did, you know, sometimes people send us ads, and they send us the products with the ads, and, like, we decide if we like the them. Sometimes people just put stuff in front of us, right? And we had one, we had a couple for DraftKings and man, did we hear about it from bull work folks. And I, in my head, sort of, I was like, well, this is like sports betting is a thing that, like, I mean, it is on. I have belated. I started watching football. I care about football now and like, I know who's playing this weekend. I know who won last weekend and who lost. I know who's injured. Like, I jbl, we haven't really talked about this, but I've been like, really focused on getting into football and I have been shocked by the amount of gambling ads. They're everywhere. It is. And DraftKings is like lots of the guys who, whether it's the barstool guys, whatever their business model is entirely the sports betting. But one of the things that's becoming clear is that the sports betting is becoming a huge problem for young men in this country. Like, it is just predatory. So you guys would have to explain to me because I don't bet on. I don't do that. I don't sports bet in part because I don't know enough about it. Like, I only do things and I don't know that I would get excited about doing that because I can't control it.

[Sunny]

I hate, I hate sports betting. I dislike it on a, on a very visceral level, which is. And part of this just a personal thing because I don't know enough about.

[JBL]

I don't know enough about the lines.

[Sunny]

And I feel dumb playing.

[JBL]

I feel, I feel dumb betting on sports in a way that I don't.

[Sunny]

Betting on cards or dice or whatever. Like, I understand the basic rules of roulette. I don't play roulette, but I understand the rules of roulette. If I put, if I put five bucks down on this, it'll pay off, you know, 40, 40 to 1, whatever.

[JBL]

Like I, I at least. But with, with.

[Sunny]

There are so many variables in sports gambling that I just, I really hate it.

[JBL]

But I like my, my take on.

[Sunny]

It has always been.

[JBL]

I think I used to be very.

[Sunny]

I used to be very libertarian on gambling. I used to think it should be mostly legal. Like people are going to gamble anyway. It's better that they do it through these apps or through local sports books than having to go to the mob and, you know, get their thumbs broken or whatever. And I have come around that I've 180 on that. I like. I think you should have to risk your bodily, bodily injury to place bets on sports because otherwise it makes it too easy to.

[JBL]

Tying, tying. Tying people's bank accounts to endorphin delivery.

[Sunny]

Devices that are in their pocket all the time is a terrible, terrible thing. And it is destroying bank, it's destroying families, it's putting people in debt. I think it's bad. I think it's all bad and should, should probably be banned.

[Sonny Bunch]

It's just wealth transfer. So I mean, so I've long been against gambling, like almost all forms of legalized gambling because they are almost inevitably regressive taxes on the po but at least with lotteries, their taxes. Sports betting is wealth transfer. So and it's wealth transfer in two directions. First of all, you have the people who own the platforms who are taking cuts of everything. But then on the other side, when you go on and bet, the other side of that bet is not Bunny sun, some other guy in Houston. Right. The other side of that bet is, are a bunch of industrial grade data operations which are data mining all this stuff and running line. You're betting against algorithms and the people who run those algorithms are taking your money. But even that's not the insidious part is the platform. Because you are on sports betting platform xyz, they know everything about you and so they are going to try to get you back if you try to walk away. And they can ping your device and say, hey, here's five free dollars or hey, we know you like to bet on the cowboys. Here's a good cowboys bet. Right. And they're leveraging all of this data in ways that are so insidiously tied to your person, you can't physically get away from it. Right. Which is just a total category difference from I have to walk down to the bookmaker to place a bet. Like if you want to have this stuff I like, I could, I'd say have a sports book at a casino where people can go and place it. That's fine. But having this stuff on your phone is absolutely. There is no public good served by this. And also there's so much money in it now that I think it is impossible to get the toothpaste back in the tube.

[Sarah]

Yeah, just so one of the things I, I've also always been pretty just because I'm libertarian. Ashan like grown ups can make choices and this is, you know, it's just, is what it is. But it's somehow we went from not being able to bet on anything to being able to bet on absolutely everything. And there was no middle ground. And like, so this is like a personal rule. I Made for myself. But when casinos started popping up everywhere, like there's an MGM at the harbor that is quite close. I never like I will go to Vegas and not the MGM harbor for the weekend. Like if I easier to get to.

[Sunny]

Vegas than the harbor.

[Sarah]

That's true. It's not that easy. But like it is, it is over. It's just across the bridge for me. And I, it's not that I've never gone. I gone. It's not that I've never gone, but I mostly don't go because that's not good for me. And I like the idea that if you go to Vegas or even if you JBL is right. Like if you. I think sports betting should be legal. I feel about it the way I feel about speed cameras actually, which is, look, if a cop wants to catch me speeding, they should have to catch me speeding. But the idea that they can just set cameras up everywhere, it's like too easy to get me. Like there has to be some, some element of trying that does create some friction when something is a societal ill. It doesn't mean it's sort of like we've got, you know, I don't know, like having to go to a liquor store, having to like just making it just a little inconvenient is a good thing. And I think the idea that now it is like basically hardwired into people's brains can't be good.

[Sonny Bunch]

Do you think there's a way to, to unwind it? Like is it going to be like smoking where. Sure, it's everywhere and it's like a 50 year fight but eventually you can, you can unleverage it because the harms become so. Or, or maybe people find ways to get, to stop harming themselves, I don't know. But again, there's a ton of really good sociology done on this because different states legalize it at different times. And so there, there are essentially these giant longitudinal studies where you can fire. Follow outcomes of like, you know, state X legalizes it, seven years later state Y legalizes it and you can track their progress. And this like provides really, really good control groups to isolate the impact of it.

[JBL]

I will say my, my, my theory.

[Sunny]

On this is no, you probably can't put, put the toothpaste back in the bottle.

[JBL]

But I do think there are tweaks.

[Sunny]

That you can do at the legal level to make it more painful for these companies.

[JBL]

Like the, the way, the way some.

[Sunny]

Of the apps ban people who win too often should, that should be illegal.

[JBL]

You should not, you should not be able to. And I believe this on the casino level too. Like, if you're able to count cards.

[Sunny]

You should be able to go there and win as much money as you can. I, like, I, I am. I.

[JBL]

If you're going to, if you're going to extract lots and lots of money.

[Sunny]

From like, regular idiot fish, then you're.

[JBL]

Gonna get, you should have to take, you should have to have a couple.

[Sunny]

Bites taken out of you by sharks every once in a while. That's my, that's my basic theory.

[Sonny Bunch]

Hard agree.

[Sarah]

Counting cards, this idea that, like, that's just you improving your skill, that's just you knowing how to do something.

[Sonny Bunch]

How card counting could, could morally be verboten by the casinos. It just makes no sense.

[Sarah]

It's not cheating.

[JBL]

It's. It's because they, it's because they don't want to lose money. And they, they have all. They've got everybody in their pockets, you know, it's whatever.

[Sunny]

The thing that drives me craziest about.

[Sonny Bunch]

Legalized gambling, Sarah, is one of your dreams in life to have a pit boss come over to you and say, ma', am, boy, your action's too good for us here tonight. We're very, very sorry. Here are some tickets to a show. And please go have a steakhouse dinner on us. Do you live to hear somebody say you're not?

[Sarah]

But I've had people. No, no, no, not that. But whenever somebody there, they do do things to keep you there. So someone's like, you know, oh, you're, you're driving home tonight. Oh, well, let me, let me ask the pit boss. We can probably get you a room. And, you know, they get you the room so you stay there till 4am.

[Sunny]

That would work on me every time it works. I would never turn on that room.

[Sarah]

I know. I listen everything in moderation. Gambling is fine, but you don't, you can't and shouldn't do it all the time.

[Sonny Bunch]

Last question. J.B. pritzker, $1.4 million in winnings. What is the way in which he could win that money that would make you like him the most? So what is your head canon story behind how he did that that makes you like him the most?

[Sarah]

Well, he was playing poker, right?

[Sunny]

He's playing blackjack.

[Sonny Bunch]

I don't think we know.

[Sarah]

Yeah. So was he playing?

[Sunny]

I'm pretty sure it was blackjack. Let me, I'll offer that real quick.

[Sonny Bunch]

All right. Well, while you do that, I will tell you that in my mind, the thing that makes me like him the most Is that he walks up to a roulette table, puts $50,000 down on a number, hits it and walks away. Hits it 35 to 1 or 50 to 1 or whatever the individual number payout is, and just walks out with 1.4 million. That to me is like, oh, love it.

[Sarah]

Not to me, man. Go ahead.

[JBL]

According to NBC news, he won $1.4.

[Sunny]

Million in Vegas playing blackjack.

[Sarah]

Yeah. So this is so on blackjack, the thing that would make me like him the most is not a one hit wonder. You want him to have ground that out over hours where he's up and down. He's up and down, but he gets on a run, he knows when the run's hot. He knows when the cards are going his way. And. Cause this is a. This is it, right? It's that you feel. And this is where it's not quite skill, but it's something adjacent intuition where you say, I'm catching cards right now. I push up and. Cause the way to lose at blackjack is just to keep betting the same thing the whole time. The way you win is to pick your moments. It's a little bit like poker when.

[JBL]

You hit a hot streak, when the cards are. When the cards are in your favor, you just bet more money.

[Sonny Bunch]

How much math did you take at Kenyon?

[JBL]

Sarah's right. This is how it works.

[Sarah]

This is how it works.

[JBL]

This is, in fact, 100% how it works.

[Sonny Bunch]

50% of the time, it works every time.

[Sunny]

Exactly, exactly.

[Sarah]

You don't know. Do you know my. Do you know what my favorite way to gamble is? You out to Vegas, you're on east coast time. So you wake up at three in the morning, three, four in the morning. I go get a Starbucks and a Bloody Mary, and I play with the dealer and I catch the people who've been up all night drinking.

[JBL]

The nice thing about that is that occasionally they will have like the.

[Sunny]

The $10 tables up at the nice casinos at that time of night, because there's nobody there. They're just like, who. Who wants to. Who wants to throw away some money?

[Sarah]

They're vacuuming the carpet. And I'm like, I'm coming to get my day started.

[Sunny]

All right, Rounders. Good movie. Everybody loves rounders. It's on Canopy, by the way. We. We. I didn't say this at the beginning. It's on Canopy. If you, if you have a library near you, you might have access to Canopy. You can look it up or you can rent it for four bucks on Amazon, which is always, always an option. All right.

[JBL]

Well, that was great. I just want to say, Sarah, I'm.

[Sunny]

Very excited to go to Las Vegas with you and sit down at a table.

[JBL]

Cause I don't think we have gambled together.

[Sunny]

Ever. I don't think.

[Sarah]

I don't think so either.

[Sunny]

Not at a table game anyway.

[Sarah]

Except with our futures on this endeavor called the Bulwark, but paid off. But no, not at cards.

[JBL]

And we will be back. Maybe next week. Maybe the week after.

[Sunny]

I don't know.

[JBL]

We'll see. We'll see how everybody's schedules look with.

[Sunny]

With another episode of the Bulwark Movie Club. Can't wait to see you guys at the theater.