Most Popular Bollywood Gambling Movies

The Indian film industry is one of the most popular and prolific entertainment industries in the world,
producing over 2,000 movies annually. A large part of these come from the Mumbai film industry, also
known as Bollywood, with various regional movies making up the rest. Bollywood is known for its
colorful, larger-than-life movies, with song and dance being a huge part of most flicks, but in recent
years, it has also found acclaim globally for producing some excellent realistic content as well. Another
development that has taken place in India recently has been the rise in popularity of gambling. Some of
the best gambling games in India are now online, with people able to play them on a variety of websites,
and this rising popularity has also been reflected in the movies, with an increasing number of movies and
TV shows with gambling themes. Thus, here are some of the most popular Bollywood movies and shows
based on gambling .

The Great Gambler (1979)

This action thriller film was one of the first to openly have gambling as a central theme to the plot, as well
as being quite an expensive production for its time, with scenes being shot in Cairo, Lisbon, Venice and
Rome, which was quite unheard of for an Indian movie at that time. It stars one of the biggest and most
popular Bollywood stars ever in Amitabh Bachchan, with Zeenat Aman, Neetu Singh and Prem Chopra
playing some of the other important roles. The movie also has Bachchan playing a double role i.e two
characters who look alike, one, an expert gambler who has never lost a game, and the second being the
police inspector who is given one of his cases to handle.

Jannat (2008)

Jannat managed to bring together one of India’s national obsessions, cricket, with its seedy underbelly,
which was the scourge of match-fixing which dominated the sport in the ‘90s and early 2000s. Emraan
Hashmi plays the lead role, of a youngster who has always been obsessed with making a quick buck. He
strikes gold when he moves up from being a small-time card player to becoming a bookie for illegal
betting on cricket matches, and then soon evolves into a match-fixer, paying off players to influence
matches in the bookies’ favour. The movie was a critical and commercial success, with its music also
gaining a lot of appreciation.

The Casino (2020)

The Casino is one of the first Indian TV shows to be based on gambling. Starring Karanveer Bohra,
Sudhanshu Pandey and Mandana Karimi in the lead roles, it tells the story of Vicky, played by Bohra, who
is the sole heir to a multi-million dollar casino in Nepal, and the ensuing struggle for control between him
and his father’s mistress, after the death of his mother. The Casino was released on the Zee5 streaming
platform in India, and has already become one of the most popular web series in the country.

Teen Patti (2010)

Another movie based on gambling starring Amitabh Bachchan, Teen Patti is inspired by the Hollywood
film 21. Bachchan plays the role of an eccentric mathematics professor, who is invited to London to be
told about an equation which can redefine probability, thus changing the field forever. At the same time,
he uses this experiment in card games, with teen patti (a local Indian version of poker) being his game of
choice, and then recruits a small team of students to go around employing this theory and winning card
games.

The Striker (2010)

Striker was the first Indian movie to be released on YouTube the same day as its theatrical release. It tells
the story of a poor boy, who has a passion for carrom, and this passion is then turned into a money
making scheme by a mafia don for his own ends.