If you are not familiar with the Black Sox Scandal, the right movie for you is “Eight Men Out” (1988), with a completely different shoeless Joe, portrayed as an illitterate simpleton dragged unwittingly in the scam. A long distance from the romantic fantasy set in the Iowa corn fields, this one is a movie fit for true baseball lovers, from a true story. Director John Sayles even told the Chicago Tribune that he hired John Cusack and Charlie Sheen, playing two of the eight Chicago White Sox men involved in the scandal, not because they were rising stars as actors, but because of their ball-playing talent. Fallen into temptation for being miserably lowly paid, offered $5000 by gamblers to throw the 1919 finals of the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds, the eight ended up being banned from playing baseball for life.
He was a powerhouse Washington lobbyist, who ensanared lawmakers, Capitol Hill aides and government officials. Jack Abramoff, aka “Casino Jack” (2010), is the hero of another biographic movie in which gambling plays a key role. Kevin Spacey plays a brilliant role as the man who dragged down a congressman, a deputy secretary at the Interior Department and a dozen other high-ranking officials in the 2008 corruption trial that made history. One specific scam damaged Indian tribes, owners of tribal casinos, for millions of dollars.
From an episodic role in the real story of Jack Abramoff in the US, to the leading role in a TV fiction in his Canadian homeland, native actor Eric Schweig is casino boss Matthew Tommy in the very successful comedy-drama “Cashing In.” The APTN series ran for four seasons, from 2009 to 2014, revolving around Tommy’s North Beach Casino in Stonewalker First Nation. Shark executives, smooth dealers, scheming slicksters and colourful community members make up the cast of this fast-paced Canadian story.