What Did You Think of the Movie Uncut Gems?

I recently streamed the Adam Sandler movie Uncut Gems. I thought it was like a two and a half hour roller coaster ride that was so shallow, I can't remember much else about it, though I watched it three nights ago. Lotta stereotypes, especially all the gambling addicts. I'm curious what the experts at QoD though about the gambling details.

[Editor's Note: This is a review of Uncut Gems posted on our site and written by Blair Rodman, author of our upcoming book All about Sports Betting. Coincidentally, it focuses on the gambling details. And it sums up LVA's collective impression of the movie -- and almost all gambling movies.]

One thing I've learned over my gambling career is that Hollywood producers couldn't care less about making the mechanics of gambling scenarios in movies and TV shows accurate. They figure viewers are focused on the story and characters and veracity be damned.

I thought the whole movie was stupid, but my wife, who once did some work in the diamond district in L.A., told me the scene is really like it was portrayed in Uncut Gems. OK. So let's look only at the sports betting part of it.

Adam Sandler plays a diamond dealer and compulsive sports bettor. The first bet we see him make is a parlay that includes:

-The Celtics to win the opening tip
-The Celtics to win the first half
-The Celtics to cover the spread as a -1 favorite
-Kevin Garnett (who’s in the film) to go over, separately, his posted point, rebound, and blocked-shot totals

(He also threw in what he called a "lightning bet" on the Celtics, a term I hadn't heard before. It's the same as a spread or index bet. This is a bet where each point above or below the posted spread or total is worth a unit. For example, say the line is Celtics -7 and you put $1K on a lightning bet, if the Celts win by 7, you push, by 8 you win $1K, by 9 you win $2K, and so on. If they fail to cover the spread by 1 point, you lose $1K, by 2 $2K, and so on. The bettor usually specifies a limit on the max loss, which corresponds to the max win, which wasn’t done in the movie.)

Let's look at the parlay.

I know of no book, legal or illegal, that would accept this nonsense. For one thing, I've never seen a book that allows parlays on player props, let alone something like the tip-off. And that’s not the only reason you couldn’t get action on this bet. Another problem is that these propositions are correlated to some degree. Books shun correlated parlays and for good reason.

To illustrate, when parlaying a game’s first-half total to the full-game total, if your team covers the first half, there’s an enhanced chance it will also cover the game total. To take this to an extreme, if the first-half total in a football game is 40 and the first-half score is 41-0, you’d not only cover the first half, but the whole game as well, while getting paid parlay odds. The same dynamic applies to first-half/full-game pointspread bets included in Sandler's parlay. It would be idiotic for a book to allow this kind of parlay. If you find someone that will book a parlay like this, bet him relentlessly -- until he either puts a stop to it or goes out of business. There's also a degree of correlation in the Celtics' covering and its star, Garnett, going over his prop totals.

As far as betting on the tip-off, I've seen some reviews scoffing at the idea of betting on something as seemingly random as that. The truth is, this is one of the bets where a sharp bettor can find an edge. Certain centers are more likely to win the tip. I remember a sports book that offered this prop and I bet the Clippers to win the tip almost every game; its center, DeAndre Jordon, controlled the tip a high percentage of the time. I don't know how many books still offer this bet, but if you have one, do some research and take advantage.

The final bit of dramatic license comes at the end when Sandler sends his girlfriend to Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut to bet -- despite the fact that in 2012, when the movie is set, there was no legal sports betting in the U.S. outside of Nevada. Oh, and she just dumped a bag containing about $165K on the counter to make the last parlay and the book accepted it and paid it off when it won with no questions and no Cash Transaction Report (CTR).

Despite the sports betting faux pas, Uncut Gems got some great reviews (91% on Rotten Tomatoes, though only 2.8 out of 5 in 5,400 audience ratings . While the betting scenes distracted me from the rest of the movie, as one who’s heavily involved in the industry, I'm probably an outlier in that respect. However, as sports betting becomes more and more mainstream, my distractions might become more common among viewers, and maybe producers will start to employ experts to clean up their scripts.

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Comments

Jackie Jul-23-2023

I thought the whole movie sucked begining to end

I've liked Adam Sandler movies, some offbeat, some weird, some very good, but this is the only one disappointing. The life of a loser with no redeeming qualities other than the wife and kids, loan sharks that make all loan sharks look stupid beyond belief, and bookies are a dream come true for advantage players. This was someones fantasy dream come true or an adventure into a alternate Earth. 

And the real mind bender of it all is all of the positive reviews, when did movie viewers become deaf, blind, and dumb (mentally, not vocally).

Scott States Jul-23-2023

Dated info

The info in this review is dated. In the jurisdiction where I live many of the sportsbooks offer “same-game parlays” where bets can be placed on multiple events within the same sporting event. There is also one provider (PointsBet) that offers something similar to the “lightning bet” mentioned where wins/losses increase depending on how close/far away the result is from the line.

Kevin Lewis Jul-23-2023

Ludicrously formulaic

I wonder if Hollywood will EVER offer a movie where the protagonist gambles and is NOT an obsessive degenerate lunatic and his gambling does NOT end up tossing his life into the wood chipper. Some kind of pseudo-moral code here? And any character who wins a large sum is allowed to enjoy it for nine seconds and is then run over by a cement truck or something. Again, I get the feeling that this sort of outcome is considered mandatory.
And yeah, I've never seen the mechanisms of gambling depicted even remotely accurately. And for the sake of drama (I guess), there's always some final game or bet where the stakes are even more absurdly high than usual and the protagonist gets truly unlucky (as opposed to making some kind of mistake) and he loses everything. Also mandatorily, the scowling thugs to whom he owes money are waiting right outside (as they have been all night) to disassemble him when he tells them he can't pay up.
Oh, almost forgot. Sweet, long-suffering, tolerant girlfriend.

Robert Dietz Jul-23-2023

Comments from a Sports Handicapper

I've been a handicapper and consultant to high stakes sports bettors for 45 years. Some comments:

1) As Mr. States mentions, many books offer the "same game" options now, but most are going to make you pay the price for these "entangled" wagers, unless the books are offering promos as a way to get people hooked on parlays.

2) That "lightning bet" stuff is a new moniker to me (I lead a sheltered life). Back in the 90's, these were offered by illegal books and were usually referred to as "action points" bets. I knew one group of players (some execs) who used these with one angle for NBA totals the last six weeks of the season. They did well. I had been unaware of the angle they were using, and I had never seen an appropriate use for these action points. What they were doing worked.

3) I'm doing some sports betting writing and consulting for a filmmaker working with George Anastasia. I've been surprisingly useful. People sometimes have knowledge/experience blind spots.

Luke Conerly Jul-31-2023

Ludicrously formulaic

Kevin Lewis...check out the 
Richard Dreyfuss movie "Let it Ride". It has a happy ending.  The movie itself, however, is average.

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