The Best Bingo & Slot Game Scenes on TV

Casinos and arcades are flamboyant, colourful, and often tense environments that seemingly never sleep. It’s no surprise that they’ve been popularised as a backdrop for many movies and TV shows, whether the content is comedic (the shenanigans of friends on a wild weekend in Vegas) or ultra-dramatic (with high stakes and a lot of money on the table). 

We’ll take a look at just a handful of these scenes.

Bad Grandpa

As the fourth film in the Jackass franchise, this 2013 release had the nation in stitches as they were transported on a journey with 86-year-old Irving Zisman who takes his grandson, Billy, on a road trip to visit his biological father. In a tale of unwinding pranks, the pair visit a bingo hall where Irving can be seen testing the patience of the other bingo players as he unsettles the atmosphere with his overly mouthy nature. Eventually taking to drinking the bingo marker fluid, the scene certainly explores the endless possibilities of a bingo hall.

These antics would be flat-out impossible in the online bingo world: Irving’s disruptive behaviour wouldn’t be of any consequence to fellow players on the other side of a screen. While imagining this type of scene doesn’t quite seem as entertaining, Irvin certainly would have been able to explore the digital bingo landscape, which has a lot to offer, from the new game of Slingo to themed bingo like Deal or No Deal.

Friends

Friends, one of the most popular US sitcoms of all time, actually depicts the group visiting a casino multiple times. Perhaps the most iconic casino scene in this comedic series is when the quirky character, Phoebe, is outsmarted by another casino-goer, who with her elderly presence, seems innocent at first. This is until she can be seen taking advantage of leftover coins in the slot machine to win from other people’s money. In her fury, Phoebes determines to seek the elderly casino-goer out, but instead ends up being escorted out of the casino. This is all while Joey is convinced of having a hand twin.

What Happens in Vegas

This 2008 rom-com features popular Hollywood actors Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz who meet during a trip to the iconic casinos of Vegas. The two strangers wake up to find out they had a regrettable shotgun wedding. Upon realising this, they have a heated debate in the foyer before taking to the slot machines, where Diaz can be seen inserting her money into the machine, and then Kutcher proceeds to play. Winning a large sum of money, the plot follows the pair as they embark on their journey as newlyweds, despite being unable to stand each other, in a desperate bid to lay their respective claims on the money. As their love-hate relationship unfolds, this film demonstrates just how pivotal a slot machine win can be.

Each of these three iconic scenes shows just how timeless and popular bingo and retro arcade games continue to be, so it’s no wonder that they’ve seen a rise online over the past 20 years.