14 DAY TRIAL // Ben Affleck’s idea of a romantic getaway is probably not his wife Jennifer Garner’s idea of one. After flying to Las Vegas to spend a few days together before he’s off to shoot the new Superman movie in Detroit, Affleck got himself kicked out and banned from the Hard Rock Casino for counting cards.
Affleck is a notorious gambler, with reports online saying at one point that he’d even become addicted to it and had to check himself into rehab because he was bleeding money at the gambling table.
His name was also involved in the Hollywood secret poker ring scandal, and he admitted to winning many thousands of dollars in just one night, money that he then lost (and some) the very next night.
This time, it was counting cards at a blackjack table that got him in trouble, Radar Online reports. Confirmation comes via an alert from a security firm whose people work at the Hard Rock Casino, who observed Affleck counting cards during the game.
“Affleck ‘uses perfect basic,’ a common term for introductory card counting, according to the alert, ‘but also takes insurance according to the count. Uses black $100 [€72.09] cheques to keep track of the count while playing.’ Another alert issued the next day to major casinos in the area claimed that Affleck is ‘currently suspected of advantage play,’” Radar writes.
TMZ confirms the story, adding that the actor was in town with his wife. Apparently, counting cards is not illegal but it is enough to get a player banned from a casino, if management notices what’s happening.
As noted above, Affleck is about to move temporarily to Detroit, where Zack Snyder’s much mediated sequel to the Superman reboot (“Man of Steel”), believed to be called “Batman vs. Superman,” will see him take on the role made iconic by Christian Bale in Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy.
When Warner Bros. and Snyder announced that he’d been cast as Batman, fans reacted instantly in a most furious manner, even starting petitions to get him uncast. Clearly, that didn’t happen.
Since then, Affleck has been keeping a very low profile, though he did talk about the frenzy in a couple of interviews, basically asking fans to at least wait until the movie came out before hating him and heaping on criticism.
He’s also believed to have been training hard to get in shape for the role. Affleck was never too skinny to begin with but, after all, you have to be quite ripped to make a convincing Batman.