History Main / FixingTheGame

* ''Film/AngelsOfMusic'': In "The Mark of Kane", Kane has set up a casino where all of the games are rigged. He plans to use it to secretly distribute funds to his LegionOfDoom to allow them to put in motion their various schemes that will tip Europe into war. The Persian and the Angels re-fix the games so that all of the cash flows back to the casino. Needless to say, this does not go down well with the collected fanatics, zealots and madmen, who now think that Kane is trying to humiliate them and rip them off, and start extracting suitable vengeance.

** In ''Discworld/WitchesAbroad'', a card shark tries to play Cripple Mister Onion against Granny Weatherwax, and several unfortunate accidents later is trying desperately to remember ''how'' you play Cripple Mister Onion without fixing the game.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dogs_cheating_poker.png]]

-->''Everybody knows that the dice are loaded\\

->"Everybody Knows", Music/LeonardCohen

!! Works that feature cheating at gambling:

[[folder:Anime]]

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

--> '''Boycie:''' Where did you get those four bloody aces from?
--> '''Del:''' Same place you got them kings. I knew you was cheating, Boycie.
--> '''Boycie:''' Oh yeah? How?
--> '''Del:''' Because that wasn't the hand that I dealt you.

** In "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS2E12TheRoyale}} The Royale]]", Data determines that the dice on the craps table are loaded and manually reweights them. He then throws winning rolls until he, Riker, and Worf can successfully pose as the foreign investors the situation calls for. Earlier, he also easily calculates how to win at Blackjack with only rudimentary knowledge of the game (and not knowing that the means he's using to do so are usually frowned upon).

'''Data:''' ''(Genuinely confused)'' The number of cards and their relative values remain constant. What purpose would there be in counting them?
** In "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E26S6E1TimesArrow}} Time's Arrow]]", Data is stranded in the 19th Century and finds a group of card-sharks who take him for an easy mark. Since he needs currency to get by, he agrees to play. Unfortunately for the card sharks, Data's CPU is more than advanced enough to calculate exact odds and count cards ''plus'' he's had several years of experience in learning to read other players at the senior staffs' poker nights. Not to mention he ''could'' stack the deck faster than the human eye can follow, if he were so inclined, and his lack of emotions meant he had no emotional tells. Data promptly cleans them out of all their cash ''and'' a few stylish pieces of clothing that help him blend in better.

** In "[[{{Recap/BlakesSevenS2E11Gambit}} Gambit]]" while Blake and the others are playing hero, Avon and Vila play hooky to rob the [[ViceCity Freedom City]] casino with the help of MagicalComputer Orac. The casino owners then try to get their money back by conning Vila into a DeadlyGame.
** In "[[{{Recap/BlakesSevenS3E12DeathWatch}} Death-Watch]]", two planetary systems use a CombatByChampion in lieu of warfare. One side cheats by using a RidiculouslyHumanRobot that is [[RobotsAreJustBetter faster than its opponent.]] Actually the real plan is to expose the fraud and start a war for real. So before this can happen Tarrant challenges the android to another duel, and again Orac is used to hack into the computers so Tarrant knows which battleground he's entering, giving him a momentary advantage in setting up an ambush.
** In "[[{{Recap/BlakesSevenS4E11Orbit}} Orbit]]", two {{Mad Scientist}}s are playing VariantChess. When one gets checkmate, the other is suspicious and has the computer replay the last few moves, revealing that the 'winner' cheated.

[[folder:Theater]]

* In ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}'', Bender is an inveterate gambler and has no compunction against cheating. Hell, he even has a cheating unit, though it's prone to malfunctioning. He's fixed horse races, used [[XRayVision x-ray specs]], stacked decks...

-->'''Boris:''' (''to Natasha'') You know how I'm always breaking things, destroying things, blowing things up?\\

** In ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'', their was the Duelist Assassin Titan, who used an Archfiend Deck, using monsters who depended on die rolls. It was edited out of the dub, but his custom-made Duel Disk was actually rigging the rolls. (He lost when the cursed magic of the Abandoned Dorm turned the duel into an actual Shadow Duel. Such technology doesn't work in that type of battle, and as a result, his final die roll missed.)

* In the Website/TGChan quest ''[[http://tgchan.org/wiki/The_Oremor_Trail The Oremor Trail]]'', caravan leader Durk Nuuk'erm joins a poker table where ''everyone'' cheats. When the time comes to reveal the cards, [[http://tgchan.org/kusaba/questarch/src/139623353746.gif each player reveals four aces plus another card]]. Durk's fifth card is [[spoiler:[[FiveAcesCheater a fifth ace, from a fifth suit]]]].
* Similarly in ''Roleplay/UnnaturalSelection'' by the same author, only this time it was the dealer cheating. The third and last turn of the game had several players going all-in (and the dealer's accomplice folding with a straight flush to avoid appearing ''too'' suspiciously lucky) and ended with three revealed straight flushes and a four-of-a-kind.

* Weaponized by Sontenkun in ''Manga/SoulHunter'': inside his PocketDimension, opponents who accept his challenge and lose are tranformed into toys he can control, and only by beating him they can return to normal. However, since the dimension is under his control, no matter the game, he will always win.

* In the ''Series/StarskyAndHutch'' episode "The Omaha Tiger," Huggy Bear runs mouse races. He gives the winner of each race a piece of cheese, and the extra weight causes it to come in last during the next.

[[/folder]]

* In ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}'', Bender is an inveterate gambler and has no compunction against cheating. Hell, he even has a cheating unit, though it's prone to malfunction. He's fixed horse races, used [[XRayVision x-ray specs]], stacked decks...

* Chode in ''WesternAnimation/TrippingTheRift'' tries to pull this on The Devil to buy time but Satan, being, well Satan, anticipates it and demands they play a variant of poker where the ''lowest'' hand wins.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode "Dungeons, Dungeons, and more Dungeons" Grunkle Stan is playing the titular game for Dipper and the Author's lives and has to roll a natural 38 in order to beat the last monster. After he pulls it off it turns out he attached a piece of gum to the opposite side of the die.

* In the Magazine/MadMagazine story "Religious Promoter of the Year", an [[SinisterMinister immoral preacher]] tells the reporter that they have a casino in the church. When the reporter asks him if [[ExactWords games of chance]] aren't sinful, that's exactly the LoopholeAbuse he needs to argue that since the games are rigged so that the house always wins, [[InsaneTrollLogic that takes the sin out of it]].

* ''Film/{{Casino}}'' was set in [[CaptainObvious a casino]], a few people tried to cheat. The results were unpleasant.

** In the episode "The Royale," Data determines that the dice on the craps table are loaded and manually reweights them. He then throws winning rolls until he, Riker, and Worf can successfully pose as the foreign investors the situation calls for. Earlier, he also easily calculates how to win at Blackjack with only rudimentary knowledge of the game (and not knowing that the means he's using to do so are usually frowned upon).

** In ''Time's Arrow,'' Data is stranded in the 19th Century and finds a group of card-sharks who take him for an easy mark. Since he needs currency to get by, he agrees to play. Unfortunately for the card sharks, Data's CPU is more than advanced enough to calculate exact odds and count cards ''plus'' he's had several years of experience in learning to read other players at the senior staffs' poker nights. Not to mention he ''could'' stack the deck faster than the human eye can follow, if he were so inclined, and his lack of emotions meant he had no emotional tells. Data promptly cleans them out of all their cash ''and'' a few stylish pieces of clothing that help him blend in better.

** In "Gambit" while Blake and the others are playing hero, Avon and Vila play hooky to rob the [[ViceCity Freedom City]] casino with the help of MagicalComputer Orac. The casino owners then try to get their money back by conning Vila into a DeadlyGame.
** In "Death Watch", two planetary systems use a CombatByChampion in lieu of warfare. One side cheats by using a RidiculouslyHumanRobot that is [[RobotsAreJustBetter faster than its opponent.]] Actually the real plan is to expose the fraud and start a war for real. So before this can happen Tarrant challenges the android to another duel, and again Orac is used to hack into the computers so Tarrant knows which battleground he's entering, giving him a momentary advantage in setting up an ambush.
** In "Orbit", two {{Mad Scientist}}s are playing VariantChess. When one gets checkmate, the other is suspicious and has the computer replay the last few moves, revealing that the 'winner' cheated.

* Nathan, from ''Series/{{Misfits}}'', uses his ''new'' powers (basically minor RealityWarping in the form of close-up magic) to do this in Vegas (in the webisode that shows what happened to him after he left the show). Like the IDreamOfJeannie example above, it works pretty well until he makes an 11 [[TooDumbToLive with a 4 and a 7]].

* In ''Film/RackeyGirls'', Scalli fixes horse races by doping the horse (one of whom drops dead in the starting gate), and attempts to fix wrestling matches. However, all the wrestlers he approaches turn him down because "women's wrestling is a clean sport".

* In the Website/TGChan quest ''[[http://tgchan.org/wiki/The_Oremor_Trail The Oremor Trail]]'', caravan leader Durk Nuuk'erm joins a poker table where ''everyone'' cheats. When the time comes to reveal the cards, [[http://tgchan.org/kusaba/questarch/src/139623353746.gif each player reveals four aces plus another card]]. Durk's fifth card is [[spoiler:[[UpToEleven a fifth ace, from a fifth suit]]]].

* Nathan, from {{Misfits}}, uses his ''new'' powers (basically minor RealityWarping in the form of close-up magic) to do this in Vegas (in the webisode that shows what happened to him after he left the show). Like the IDreamOfJeannie example above, it works pretty well until he makes an 11 [[TooDumbToLive with a 4 and a 7]].

* ''Film/TheSting'' has Henry Gondorff joining Lonnie Donegan's poker game aboard a Chicago-bound train, and he's on a run. Donegan tries to use a loaded deck after a break, and when hands are called, he has four nines. Initially, Gondorff had a hand of no value, but when he shows his hand, he has four Jacks. When Donegan asks Johnny Hooker (who is sent to collect his winnings) how Gondorff won, Hooker merely says, "he cheats." (How Gondorff cheated is never explained or demonstrated, but as a con artist himself, it's rendered academic.)