Ben Affleck - Good Card Counter, but not Good at avoiding Detection

It’s been long known that Ben Affleck has an affinity for poker games. In fact, he won the 2004 California State Poker Championship along with $356k and was involved in the infamous Hollywood poker ring from a few years ago. But who would’ve thought that the movie star and Argo director was also a great blackjack card counter?

According to a Reuters article (via Yahoo), Affleck was stopped by security guards while playing blackjack at Las Vegas’ Hard Rock Casino. Sources say that he was told, “You are too good at this game.” Luckily, this wasn’t like a scene from 21, where he was taken in a backroom and slapped around by Laurence Fishburne. Instead, the casino staff was more than welcoming to the foiled card counter, inviting he and his wife, Jennifer Garner, to play other casino games at Hard Rock.

Apparently, Affleck and Garner were relaxing in Vegas before the former heads to Detroit to begin filming Zack Synder’s sequel to Man of Steel. Affleck is set to play batman while Henry Cavill will reprise his role as Superman.

Unfortunately for Affleck, he wasn’t quite as suave as Batman would’ve been in avoiding detection while counting cards. So he might want to go back and watch the aforementioned 21, which is based on the famed MIT Blackjack Team and the various methods and disguises they wore to fool casino security while counting cards.

Despite the fact that he ultimately got caught, it’s still pretty amazing that Affleck was so good at counting that casino security had to stop him. This begs the question of where exactly the 41-year-old finds the time to learn card counting, play poker, keep his beautiful wife happy and star in hit movies.

Speaking of the latter, Affleck has become one of the world’s most recognizable actors ever since writing and directing Good Will Hunting with his buddy and fellow poker mate, Matt Damon. Affleck has since gone on to star in Reindeer Games, Pearl Harbor, The Sum of All Fears, Daredevil and Runner Runner.

Many poker players were actually offended by Runner, Runner, which was a highly glorified depiction of a corrupt poker site (possibly inspired by UB/Absolute Poker). This film made it seem as if all poker sites are run by greedy criminals who are more interested in covering up scandals than offering a good service. Luckily, Runner, Runner wasn’t a smash hit at the box office, pulling in about $63 million.