Casinos and Other Gambling Locations: Perfect Locations for Comic Book Storylines

Books

Casinos serve as excellent locations for movies because of all their glitz and glamour, not to mention the drama that unfolds at the tables. There may even come a time when instead of seeing characters play at traditional establishment, the action even revolves around characters playing a slot online or other casino games.

Casinos don’t just offer movies a fantastic location for the action, but they also do the same for comics, and you’ll see casinos appear many times in the comic book world. Below is a look at casinos and other gambling venues that have appeared in comic books, plus the action and events that have gone down in them.

Roulette’s “The House”

“The House,” run by DC Comics’ ruthless super-villainess Roulette (real name: Veronica Sinclair), is no ordinary gambling location. This illegal gambling den is, in fact, a gladiatorial arena that use teleporter technology to capture superheroes and then transport them to “The House.” There, the superheroes are pitted against other while villains place bets and look on to see the outcome. It’s not a route she had to go down, as her grandfather, who fought Mr Terrific, originally ran a conventional casino!

Fortunately for superheroes, this sadistic supervillain still has work to do to foolproof her casino. The Justice Society all had to fight each other but managed to escape the trap. Later, the Super Buddies, also escaped by outwitting the program. Of course, for the superheroes who’ve dodged a potential death, it’s not completely over, however: Roulette teleports them away so they can’t come back for her (but she could come back for them).

Devil’s Den

After being cast out of Hell, Blackheart and Gari Oyle open a casino, Devil’s Den, in Las Vegas. The duo’s big problem, however, is that they’re powerless on Earth. When they open their casino, they have no interest in playing games. Theirs is a much more sinister purpose: capturing one hundred souls for a ritual that will bring Hell to Earth.

The venue is also the target of Venom, who the Crime-Master has blackmailed into helping Jack-O-Lantern steal shapeshifting superhero Toxin (Symbiote) from the casino. However, it turns out Blackheart has already secured a piece of the alien’s flesh for the ritual. Superheroine X-23 infiltrates the casino and finds her blood has been used to create clones of her.

The performance of the ritual transforms the casino into a huge tower and Las Vegas into a hellish landscape. Superheroes Venom, Red Hulk, X-23 and Ghost Rider all try to stop Blackheart from conducting the ritual, but their attempts end fatally for them.

Monte Carlo Casino

The world-famous true-life Monte Carlo Casino gets a dose of the comic book treatment, as do several other real-world casinos. In comic book “Amazing Spider-Man: Family Business,” Peter Parker is bundled into a car, where later a lady introduces herself to him as his sister, Teresa Parker. Whether she is or not will be tough to convince fans, but her appearance on the scene also complicates matters for Parker, who must keep his superhero identity secret from her.

The two jet off to Monte Carlo. In the casino, Parker feels a gun in his back and uses his Spidey powers to escape the room. When he returns, he comes face to face with Cyclone. The villain powers up the winds on his super suit, but Spider-Man uses Parker’s science smarts and webs up the cooling units on the suit. Eventually, this knocks Cyclone out.

Starlite Casino

The Starlite Casino features in “Decimation: House of M – The Day After” and the action of the story takes place in various venues, but the casino itself is situated in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Here, Fred J. Dukes aka “The Blob,” stays in a suite at the casino, and the story follows what happens after “M-Day,” the day the Scarlet Witch stripped the mutants of all their powers and the mutant society declined from one of millions to one of hundreds.

There are thought to be at least 198 mutants remaining, but this is heatedly disputed amongst Marvel fans. There’s also consternation at some of the inconsistencies in the story in terms of some of the mutants still retaining their powers

But that’s not all that’s going in the story. There’s been an unexpected attack on the House of X, which, in a bizarre twist, has forced the X-Men into confusion. Now they must think carefully about who their friends are and also join forces with some old enemies, which isn’t easy to do after the battles and bloodshed of the past.

Casinos have featured heavily in the Marvel universe and in other comic book worlds. Other casinos, fictional or nonfictional, to have found a place in the pages of comic books include Forbidden City Casino and The Riviera.