Ben Affleck Cops to Counting Cards, Wishes Casinos Tossed Him Out

Jason Merritt/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — In an interview in the October issue of Details, Ben Affleck drew some parallels between his life and the life of his character in the upcoming movie Gone Girl — at least in the way tabloids can play fast and loose with the truth.

In the movie, he plays a man whose wife goes missing, making for a juicy story for the 24-hour news cycle.

However, the Oscar winner does admit headlines earlier this year that he’d been booted from Las Vegas’ Hard Rock Casino for counting cards were right, albeit partially.

“I mean, that took place. I took some time to learn the game…And once I became decent, the casinos asked me not to play blackjack. I mean, the fact that being good at the game is against the rules at the casinos should tell you something about casinos,” the Argo director and Batman v. Superman star says.

“[T]hey don’t even want you to have a sporting chance, really. There’s a lot of hospitality, backslapping, when they think you’re gonna come in and dump money, and if they think you might leave with some money, it’s like, ‘You know what? Why don’t you try craps or roulette?'”

Ben also hit back at tabloid allegations that he was a compulsive gambler, offering, “I had always liked blackjack. I don’t play any other games of chance. I don’t bet on football games, and I don’t gamble at all, really, outside of that. But I knew with blackjack that there’s a way you can improve your odds. And so I started trying to learn…I tend to get myopic and get into one thing…And then get bored and switch to something else.”

While counting cards isn’t illegal, most casinos will stop card sharks from doing so — and such was the case with Affleck. He jokes he wished he’d been physically tossed from the establishment, as some accounts painted it. “No, I wish! That would be awesome,” he says, “‘Get him outta here! He’s a magician!’ Unfortunately, they just came up and said, ‘We can’t let you play blackjack. But we have other table games! We have Chinese poker!'”

As for reports Ben’s wife Jennifer Garner was indignant at the incident and his gambling, he said, “See, that’s tabloid s**t. That’s all bulls**t. They completely lie. I mean, I can show you 10 articles of Star and OK! — those magazines feel totally comfortable absolutely fictionalizing every single element of the story…My only hope is that people with any common sense recognize that those stories are false.”

Gone Girl, based on the Gillian Flynn bestseller of the same name and directed by The Social Network’s David Fincher, opens Oct. 3.

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