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2025 Invision

George Clooney, a cast member in "Jay Kelly," arrives at the AFI Fest premiere of the film on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025, at TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

LOS ANGELES – The stakes. The famous faces. The posh private rooms. The clever cheating schemes.

The federal indictment of a big-money poker ring involving NBA figures on Thursday, in which unsuspecting rich players were allegedly enticed to join then cheated of their money, echoed decades of movies and television, and not just because of the alleged Mafia involvement .

Fictional and actual poker have long been in sort of a pop-cultural feedback loop. When authorities described the supposed circumstances of the games , they might've evoked a run of screen moments from recent de

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