History Main / FixingTheGame

** The titular character in ''Film/{{Goldfinger}}'' loved to fix games. When playing cards at a resort, he has an employee in a nearby balcony using binoculars to read the opponent's cards. Later when playing golf with Bond, he has Oddjob cheat so lower his score. Both times, James turns the tables (first by seducing the employee, then by cheating even harder at golf). This goes a long way to help establish Goldfinger's character; he's already extraordinarily wealthy, but is still greedy and [[EvilIsPetty petty enough]] to cheat to win (ultimately rather minor) sums of money in friendly bets.

** ''Film/{{Octopussy}}'' has Bond noticing an exiled Afghan prince named Kamal Khan taking a British gent for all he's worth in backgammon. He quickly figures out that Khan is using loaded dice that always come up double sixes (how nobody else caught on is a mystery). He offers to play him for double-or-nothing. Khan agrees. Bond invokes the "player's privilege" and uses Khan's dice to win. Instead of letting his Sikh [[TheDragon dragon]] beat up Bond (and cause a scene), Khan pays Bond but warns him to [[ImpliedDeathThreat spend the money quickly]].
** In ''Film/LicenceToKill'', Bond is cleaning up playing blackjack in Sanchez's casino. Sanchez sends Lupe in to replace the dealer. After Lupe expertly shuffles and cuts the deck, Bond asks if he is going to lose. Lupe replies yes, but not much. Bond quits the game.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode "[[Recap/GravityFallsS2E13DungeonsDungeonsAndMoreDungeons Dungeons, Dungeons & More Dungeons]]", [[Characters/GravityFallsGrunkleStan 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 ''Series/{{Tracker}}'' 'Eye of the Storm', Nestov uses his natural alien intelligence to do mathematical analysis and use it to cheat on the game he was playing.

Some people TakeAThirdOption. They don't like to lose, and they don't like to gamble. If you cheat, you're not gambling and you're not losing. This is a trope that covers the many different ways people have found to '''not''' gamble. {{Supertrope}} to TwoHeadedCoin. See also ThrowingTheFight.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E61TheSilence The Silence]]", as he knew that he couldn't remain silent for a year, Jamie Tennyson hoped to ensure that he would win the bet by having surgery to have his vocal cords severed. [[spoiler: Since Colonel Taylor is broke, it ends up [[AllForNothing not making a difference.]]]]

* 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...
* In the ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode "[[Recap/GravityFallsS2E13DungeonsDungeonsAndMoreDungeons Dungeons, Dungeons & 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.

* ''Series/BlakesSeven''

* ''Film/AustinPowersInternationalManOfMystery'' follows along the Bond parody by having Number Two cheat at blackjack by using the x-ray scanner embedded in his eyepatch to read the next card in the deck, hitting on 17 to make 21.

* In ''Film/BadLieutenantPortOfCallNewOrleans'', the main character catches a star college quarterback buying pot and blackmails him into shaving points on his next game. [[spoiler:The quarterback can't go through with it and fakes an injury to get out of the game, but his team fails to beat the spread anyway.]]

** In ''Literature/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.

* Daniel J. D'Arby of ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders'' is a known gambler who has managed to hoard a number of souls, but the heroes discover that he's more than willing to cheat ("NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught" is his motto) after he captures the souls of Polnareff and Joseph. Jotaro manages to defeat him by psyching him out: D'Arby has a seemingly random little kid (who actually works for him) deal the cards and give Jotaro a crap hand. Jotaro gives a subtle demonstration of his [[FightingSpirit Stand]]'s incredible speed and keeps raising his bet higher and higher, making D'Arby wonder if he'd used Star Platinum to change his cards faster than the eye could see. When the stakes get too high for D'Arby (Jotaro says that if he wins, D'Arby has to tell them about [[BigBad DIO]]'s Stand), the strain is too much and he "admit[s] defeat in his heart" -- and then it turns out that Jotaro didn't change his cards at all and still had the same crappy hand.

* 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. The heroes have to TakeAThirdOption with a rather [[CuttingTheKnot gordian solution]].

* Daniel J. D'Arby of ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders'' is a known gambler who has managed to hoard a number of souls, but the heroes discover that he's more than willing to cheat ("NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught" is his motto) after he captures the souls of Polnareff and Joseph. Jotaro manages to defeat him by psyching him out: D'Arby has a seemingly random little kid (who actually works for him) deal the cards and give Jotaro a crap hand. Jotaro gives a subtle demonstration of his [[FightingSpirit Stand]]'s incredible speed and keeps raising the pot his bet higher and higher, making D'Arby wonder if he'd used Star Platinum to change his cards faster than the eye could see. When the stakes get too high for D'Arby (Jotaro says that if he wins, D'Arby has to tell them about [[BigBad DIO]]'s Stand), the strain is too much and he "admit[s] defeat in his heart" -- and then it turns out that Jotaro didn't change his cards at all and still had the same crappy hand.

* ''Manga/GambleFish'' is about an international illegal gambling ring where even ''presidents'' bet the fate of their organizations and countries on anything from TheMostDangerousGame to the flip of a coin, and the academy they funded to teach their kids how to gamble lives and futures away. Naturally, (almost) everyone cheats their way through the games.

* ''Series/InterviewWithTheVampire2022'': In "[[Recap/InterviewWithTheVampire2022S1E1InThroesOfIncreasingWonder In Throes of Increasing Wonder]]", Lestat de Lioncourt aims to ingratiate himself to his LoveInterest Louis de Pointe du Lac by cheating at poker. He puts the game on "pause" by [[TimeStandsStill freezing time]], then he takes the Jack of Hearts from Tom Anderson and passes it to Louis so that the latter now has a full house (three Jacks and two 9s) instead of a measly two pair. In exchange, Louis gives away the useless 6 of Clubs to Lestat, who then places it in Tom's hand. Time then resumes its normal flow, and Louis ends up winning a lot of money.

* ''Series/InterviewWithTheVampire2022'': In the pilot, Lestat de Lioncourt aims to ingratiate himself to his LoveInterest Louis de Pointe du Lac by cheating at poker. He puts the game on "pause" by [[TimeStandsStill freezing time]], then he takes the Jack of Hearts from Tom Anderson and passes it to Louis so that the latter now has a full house (three Jacks and two 9s) instead of a measly two pair. In exchange, Louis gives away the useless 6 of Clubs to Lestat, who then places it in Tom's hand. Time then resumes its normal flow, and Louis ends up winning a lot of money.

* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' centered on a plot by the Scarecrow to raise a lot of money gambling on sporting events ([[TheGimmick guess]] [[IKnowWhatYouFear how]]). He even drops the title "I fixed the games."

* In the ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode "Dungeons, Dungeons & 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 ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "Lisa's First Word", Krusty Burger becomes a sponsor of the Olympics, and runs a promotion with a scratch-off contest where customers win a free burger when America wins a Gold Medal. To be safe, his agent rigs the game so that the events on the tickets are the ones "Communists never lose." Unfortunately, [[DidntSeeThatComing the Soviet boycott of the Olympics]] means he loses a fortune because of it. (This is actually a ShoutOut to an actual UsefulNotes/McDonalds Olympic promotion which was just as ill-conceived.)

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E61TheSilence The Silence]]", as he knew that he couldn't remain silent for a year, Jamie Tennyson hoped to ensure that he would win the bet by having surgery to have his vocal cords severed. Since Colonel Taylor is broke, it ends up not making a difference.

* ''Film/TheSting'' has Henry Gondorff joining Doyle Lonegan's poker game aboard a Chicago-bound train, and he's on a run. Lonegan 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.)
** Earlier it was explained that Lonegan's game used two possible brands of cards and it was known that when he cheated, he tended towards 8's and 9's, probably to make the cheating not appear too obvious. It was simply a matter of Gondorff using sleight of hand to switch in the proper cards.