What Happens in the Long Con Stays in the Long Con

There's a reason that places like Las Vegas and Monte Carlo rake in the big money: people love to gamble. Or, more specifically, they love to win…and will spend beaucoup bucks trying to make that win happen.

The Sting introduces us to a cast of characters who all love the thrill of the big win. But, as this movie teaches us, there are about as many different ways a person can love gambling as there are slot machines in Circus Circus.

Take Doyle Lonnegan. Dude doesn't run a poker game on his way between NYC and Chicago because he gets high on the game—he does it because he loves control. Lonnegan doesn't actually like gambling when he doesn't know that he'll win.

As Nile puts it:

[He] just [plays] poker. And he cheats. Pretty good at it, too.

In fact, the way Lonnegan plays poker doesn't really constitute "gambling" at all. After all, it's only gambling if you have a chance of losing.

But Lonnegan's confidence in his ability to win is exactly what leaves him vulnerable to Henry Gondorff's grifting. Henry, of course, comes to the train-bound poker game with Lonnegan with the ulterior motive of getting Lonnegan to hate his guts.

Henry, you see, knows how to cheat even better than Lonnegan, and he can do it right in front of Lonnegan's face because Lonnegan can't call him out without admitting he's a cheater, too. Or as Lonnegan says after losing to Henry,

DOYLE LONNEGAN: What was I supposed to do? Call him for cheating better than me?

Ultimately, Lonnegan's belief in his power to control things is exactly what makes him weak in the eyes of a grifter like Henry. Or, to put it in poker terms, Lonnegan's control freak nature allows Henry to call his bluff: Henry knows that once he's beaten Lonnegan at poker, Lonnegan will try to beat his horse-race gambling operation.

Because that's the allure that gambling has for a man like Henry. Henry's such a consummate "inside man" because he gets his jollies from reading people…and using their weaknesses against them. You'll definitely run across more than a few people like Gondorff at the high-roller tables—gambling attracts students of human nature.

And then there's Johnny Hooker. While Lonnegan is addicted to the thrill of controlling a game with cheating and Gondorff is all about observation/bluffing, Hooker is addicted to the uncertainty of not knowing whether he'll win or lose.

That's why his favorite game is roulette—a game of total chance—and that's also why he blows three grand on a single spin. The guy is an adrenaline junky and he probably always will be. We just hope that, after the big con, Johnny traded in his roulette habit for a more cost-effective way of getting pumped up.