Poker Iron Man: Robert Downey Jr.

When celebrities are deciding where they want to go gambling, they usually stick to places which are upscale and where there are other things to do like playing poker. As the current interest in poker rush, tons of famous names blurted out their love of poker or discovered its thrills for the first time.

Last June of 2004, Robert Downey Jr. and other celebrity flock together in Commerce Casino's California State Poker Championship and won $356, 400 in that event and a $25,000 seat in the 2005 World Poker Tour (WPT) Championship.







During this championship, Ben Affleck beat Tobey Maguire, the star from Spider man, another poker player who fares well in these events and who holds regular poker games for high rollers at his home in the Hollywood Hills. He often has poker playing friends join him like Dennis Hopper, Sharon Stone, and Matthew Perry.

About Robert Downey Jr. : Robert Downey Jr. was a rising star during his early 20s. His career was primed to take off following his powerful portrayal of a troubled young man in Less Than Zero. He'd have to wait another half-decade before the movie industry would take serious note of his versatile talents as an actor, however, when he wowed critics and audiences alike with his portrayal of Charlie Chaplin.

In 1992, Robert Downey Jr. was selected to portray cinema's first international superstar, Charlie Chaplin, in Sir Richard Attenborough's biopic Chaplin. He had the chance to share the screen with Chaplin's daughter, acclaimed actress Geraldine Chaplin, who portrayed her own paternal grandmother. Robert Downey Jr. received stellar reviews for his performance, as well as his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.




In addition to winning the British Academy Award for his superb performance, Robert Downey Jr. also received an Oscar nod, becoming the first and only former Saturday Night Live cast member to date to be up for a Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar.

Despite decent performances from Robert Downey Jr. after Chaplin (1992), his work was often overshadowed by the headlines he was making for his series of drug-related arrests. He seemed to be in the midst of a well-deserved comeback in 2000 when he joined the cast of FOX-TV's “Ally McBeal”.

Going To A Rehab

His problems with the law began in June 1996 when he was pulled over for speeding and arrested for drunk driving, as well as for the possession of heroin, crack, cocaine, and an unloaded firearm. He received a three-year suspended sentence and was sent to a secure drug rehabilitation center.

In November 1996, Robert Downey Jr. returned to host Saturday Night Live. He appeared on the big screen in 1997, as an AIDS patient in One Night Stand with Weley Snipes and Nastassja Kinski, and in the comedy “Two Girls and a Guy” with Heather Graham. During the filming of the latter, he was subjected to daily drug testing. His troubles with the law persisted as his probation was revoked that October after being arrested for continued drug use. In December 1997, he was sentenced to 180 days in jail for violating his probation.

In March 1998, Robert Downey Jr. was released from prison and sent to a rehab center to complete the remainder of his six-month sentence. That year, he appeared in U.S. Marshals, as well as in the Robert Altman thriller “The Gingerbread Man”, which was a flop with both audiences and critics.

In June 1999, Robert Downey Jr. was arrested for being under the influence of drugs after he was found asleep on his neighbor’s bed. Being the third violation of his probation within three years, Judge Lawrence Mira sentenced the actor to 15 months at the Substance Abuse Treatment Facility in Corcoran, California. He was released in August 2000, on $5,000 bail.

Downey's Back

Despite the fact that Robert Downey Jr. worked on movies almost every single year since 1970, 2008 was a pretty huge year for the actor.

In 2001, he earned an Emmy nomination and won a Golden Globe as Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series, as well as the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male in a Comedy Series for his brief run on the show.

In 2004, Robert Downey Jr. received the coveted Hasty Pudding Man of the Year award from Harvard University and, in 2008, he was the recipient of a Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actor for his work in Iron Man. Now, Robert Downey Jr will be playing the infamous character of Sherlock Holmes in a movie by the same name with Jude Law and an upcoming movie Iron Man 2.

Biography Source: AskMen.com

Celebrity Gambler Confession: Britney Spears

They’re stars, they’re famous, and they have money. And what better thing for stars with money to do than to engage in a little gambling. After all, if you’ve got a big bankroll then you stand to win a lot of money through casino games or sports betting and also stand to have lots of fun watching the bets prevail in the process.

Britney Spears was once struggling from gambling addiction. She was an avid gambler of cockfighting in Lafayette, Louisiana, the cockfighting capital of the United States. "My parents took me to cockfights when I was a little girl, That was my reward for doing well at my dancing lessons. There was always lots of other kids there. We used to draw in the dirt with chicken feathers. It was real family entertainment.” said Britney Spears.

Her leisure time was turned into obsession on cockfights, a practice she continued after success had taken her far from her Kentwood, Louisiana, home. Betting on cockfighting, she explained to startled Hollywood friends, was a way of "keeping it real" and maintaining a connection to her roots. Besides, "that's what we do back home. We're country”.

In addition, there were news that spreads all over the Internet right now is that the pop star has been partying hard with Paris Hilton in Vegas, but she may be doing more than strip teases in Sin City. Rumors are that she was also in Vegas this past week working out a 20 week deal that could net Britney more than $15 million. Britney Spears plans to use the money to buy a home in Florida after she sells her Malibu home that she shared with her ex-husband Kevin Federline.

About Britney Spears: A trained dancer and capable singer who wanted a shot at singing, dancing and acting and had the determination and stamina to get to the top, Spears started her career in the entertainment industry early, too early in fact for producers of the revamped “Mickey Mouse Club” who turned down the talented young girl because of her age when she first auditioned in 1990. In 1997, Spears signed with Jive Records, beginning the partnership that would make her a household name. She toured the malls of America a la teen pop star Tiffany in 1998, getting her image into the minds of the people while getting her promo tape into their stereos.

Her debut single “…Baby One More Time” was a smash in the last days of 1998, thanks in part to the precocious, provocative schoolgirl-uniform sporting music video that accompanied the catchy and oddly edgy tune. While the fresh-faced teen sensation improbably crooned “My loneliness is killing me”, audiences of all ages were transfixed, from the middle-aged man staring at the singer’s short plaid kilt and midriff-baring blouse, to the 7-year-old girl hopping around in the playground, strangely pleading “Hit me baby, one more time.” Spears’ debut album went multi-platinum while her single stayed at the top of the charts in the first months of 1999.

Appearances on myriad specials and awards shows and a guest stint on the ABC sitcom “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch” helped keep her in the minds and hearts of the public, and when she released her follow-up effort “Oops!… I Did It Again” in 2000. Though potential roles in the TV series “Dawson’s Creek” and the feature “Scary Movie” (2000) came to naught reportedly due to her busy schedule, new projects with Spears’ name attached sprung up frequently.

Rumors of her co-starring with Ricky Martin in a sequel to the 1987 romantic hit “Dirty Dancing” weren’t realized, but the singer/dancer made a major impression on television with a second erotically charged performance on the MTV Music Video Awards, undulation with an albino python to her song “I’m a Slave For U” and a saucy live concert, “Britney Spears Live in Las Vegas” in 2001 that aired on HBO, a production that demonstrated her adult sex appeal as much as it did her propensity to lip-synch.

Not satisfied with just conquering the music market, Spears tried her hand at publishing, co-authoring with her mother Lynne the autobiographical tome “Britney Spears’ Heart to Heart” in 2000 and the novel “A Mother’s Gift” in 2001, the later of which was turned into the ABC Family Channel telepic “Brave New Girl” in 2004, which Spears and her mother executive produced.

The wild child beneath the surface was bubbling over into her public persona, with the mainstream and tabloid press endlessly chronicling every juicy aspect of her behavior–which allegedly included late night partying and hook-ups with celebrity lotharios Fred Durst and Colin Farrell; the dam seemingly broke loose in January of 2004, when the singer shocked her fans with a surprise marriage to her childhood friend Jason Alexander (not the much-older “Seineld” actor of the same name) in an apparently booze-fueled New Year’s Eve wedding in Las Vegas, something she called “a joke that had gone too far.”

The marriage was annulled within 55 hours (with a lucrative payoff to Alexander), but that didn’t stop Spears’ shocking second rush to the altar later that same year, this time to dancer Kevin Federline (yet another a source of controversy, as Federline was an expectant father invloved in a relationship with actress Shar Jackson–who’d already bore him one child–at the start of their romance). Their engagement was announced in June, with plans for a fall 2004 wedding.

Somewhere between romances, Spears continued to self-promote with faux-relevatory documentary specials on MTV, ABC and E!, and she performed a surprisingly unispired live version of her universally panned Onyx Hotel tour for the HBO special “Britney Spears: Live in Miami” in2004. The blonde idol pulled out of the final leg of her poorly received tour after injuring her knee in June of that year, requiring arthroscopic surgery and four months of recuperation (she also admitted that her head “really wasn’t into” the tour).

Bio Courtesy of : Britney Spears Hollywood.com

Angelina Jolie And Some Online Casinos Affront By The UK Ads

Last March 2009, the ad for the movie "Wanted", featuring Jolie, has joined several online casino advertisements in being pulled from distribution by the Advertising Standards Authority.



The British agency responsible for administering standards for advertising has added actress Angelina Jolie to their humorless list of targets. The ad for the movie "Wanted", featuring Jolie, has joined several online casino advertisements in being pulled from distribution by the Advertising Standards Authority.

The ASA previously made news for ordering a Ladbrokes online gambling commercial barred after a single complaint was registered in a nation of over sixty million. The ad humorously compared gambling to swimming with sharks as a safe way to find excitement.

The ad with Jolie showed her shooting guns while exposing her bare back, which the commission said "could be seen to condone violence by glorifying or glamorizing the use of guns."

The ad also shows Jolie curving the path of bullets with her mind, and shooting into a car while upside down in a car flipping over the first. The commercial clearly displays a humorous and fantastic setting, but the ASA seems to take all scenes literally.

The agency has also banned a Requestabet.com ad which made joking comparison between gambling and investing in the stock market. At the time, one critic declared the ASA correct, saying tongue-in-cheek that the market was no laughing matter and investors were probably angry they hadn't wagered their money instead.

Media analyst Howard Bunker says, "The ASA should probably review the spots for “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” After all, they show a husband and wife gleefully trying to kill each other, which may promote domestic violence. And what about Beowulf? Naked Jolie morphing into a monster? Talk about misogynous."

No word was available on whether Parliament had instructed the ASA to get a life.

Celebrity Poker Player: Justin Timberlake

Hollywood celebrities play poker to enjoy as well as experience something new to try. Despite their celebrity status, some of these players have even developed a deeper love and devotion to the game of poker.

The poker industry tries to include celebrities in some of their events to attract serious attention all over the world. As always, celebrities are experts in getting the attention of almost everybody. People find them entertaining no matter what they are doing. Watching them play poker is indeed a very entertaining experience. Try it and see how these people compete in a very fun and exciting way.

Justin Timberlake was into gambling, he played blackjack, poker and baccarat. Timberlake was spotted at the Hard Rock's Peacock Lounge at the casino's VIP tables playing with his friends.

Justin Timberlake was also joined in the Playboy Club. Other professional athletes spotted elsewhere on the Palms property included St. Louis Rams running back Steven Jackson and San Francisco 49ers linebacker Patrick Willis. Both were spotted having dinner, separately, at N9NE Steakhouse.

Timberlake plays against her fellow celebrities just like any professional poker player does in order to win.

About Justin Timberlake: Justin Timberlake was chosen the 4th Best Dressed Man of 2006 in a poll conducted by US news show Access Hollywood to find Hollywood's most elegant man. He also included in the list of the Top Entertainers of 2006 compiled by U.S. magazine Entertainment Weekly in December 2006.

In addition, Timberlake was featured on the first episode of the MTV series Punk'd starring Ashton Kutcher. He nabbed the Song Of The Year prize in US men's magazine Blender's 2006 Readers' Poll, thanks to his single "My Love" from album "FutureSex/LoveSounds".

Justin Timberlake received his first UK #1 with his song "SexyBack" from new album "FutureSex/LoveSounds" in September 2006. He was ranked 1st in US Weekly's list of Celebrities with the Biggest Ego in Hollywood due to his claim "that McDonald's shares climbed 25 percent when he walked into their offices and changed their image" .

Voted No. 10 in People Magazine's list of "Hottest Bachelors" in 2007 and was recruited as the new spokesmodel for Parfums Givenchy's new as-yet-unnamed men's fragrance in February 2008.

Photo Courtesy: http://media.photobucket.com