Vegas. Scorsese. Netflix’s new drama has all the right ingredients, but will poker play a starring role?
Plot details remain under wraps, but signs are strong that poker will have a seat at the table.
For starters, Rounders co-writers Brian Koppelman and David Levien are the showrunners. And at least one member of the writers’ room is deeply rooted in the poker world.
Maria Konnikova, who has earned over $1 million playing poker in the last eight years, announced her involvement in the show back in December. She discussed the project, and Las Vegas more broadly, during a live Substack video with fellow writer Tod Goldberg on Thursday. Goldberg has also confirmed he’s part of the writers' room for the new series.
Konnikova said of the show, "It's set in Vegas about the world of high-powered casinos, and I want to say high-powered poker because we're going to have some poker in it, goddamn it."
Old Vegas, new Vegas
Vegas isn’t just a backdrop for Konnikova and Goldberg – it’s personal.
"It turns out that Tod and I are two people who both love Vegas and have lived in Vegas," Konnikova said. "I live there now... Tod lived in Vegas before me. So Tod knows, like, the older Vegas before... honestly, I’d probably never even been to Vegas when Tod lived there. It was just like a weird figment of my imagination. Because Vegas isn't really real, is it?"
"It’s a liminal space," replied Goldberg with a smile. "I think that’s what the kids call it. It's a liminal space. Somewhere between heaven and hell."
Goldberg said his mom had been the "society editor of The Chronicle. And then later in Palm Springs, The Desert Sun. And so she kind of ran with scumbags... junior-level celebrities and like capos in crime families – that was also who she liked to date. If you had a convertible Mercedes and a perm, my mom wanted to date you, or if you were vaguely related to a crime family, my mom was all-in."
Konnikova said, "Vegas is kind of an illusion, right? It's like this Disneyland kind of mirage that has been created in the middle of nowhere. And yet... It is also kind of the epitome of the American dream. It was built out of nothing. And they created this thriving place where people really can rise up. So it has both of these things. It has the delusional hope, and yet it also has the real hope. And so it's kind of this contrast, which is, I think, part of what makes America America, right?"
Scorsese to bring the magic?
It bodes well for the show (and for poker) that Konnikova and Goldberg are on writing duty.
Hopes are high, too, thanks to the involvement of Oscar-winner Martin Scorsese.
According to Deadline, the show originated from an idea pitched to Netflix by Julia and Rick Yorn — longtime collaborators of Scorsese — after the release of The Irishman on the platform in 2019.
That initial pitch was for a period project. When Koppelman and Levien were brought in, the focus switched to present-day Las Vegas, which is where the show has landed.
There are no cast details or release date for the show yet, but we're hoping it's sometime in 2026.
