Kudos to the two posters above me, I came to this thread thinking about Jannat (I actually do NOT watch Bollywood movies at all but there were a few times I was held to a film or two by means of hostake taking heh). There are a few other movies that come to mind but I can't recall their titles.
They're basically two categories for me: the first deals with some kind of idiot savant who makes all kinds of calculations in their mind (sort of like a human Moneyball software), and the latter dealing with some kind of fixing. We in Asia are probably familiar with the latter, it pervades sports here like you wouldn't know!
Well then, guys. Maybe it's time for list of some Bollywood movies as well?
Your gambling market and betting standards look both really interesting and quite controversial
If you have another Asian movies of this genre that are worth watching, then put them here.
Share your cultural heritage here. We would love to get to know it.
If you go Bollywood, then you cannot ignore Hong Kong and Japan, and god knows there's a few movies there about sports betting. There's a lot of intricacy too, gambling forbidden in South Asia and Southeast in large parts, whereas it's actually very cultural in the Far East.
Betting markets and standards are definitely controversial, and that's just form what I know as an amateur gambler. The way it works underground would put a lot of the Western movies to shame, I'd say.
But I guess mainstream wise, there haven't been great movies from Asia - non sports gambling movies aside, I actually can't even recall any good ones apart from the one mentioned above (Hindi language Bollywood).
There is one about illegal boxing/fighting that was rather popular a few years back: Fatal Contact. Apart from the fact that almost every scene had people betting on them though, or that big bookies were fixing matches, it wasn't actually about gambling.