Talks to Watch

Casablanca gambling? I'm shocked!

1.2M views · Mar 18, 2010 · 0:20 · 0 HN recommenders · 14 mentions · discussed 2015–2025

The classic Casablanca scene in which Captain Renault is 'shocked, shocked' to find gambling at Rick's, just before being handed his winnings.

Why Hacker News points people here: HN uses it as a stock joke reply to feigned surprise at obvious corruption, crypto fraud and corporate misbehavior.

“is also a fantastically memorable comedic exchange.”HN comment, 2020

What Hacker News said 14

Cites itlytfyreDec 2020

“is also a fantastically memorable comedic exchange.”

Famous comedic exchange from the film

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> I can't think of many stand-out moments in it To me, the `La Marseillaise` scene[1] is incredibly powerful. The crowd trying to out-sing the German soldiers with the French national anthem, and the sheer raw emotion of the scene. Amazing character moments from Ricky, Victor, and Illsa. I haven't looked into the veracity, but the legend around the scene is that most of the extras in the bar were French refuges - and the emotion of the scene was very much present on set. Casablanca was filmed during the height of WW2, and came out in 1942, so it does seem plausible. Louis's brief "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" - Handed a pile of his winnings by the croupier - "Oh, thank you very much." exchange [2] is also a fantastically memorable comedic exchange. [1] link [2] this video

in “Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?” · view on HN
JokefnordfnordfnordMay 2015
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Like it or not, Sarbanes-Oxley is the law (since 2002). We wound up with that law because of executives who built incentive structures within their companies which they knew would cause unlawful behavior while keeping themselves one or more layers removed from the actual criminality. The gambit was to feign surprise and throw the "rouge troops" under the bus if they got caught. That gambit is played out now. You missed your opportunity to play the naive CEO card this video

in “Five Big Banks Plead Guilty to Rigging Currency Markets and No One Goes to Jail” · view on HN
Jokecs702Jun 2018

“I am shocked -- shocked! -- to find that gambling is going on in here!”

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Seeing Nature reporting this as news feels to me a bit like watching Captain Louis Renault telling ‎Rick Blaine: "I am shocked -- shocked! -- to find that gambling is going on in here!" [a] Still, it's progress. [a] this video

in “Sexual harassment is rife in the sciences, finds landmark US study” · view on HN
JokemayukhNov 2018
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Awww. Do you mean publicly distance themselves? Of course they have ! ( this video ) Privately ($ with a B in the front of it), let's be real, would you ?

in “C.I.A. Concludes That Saudi Crown Prince Ordered Khashoggi Killed” · view on HN
JokekomeJul 2020

“From the classic scene in Casablanca, 1942”

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"I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" – From the classic scene in Casablanca, 1942 ( this video )

in “Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data” · view on HN
Jokejosh2600Aug 2020
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I really think that all of this DeFi stuff is playing with fire. If these tools scale large enough, it's easy to imagine breaking the right link in the system at the right time to cause catastrophic failures. Remember that all complex systems operate in a degraded state. If there's ever a way that only part of a complicated swap executes correctly the trade can get really far out of position. People in Ethereum land will say things like "the smart contracts can't possibly execute if all of these conditions aren't met!", but I can assure you that lots of extremely fault-tolerant systems built by very smart people (like electronic stock exchanges) have failed in very surprising ways. Weakly collateralized flash loans are just faster leveraged tools with all of the tradeoffs that entails. YMMV, there's definitely a lot of money to be made. this video << Relevant.

Jokesam_goodyOct 2020

“The quote above is from Casablanca, was once very famous”

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"I am shocked, shocked... " Chrome creates a unique ID for each user (there has been much discussion about the entropy vs the uniqueness for the install key), they have been found to give a pass for Google Analytics when visiting from Chrome, etc. And what else do you expect when it is in their interest to track you (and to have a excuse to justify their knowledge when found out in other grey areas). EDIT: The quote above is from Casablanca, was once very famous [1] [1]: this video

in “Chrome exempts Google sites from user site data settings” · view on HN
Jokeaidenn0Mar 2021
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Even non-global economies end up diffusing the blame for poor labor practices. So many big-box stores end up in a wage-theft situation just because the upper-management sets benchmarks that are only achievable through wage-theft and then they are shocked[1] to find out that the individual store managers are committing wage theft. 1: this video

JokeDonHopkinsNov 2021
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More like Proof-Of-Waste, both of precious electricity, and of precious rare earth elements and other materials. Not to mention how much precious time cryptocurrency shills waste, and dangerous greenhouse gasses they produce from all the hot air of their rancid breath, by droning on and on and on about cryptocurrency all the time, parroting all the lies they heard in youtube get-rich-quick pyramid scheme videos. Another shill in this thread just mindlessly repeated the same old lie they parrot all the time: >Crypto helps accelerate the growth, demand, and build-out of renewable energy. That's like saying using more Cocaine helps you quit using Cocaine faster. "Cocaine makes me feel like a new man. And he wants some too!" In an unfortunate and unintended way, it's true... And the absurd idea of using a crypto rig as a space heater has already been completely debunked in this thread. Go back and read it. If it's such a great idea, then why doesn't everybody already have one or a hundred of them, huh? matheusmoreira: Do you really believe in get-rich-quick schemes and perpetual motion devices and miracle cures, even when you can't seem to find any for sale that actually work? Then you must not believe in the free market, either. Is it easier to believe there's a huge well organized conspiracy suppressing these technologies, instead of simply the laws of physics and economics? Go back and read astoor's comment again, which trixie_'s fancifully wishful reply simply doesn't refute.

in “Kazakhstan to restrict crypto miners amid power shortages” · view on HN
JokechrisellesJan 2022
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60 Minutes broke this story a decade ago. link Due to the traction the story got, it led to the Stock Act. But once the news cycle was over it was quietly, rapidly, and largely repealed: link And here we are a decade later “shocked” this video

in “Josh Hawley introducing his own stock ban bill” · view on HN
JokeDonHopkinsFeb 2022

“I'm SHOCKED, SHOCKED to find that GAMBLING is going on in here!”

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Meanwhile in other news, water is wet, the sky is blue, Putin is a tyrant with blood on his hands, and I'm SHOCKED, SHOCKED to find that GAMBLING is going on in here! this video

in “Bitconnect founder indicted in global $2.4B cryptocurrency scheme” · view on HN
JokewillciprianoOct 2022
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Oh me too but the average person? YouTube's leadership has to be aware of it and I'd bet money it's part of their strategy. Although if you brought it up they would be shocked like this guy: this video

in “YouTube Premium Price Increase” · view on HN
Jokexg15Jan 2023

“reminds me of the famous Casablanca scene.”

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Don't want to excuse TikTok here, but how all the lawmakers suddenly realize that social media is addictive kind of reminds me of the famous Casablanca scene. this video

Jokecs702Apr 2025

“I'd be as shocked as Captain Renault in Casablanca”

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I'd be shocked if X is not training AI models with every bit of user data that has ever touched the company's servers. I'd be as shocked as Captain Renault in Casablanca: this video