Ben Affleck Sets the Record Straight About His ‘Gambling Problem’

After reports surfaced last May claiming Ben Affleck was banned from the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas for cheating, tabloids painted the father-of-three as having a gambling addiction. But the Oscar winner would like to tell his side of the story!

“That’s tabloid s*%t,” Ben says. “They completely lie…My only hope is that people with any common sense recognize that those stories are false.”

Though there was an incident at the casino, the actor claims he was simply asked not to play a particular card game.

“I wish I could say they were afraid of me in every capacity. But they only said, ‘No blackjack,'” he admits. “I mean, the fact that being good at the game is against the rules at the casinos should tell you something about casinos.”

But Ben insists blackjack is the only one he’ll play. “I don’t play any other games of chance. I don’t bet on football games, and I don’t gamble at all, really, outside of that,” the 42-year-old says.

Having been in the business for three decades, the Good Will Hunting star is no stranger to a media frenzy, which he tapped into for his latest role in the film adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s novel, Gone Girl. Ben plays Nick Dunne, a man who becomes the prime suspect in the disappearance of his wife.

“I could definitely relate to the way — the need of media outlets to tell brief, digestible, readily identifiable stories that include two-dimensional archetype characters,” he tells Details magazine, seemingly referring to his high-profile engagement with Jennifer Lopez in 2003. “You kind of get cast in a soap opera that you have no desire to be in.”