Backgammon: The Cruellest Game in Art

What about backgammon made it such a rich source of inspiration for artists, writers, and filmmakers throughout history? Why do we see so much of ourselves in this game of chance? And did people like what they saw?

Music & sound effects featured courtesy of epidemicsound.com (http://www.epidemicsound.com).

Other music:
Puzzle Pieces (Lee Rosevere).

Game footage shown:
51 Worldwide Games (Nintendo, 2020).

Films:
A Free Soul (1931).

Cape Fear (1962).

Octopussy (1983).

The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner (2008).

Hasenaus images:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/w...

Bibliography:
Cooke, Barclay, and Jon Bradshaw, Backgammon: The Cruelest Game (Random House, 1974).
Jacoby, Oswald, and John R. Crawford, eds. The Backgammon Book (Penguin, 1976).

Lockhart, Paul Douglas, 'Political Language and Wartime Propaganda in Denmark, 1625–1629', European History Quarterly Vol. 31 No. 1 (2001): https://doi.org/10.1177/0265691401031....

Mas'udi, The Meadows of Gold: The Abbasids, trans. and ed. by Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone (Routledge, 2010).

Pardon, George Frederick, Backgammon, by captain Crawley (1858).
Said, Edward W., Orientalism (Pantheon Books, 1978).

Strutt, Joseph The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England from the Earliest Period (Methuen & Co.,1801).

Other credits:

How to play
https://www.bkgm.com/rules.html

Appearances in C20th cinema and literature
https://www.criminalelement.com/backg...