Marketing suspense

The marketing team for the movie "Gone Girl" has taken an interesting approach to drumming up publicity for the film while still trying to keep an air of suspense.

A quick Google search for "Gone Girl" nets results from imdb.com, author Gillian Flynn's website and Amazon.com, among others. But it's not until the bottom of the second page that you come to the film's official site: http://www.findamazingamy.com.

Once at that site, you find a "live" Fox News screen featuring a nice shot of the Mississippi River and active links at the bottom. Scrolling by occasionally in the ticker is a phone number, 1-855-4-AMY-TIPS. When you call the hotline, you hear Nick Dunne (NOT voiced by Ben Affleck) delivering a rather creepy passage from the novel regarding his wife Amy's "finely shaped head."

The somewhat enigmatic twitter account, @GoneGirlMovie, also helps add to the suspense with tweets reading "There's still so much we do not know," and "No one knows and everyone is wondering."

"It's frowned upon"

In other news, Ben Affleck made headlines recently after being accused of counting cards at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Affleck is a longtime card player, once winning $800,000 in a single game of blackjack back in 2001. He has been labeled an "advantaged player".

Varying reports surfaced, some saying the casino banned Affleck for life, others saying it only banned him from playing blackjack there.

One casino, The D Las Vegas, even extended an invitation for Affleck to play blackjack there, saying it "is not afraid" of him "winning a few hands in a row."

It should be noted that card counting in blackjack is not, in fact, illegal. But it is frowned upon, and it is at the casino's discretion how to handle a gambler it suspects of counting cards.

SE Live tweeted Isle Casino Cape Girardeau a link to the story, asking if Affleck had been spotted playing there while he was in town, but received no response.