CREDITS OCEAN'S ELEVEN, 2001 dir: Steven Soderbergh George Clooney Brad Pitt Julia Roberts Andy Garcia Matt Damon Don Cheadle Elliott Gould

“The house always wins. Play long enough, you never change the stakes. The house takes you. Unless, when that perfect hand comes along, you bet big. Then you take the house.”

Steven Soderbergh wisely obeys the golden rule of remakes – don't pick a classic, pick a near-miss. The original 1960 version of Ocean's Eleven depended on the, um, charm of the Rat Pack and ambled on for well over two hours. The idiosyncratic Steven Soderbergh, one of the few directors equally at home with arthouse or mainstream (Kafka, Schizopolis, Out of Sight...) assembles a dazzling cast and keeps the plot bouncing along. It looks so easy. So why isn't everybody doing it?

Unlike the original (which targetted five joints in one night), only one casino is robbed: the Bellagio, 3600 South Las Vegas Boulevard, with its eight-acre lake and fountains, standing on the site of the legendary Dunes. The film's coda uses the casino's wonderfully kitschy 'dancing waters' to surprisingly poignant effect. And when did you last get poignant in a Vegas movie?

The battle for attention along the Vegas Strip is getting increasingly surreal, with water features getting bigger and bigger and wetter and wetter. Don't forget, this is the middle of the desert. First there was La Mirage with its volcano, Treasure Island with its pirate battle (now reduced o a cheesy song'n'dance show), then Bellagio – an Italian lakeside village. But just in case this might be deemed a mite self-effacing for Vegas, BOOM! – the waters dance! Every half hour. To anything from Aaron Copeland's Rodeo to the Pink Panther theme. A taste of authentic Italian village culture.

Ocean's Eleven: The Bellagio lobby, Las Vegas

Released from East Jersey State Prison, Route 1, Avenel, New Jersey, formerly known as Rahway State Penitentiary, and seen also in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. Danny Ocean (George Clooney) is soon violating parole and recruiting a team: Frank Catton (Bernie Mac) at the baccarat pit of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, The Boardwalk at Mississippi Avenue, Atlantic City. Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon) in Chicago, at Irish pub Emmit’s, 495 North Milwaukee Avenue (tel: 312.563.9631); and Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt), who’s teaching TV stars poker in the back room (though it doesn’t really have a back room) of Hollywood nightclub Deep, 1707 North Vine Street at Hollywood Boulevard (tel: 323.938.1656).

Conveniently, it’s part-owned by director Soderbergh. Ryan, in turn, approaches old hand Saul Bloom (Carl Reiner) at Derby Lane Dog Track, 10490 Gandy Boulevard, St Petersburg, (tel: 727.812.3339), Florida. The ‘San Diego’ circus, where Yen (Shaobo Qin) impresses with his acrobatic skills, was set up in the grounds of the dog track.

Rusty and Danny drink in the venerable Musso and Frank’s Grill, 6667 Hollywood Boulevard. Seen also in Tim Burton's Ed Wood and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, this is pure Hollywood history, the oldest restaurant in Hollywood (it opened in 1919). It was a favoured hangout for writers – F Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Raymond Chandler (he supposedly wrote The Big Sleep here) and Dashiell Hammett (recently namechecked as one of the three precogs in Minority Report were regulars. Charlie Chaplin and Humphrey Bogart drank here and it’s still a hangout for Hollywood royalty. Try to get seated in the luxurious older section of the restaurant, and sample the legendary martinis.

Ocean's Eleven: George Clooney and Brad Pitt meet up at Musso and Frank's Grill

The ‘Vegas’ home of Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould) is in the Californian desert resort of Palm Springs, at 999 North Patencio. The ‘most successful Vegas robbery ever’, according to Tishkoff, is the guy scuttling out of Caesar’s Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Boulevard South (seen in Rain Man) to the strains of Take My Breath Away. The ‘California Institute of Advanced Science’, from which the team steals a ‘pinch’ to create an electromagnetic pulse, is the Gillespie Neuroscience Research Facility on the campus of the University of California at Irvine.

While his vaults are being emptied, Bellagio owner Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) is watching a boxing match at the the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, 3799 Las Vegas Boulevard South at Tropicana Avenue, currently the largest and most ambitious of the Vegas resorts, but these things change fast. And of course, the film ends in front of the Bellagio’s kitschy, but effective, dancing waters.

Of the five establishments targetted in the 1960 Ocean's Eleven, you can still lose a bob or two at The Sahara, 2535 Las Vegas Boulevard South (tel: 702.737.2111) opened in 1952 and boasting a Moroccan theme; The Flamingo, now the Flamingo Hilton, 3555 Las Vegas Boulevard South (tel: 702.733.3100) (owned by the same corporation as Caesar’s Palace) dating from 1946 and, of course, the brainchild of mobster Bugsy, sorry, Benny Siegel (although El Rancho, built in 1941, was the first hotel-casino, the success of Vegas is usually dated from the opening of the Flamingo); and The Riviera, 2901 Las Vegas Boulevard South at Riviera Boulevard (tel: 702.734.5110). Built 1955, this was the first (at a staggering nine stories, the first high-rise hotel on the Strip) To see the Riviera as it is now, check out Doug Liman’s Go.

Gone are The Sands and the Desert Inn. The Sands, which stood at 3355 Las Vegas Boulevard South, opened the same year as The Sahara and hung on as last of the old-style casinos (Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin not only performed regularly in the Copa Room but had shares in the business). It was demolished in 1996 and the Venetian now stands on the site.

The Desert Inn (aka Wilbur Clark’s Desert Inn), built in 1950, another old-timer, was imploded in October 2001. The Wynn Las Vegas (Steve Wynn is the mastermind behind themed extravaganzas such as Treasure island, Mirage and Bellagio) now stands at 3145 Las Vegas Boulevard South.

The real Bellagio, and this must be the most pointless bit of trivia you will ever read, is a village on Lake Como opposite the villa used in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. It's true.