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Robert De Niro Net Worth, Salary & Highest Grossing Movies

Alexandra Pleșa
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Robert De Niro Net Worth, Salary & Highest Grossing Movies

Robert De Niro needs little introduction. The veteran actor has been gracing the screen for six decades and is widely regarded as one of the greatest performers of his generation. With two Academy Awards under his belt, he continues to appear in movies, showing no sign of slowing down.

As a result, his net worth should be substantial by now, right? Here’s what we know about the actor’s earnings.

Robert De Niro Net Worth

In 2026, Robert De Niro’s net worth is estimated to be $500 million.

Part of it comes from his film career. De Niro got started with minor roles. His breakthrough was in the late 1960s with Greetings, but he gained further attention in Bang the Drum Slowly in 1973, where he plays a baseball player dying of Hodgkin’s disease. That same year, he began his landmark creative partnership with Martin Scorsese in Mean Streets, portraying the volatile Johnny Boy.

Before long, De Niro became a bona fide international star. He was in The Godfather Part II as young Vito Corleone, a performance that won him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He followed it with Taxi Driver, probably the defining movie of his career. Then, he won his second Oscar for his transformation into boxer Jake LaMotta in Scorsese’s Raging Bull.

The 1980s saw De Niro move between intense dramas, crime films, and unconventional characters. You might have seen him in The King of Comedy, Once Upon a Time in America, Brazil, The Untouchables, or Midnight Run. He continued to gravitate towards morally complex characters during the ‘90s. His collaborations with Scorsese included Goodfellas, Cape Fear, and Casino, while he also appeared in memorable films like Heat, Sleepers, and Jackie Brown. De Niro tried his hand at directing with A Bronx Tale and later The Good Shepherd.

During the aughts, the actor’s career took a more commercial turn. Notable roles during the last couple of decades include Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers, Shark Tale, Analyze That, Silver Linings Playbook, Dirty Grandpa, and The Intern.

In more recent years, De Niro has alternated between prestige projects and mainstream entertainment. He reunited with Scorsese for The Irishman and Killers of the Flower Moon. He also appeared in Todd Phillips’ Joker and in The Alto Knights, in which he played both Mafia bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello. Last year, he starred in the Netflix series Zero Day.

On top of his acting career, De Niro is a successful businessman. He co-founded TriBeCa Productions and the Tribeca Film Festival, as well as the Nobu chain of restaurants and hotels.

Robert De Niro Salary

While actor salaries are not often public, hiring Robert De Niro doesn’t come cheap. According to a 2017 Variety report, the actor demanded $775,000 per episode for television series.

De Niro accepted a big pay cut to star in Taxi Driver for $35,000 as a favour to Scorsese, despite commanding around $500,000 per movie at that point in his career. Soon, that number skyrocketed to millions.

Robert De Niro Highest Grossing Movies

While crime dramas and character pieces made De Niro a legend, mainstream comedies/franchises became some of his biggest commercial hits.

His highest-grossing film is Joker, which made $1.079 billion worldwide. Meet the Fockers was also a big earner with $522 million.

This year, fans can catch De Niro in The Whisper Man, now streaming on Netflix. He will also appear in sequel Focker-in-Law, coming in November.

Digital Flexing, Explained: A Field Guide to CS2 Skins

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Digital Flexing, Explained: A Field Guide to CS2 Skins

Somewhere between the sneaker resale boom and the NFT circus, a quieter and far more durable digital status economy took root, and almost nobody outside of gaming noticed. It lives in Counter-Strike 2, it moves billions of dollars a year, and it runs on cosmetic weapon finishes called skins. If you have been meaning to understand it and never found a straight answer, here is one, in plain questions.

So what exactly is a skin?

It is a decorative wrap on a virtual gun. It changes nothing about how the weapon works. It only changes how it looks, and, by extension, what it says about the person holding it. Think of it as the difference between a plain white tee and the same shirt from a label people recognize. The function is identical. The signal is not.

Why would anyone pay real money for that?

For the same reasons anyone pays for anything with no practical use: scarcity, beauty, and belonging. Certain finishes came from crates that no longer drop, so their supply is frozen. Each copy also has a hidden wear value, which means two identical-sounding items can look and price completely differently. Layer on the people who want a specific look, and you get a market where a common finish costs a coffee and a rare one costs a vacation. None of that is irrational. It is just taste plus scarcity, which is the recipe behind every collectible ever made.

Is this like the NFT thing?

Not really, and the difference matters. NFTs mostly sold the promise of scarcity with very little use behind it. Skins are embedded in a game that tens of millions of people actually play every day, which gives them a real, ongoing reason to exist and a real audience that wants them. The value did not have to be manufactured with a whitepaper. It grew out of a living community that was already there.

Can you turn a collection into actual cash?

Yes, but there is a trick to it. The official in-game marketplace lets you sell, yet it only pays in store credit that never leaves the platform, and it skims fifteen percent along the way. To get real money, people use independent third-party platforms, and this is where beginners lose value without realizing it. The same item sells for meaningfully different amounts depending on where you list it, so checking a ranked comparison of the top cs2 marketplace options before you sell is the single easiest way to stop leaving money behind.

How do experienced traders avoid getting ripped off?

They never trust a single price. The people who consistently do well treat every listing with suspicion until they have compared it against the wider market, and most of them lean on the same tool to do it: a browser overlay called Steam Inventory Helper that shows live prices from across dozens of platforms right on top of the game. With it, a fair offer and a gouge are obvious at a glance. Without it, you are negotiating blind, and the house always wins against people negotiating blind.

Do you have to trade to enjoy it?

Absolutely not, and this is the part outsiders miss. Plenty of players never sell a thing. They collect finishes they think are beautiful, assemble a look they are proud of, and treat the appreciating value as a happy accident rather than a goal. The trading scene is loud, but it is a minority pursuit sitting on top of a much larger group that is simply into the aesthetics. In that sense it behaves like any art world: a small, intense market wrapped around a big, casual fandom.

What is the one thing to take away?

That the impulse is old even though the objects are new. Human beings have always paid to signal taste and belonging, and they have always built markets around scarcity. Skins just do it in a screen, in public, at speed. If you want to feel it click, find one finish you genuinely like, look up what it actually sells for, and notice how fast the strangeness dissolves into ordinary market logic. The knife is virtual. The status game is as real as it has ever been.

How Vertical Drama and ‘ReelShort’ Storytelling Borrowed Its Betting Loop from Online Casinos

Sebastian Bickley
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How Vertical Drama and ‘ReelShort’ Storytelling Borrowed Its Betting Loop from Online Casinos

I watched eleven episodes of a ReelShort drama about a fake marriage plot before I noticed what had actually happened to me. Eleven. Each one under two minutes. And somewhere around episode seven, the app stopped giving them to me for free.

That’s not an accident. It’s not even really about storytelling anymore, not in the way the feature on Lin Jin’s work building ReelShort’s story worlds framed it. It’s a monetization engine wearing a soap opera as a costume. And the closer you look at how it’s built, the more it resembles something you’d find behind a login screen on a betting app rather than inside a streaming library.

Here’s the mechanic. You get the first few episodes free. Then the app asks for coins, real coins bought with real money, to unlock the next chapter. You can also wait, sometimes hours, for a free unlock to regenerate. Or you can just pay. Most people just pay. TechCrunch reported that microdrama apps like ReelShort and DramaBox are on pace to generate billions in revenue this year, and the mechanism driving that number isn’t subscription fatigue. It’s the drip.

Anyone who’s spent time exploring New York online casinos on a licensed app will recognize this instantly. Same drip, different skin. A slot session ends on a near-miss, two matching symbols and one that almost lined up, and the app nudges you toward one more spin. A vertical drama ends mid-scene, the fake husband’s phone buzzing with a call from his ex, and the app nudges you toward one more unlock. The variable reward is the same lever. Only the wrapper changed.

The coin economy is a chip stack with better lighting

Casinos don’t sell you chips because chips are more fun to hold than cash. They sell you chips because a chip doesn’t feel like money the same way a $20 bill does, and that gap in feeling is where the spend happens. Coins in a drama app do the identical job. You buy a bundle of 300 coins for $4.99, and now you’re not thinking in dollars per episode, you’re thinking in coins per unlock. The currency conversion softens the transaction.

Naavik’s breakdown of the microdrama boom lays this out plainly: free episodes function as the hook, coin unlocks function as the paywall, and ad-gated waits exist purely to make the paid option look faster and more attractive by comparison. Naavik’s analysis calls this a funnel, and it is, but it’s a funnel borrowed wholesale from free-to-play gaming, which itself borrowed it from the casino floor. Nothing here is new. It’s just been repackaged for a nine-minute lunch break.

A researcher I’d trust on this, Trends.vc, went further and called short drama apps “TV’s slot machine” outright, pointing to free pulls, paid spins, and a small percentage of high-spending users, whales, carrying most of the revenue. Their piece matches almost line for line what regulators have said for years about slot volatility design: most players lose small amounts steadily, a tiny cohort spends enormously, and the app’s entire business model depends on that second group staying engaged.

Cliffhangers are just a narrative RTP

Slot machines are tuned around return-to-player percentages, a number that determines how often the machine pays back relative to what’s wagered, engineered to feel generous in the short term while guaranteeing the house wins over volume. Vertical dramas run the same tuning exercise on plot instead of payout.

Writers for these platforms aren’t handed a three-act structure. They’re handed a retention curve. Episode six needs a cliffhanger sharp enough that a meaningful percentage of viewers convert to paid unlock rather than close the app. If that number underperforms, the writers’ room rewrites the ending. I’ve spoken with people adjacent to this industry who describe it exactly like A/B testing a bonus round. Not like art. Like a spreadsheet with dialogue in it.

That’s not a criticism of the writers, most of whom are talented and working within a system they didn’t design. It’s a fact about the system. The cliffhanger isn’t there to serve the story. It’s there to serve the conversion rate, the same way a near-miss in a slot game isn’t there to entertain you, it’s there to make you spin again.

Where the two loops actually diverge

I don’t want to oversell the parallel, because there’s one place it breaks down hard: regulation.

A casino operating legally in the US carries licensing obligations, deposit limits, self-exclusion tools, and audited game fairness. A drama app has none of that. There’s no cooling-off period on a coin purchase. No cap on how much a single account can spend in a session. No mandated disclosure of the odds that a free unlock will regenerate before you get impatient and pay. The loop is structurally identical to a gambling product, but the guardrails that exist around gambling specifically because of that psychology simply don’t apply here.

That’s the part that should bother people more than it does. A 14-year-old can’t open a real-money slots account in any regulated US state. That same 14-year-old can absolutely open ReelShort and start feeding it coin bundles, because it’s classified as entertainment media, not a wagering product, even though the underlying behavioral engineering is drawing from the identical playbook.

What this means if you’ve ever wondered why you kept unlocking

If you’ve caught yourself buying a second coin bundle at 11pm for a drama you’d have called “pretty bad” out loud to a friend, you weren’t weak-willed. You were responding exactly the way the product was built for you to respond. That’s not an excuse, it’s an explanation, and there’s a difference.

The honest move, whether you’re watching microdramas or actually gambling, is to notice the mechanic before you’re three unlocks deep. Set a spend limit before you open the app, not after. Ask what the free-wait timer is actually training you to avoid. And if you do find yourself drawn to the real-money version of this loop rather than the fictional one, treat it with the same skepticism: know the terms, know the caps, and know that the drip is the product, not a side effect of it.

FAQ

Is ReelShort actually designed like a gambling app? Not legally, no, it’s classified as entertainment. But the coin-unlock structure, free-wait timers, and cliffhanger-driven conversion points mirror variable-reward mechanics used in slot design. The psychology overlaps heavily even though the regulatory category doesn’t.

Why do microdrama apps use coins instead of direct dollar pricing? Coins create distance between the purchase and the spend, softening the perceived cost. It’s the same reasoning behind casino chips: a coin doesn’t register the same way a $4.99 charge does, which makes repeat purchases feel smaller than they are.

How much money do apps like ReelShort actually make? Industry estimates put the microdrama category on pace for billions in revenue in 2026, driven largely by a small percentage of high-spending users rather than broad average spend. That whale-driven pattern closely resembles slot and social casino revenue distribution.

Are there age restrictions on drama-app coin purchases? Generally no, since these apps are categorized as media rather than gambling products. That’s a meaningful gap compared to regulated online casinos, which require identity verification and enforce minimum age requirements before any real-money deposit.

Does watching for free ever actually work? Sometimes, if you’re willing to wait out the regeneration timer between episodes. Most users don’t, which is exactly the outcome the timer is tuned to produce. The wait exists to make paying feel like the faster, more reasonable choice.

Gambling involves risk. Please play responsibly and only wager what you can afford to lose. If you feel gambling is becoming a problem, visit BeGambleAware.org or call 1-800-GAMBLER.

The next time a show ends on a phone buzzing in someone’s hand and a paywall pops up right after, watch what happens in your own chest. That flicker of “just one more” isn’t a flaw in you. It’s the whole business model, built by people who study this stuff for a living, and it works on smart people just as well as anyone else.

Why Southern Food Has Become a Powerful Symbol of American Identity

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Why Southern Food Has Become a Powerful Symbol of American Identity

Southern food has a 32% stake in the modern food service market, but it’s much more than a commercial endeavor or a regional menu; it’s a central part of the American narrative. Dishes like fried chicken, collard greens, cornbread, and pecan pie carry historical weight that stretches far beyond the kitchen table.

This food represents resilience, migration, and the centuries-long blending of diverse cultural traditions. When people across the country gather around these comfort foods, they participate in a living history that shapes national identity.

Culinary Roots and Historical Crosscurrents

The foundational elements of Southern cooking emerged from severe resource scarcity and the blending of European, Native American, and West African foodways. Enslaved cooks transformed inexpensive ingredients and discarded cuts of meat into rich, deeply flavorful dishes that sustained generations. West African agricultural expertise directly shaped Southern staple crops and cooking techniques, establishing flavor profiles that are now recognized globally.

This cuisine quickly moved past the farm and plantation to become the backbone of regional identity. As families moved during the mid-twentieth century, the Great Migration carried Southern foodways into northern urban centers, where memory became edible.

Today, this culinary tradition remains remarkably consistent in both home kitchens and long-standing dining establishments. You can still experience these historical flavors in traditional settings, so feel free to check out today’s menu of Magnolia Room Cafeteria in Tucker, Georgia, to see how classics like golden fried chicken, slow-cooked greens, and baked mac and cheese are served in a classic line-style cafeteria format. Whether it inspires an in-person visit or encourages your own at-home recipe experimentation, it’s a good starting point.

Representation in Pop Culture and American Storytelling

Southern food acts as a visual and narrative shorthand in film, literature, and art. Directors and authors frequently use communal meals to signal warmth, family conflict, or historical nostalgia. Dozens of iconic meal scenes in American cinema each year use a simple plate of cornbread or sweet tea to instantly establish a character’s roots and values.

Beyond film, food serves as a primary vehicle for cultural memory and reconciliation. In Southern art and literature, sharing a meal often represents a rare space for cross-cultural interaction. Scholars note how Southern cultural representation in film and literature uses these domestic settings to confront broader questions about American heritage.

The widespread appeal of Southern comfort food lies in its ability to evoke belonging, even for those who did not grow up in the region.

  • Slow simmering techniques that extract maximum flavor from humble vegetables and aromatics
  • Baking methods centered on stone-ground cornmeal and lard to create distinct textures
  • Preservation practices like pickling and smoking that define the regional palate

Global Roots in Local Hospitality

Southern foodways also draw strength from modern immigration patterns that continue to expand the regional canon. Vietnamese-Cajun seafood boils in Houston, and Korean-influenced barbecue joints in Atlanta prove that Southern identity is dynamic rather than static.

These culinary crossovers show how easily new communities find common ground through shared smoking, frying, and braising techniques. As international flavors blend into classic kitchens, the South demonstrates its unique ability to incorporate global traditions while keeping its core identity intact.

Culinary Preservation in the Digital Age

The digital era has transformed how regional cooking practices are documented, shared, and preserved across generations. Online video channels, food blogs, and social media platforms have created virtual archives for traditional Southern recipes that were once passed down strictly through family oral histories.

Food historians and home cooks now archive precise smoking techniques, heirloom seed cultivation, and cast-iron maintenance for a global audience. This widespread digital documentation keeps traditional methods accessible, preventing regional recipes from fading into obscurity while allowing diverse audiences to study the complex heritage behind every dish.

The Endurance of Comfort Food Culture

Southern foodways continue to evolve while preserving their core techniques. Modern chefs regularly update traditional recipes, yet the appetite for unpretentious, classic preparations remains unchanged across generations.

This endurance highlights why the cuisine continues to capture the national imagination. It offers a tangible connection to the past while remaining fully accessible today.

Whether served at a family gathering or a local cafeteria line, these meals carry a story of survival, creativity, and community. Exploring our other posts on food and culture will further expand your understanding of how these two interlock in the American identity.

Vegas Turns Its Whole Strip Into a Stage This September

Sebastian Bickley
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Vegas Turns Its Whole Strip Into a Stage This September

Fewer people made the trip to Las Vegas last year. The city logged 38.5 million visitors in 2025, down 7.5% from the year before and the lowest total since the pandemic-recovery bounce of 2021, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. You wouldn’t guess it from the September calendar. Somewhere between Labor Day and the fall equinox, the Strip has scheduled enough marquee names to fill a music festival poster three times over, and the city is betting the entertainment lineup does what a slow tourism year alone can’t.

A Month Stacked With Stadium Shows and Residencies

Usher and Chris Brown’s joint R&B tour lands at Allegiant Stadium on Sept. 5, 6 and 18, with surprise guests popping up throughout the run (Mary J. Blige and 50 Cent have both crashed the stage on previous stops). Neither artist is new to the city; Usher wrapped a Park MGM residency in 2023 before headlining the Super Bowl halftime show the following year. Sammy Hagar brings his Best of All Worlds residency back to Dolby Live at Park MGM for five nights, playing a room that holds just over 5,000 people to a set list a similarly sized arena tour would need three times the space for.

The Festival That Turns a Weekend Into a Genre Tour

None of that is even the biggest ticket in town. The iHeartRadio Music Festival takes over T-Mobile Arena on Sept. 18 and 19, hosted by Ryan Seacrest, and the two-night bill reads like someone tried to book every chart at once. Friday brings BTS, Cardi B, Weezer, Kenny Chesney, Goo Goo Dolls and Zara Larsson. Saturday hands the stage to Snoop Dogg, Muse, Lainey Wilson, Benson Boone, Ciara, LE SSERAFIM and the Smashing Pumpkins, with sets kept tight so a pop fan, a K-pop fan and a country fan can all get their moment without sitting through anyone else’s full set. It’s less a concert than a channel-surf through 2026’s biggest artists, compressed into two nights inside one building. That kind of density is exactly why September has become the city’s real second high season, tucked in after the summer crowds thin out and before the holiday rush arrives.

Where the Money Actually Follows the Crowd

The gaming side of the business hasn’t waited for tourism to fully recover to keep growing regardless. U.S. commercial gaming revenue hit a record $78.62 billion in 2025, up 9.1% year over year and the sixth consecutive year the industry has set a new mark, with internet gaming the fastest-growing slice by far. Speaking to Casinos.com, an analyst who tracks real money online casinos put it simply: a slot machine on a phone can’t recreate walking onto a casino floor with a stadium show still ringing in your ears, but that was never really the point. It’s there for the Tuesday night in November when the Vegas trip is still six months away.

The States Cashing In Between Trips

That gap between the trip and the wait is exactly what’s fueling the online side. Michigan and New Jersey now sit alongside Pennsylvania as the market’s biggest states, and Pennsylvania alone crossed $3.46 billion for the year, nearly 28% higher than 2025. It’s a market built almost entirely by people filling the months between trips rather than replacing them, and the growth curve shows no sign of leveling off as more states weigh legalizing the format.

One Last Stadium Night to Close the Month

On Sept. 26, the Foo Fighters return to town on their Take Cover Tour with Queens of the Stone Age, a stadium show that dwarfs the last time the band played Las Vegas. Fans who caught our earlier look at the Take Cover Tour announcement already know the band doesn’t play small rooms anymore, and this one will prove it in a stadium built for 65,000, a scale the group hadn’t attempted the last time it rolled through town.

Whichever version of Vegas you’re chasing this fall, stadium seat or a phone screen on a Tuesday, the timing lines up. The rest of the month is just as loud in its own way, one arena, one residency and one festival at a time, and by the time October rolls around the city will have earned a rest it probably won’t take.

Design, Sound and Trust: How Regulated Casino Platforms Court a Culture-First Audience

Sebastian Bickley
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Design, Sound and Trust: How Regulated Casino Platforms Court a Culture-First Audience

Picture two readers who landed on this magazine for the same album review. Maya reads liner notes for fun. She notices kerning, she can tell a mastered mix from a rushed one, and she judges any app in three seconds by its typography, its loading animation and the little sound a button makes. Dev is the other kind of reader. He does not care whether a screen is pretty. He wants to know who built it, who checks it, and whether his money comes back out as easily as it went in. Same taste in music, opposite instincts about screens.

Both personas now get courted by an industry that used to ignore them. Online casino operators have discovered that people who care about design and sound also read the fine print, so the smart platforms sell craft and honesty at once. That instinct is what a comparison desk like Lineups tries to satisfy. Its directory of regulated casino platforms sorts licensed US operators by state, banking method and payout speed, so a design-literate reader can confirm which apps are actually legal before falling for the fonts. Maya would use it to shortlist; Dev would use it to disqualify.

What “culture-first” really means here

A culture-first audience is not a demographic, it is a habit. These are people who treat a product’s surface as evidence of the care underneath it. In music that habit works well, because a beautiful record usually reflects a careful one. In a real-money casino the same habit is dangerous, because polish and payout are not the same thing. A slot can have gorgeous animation, warm reel audio and a house edge that quietly keeps a share of every wager. Design signals intent, not odds. The honest platforms say the math out loud instead of hiding it behind a nice curve.

The three things a design-literate visitor notices

Break the courtship into categories and it becomes readable.

Design is the obvious one. Layout, color, motion and the speed of a screen tell a visitor whether a team sweated the details. A clean cashier page reads as respect.

Sound is the underrated one. Casino audio is engineered the way film scores are, with reel spins, near-miss cues and win jingles tuned to feel bigger than the payout. It is skilled work, and it is also persuasion, which is why understanding it beats enjoying it.

Trust is the one Dev leads with and Maya reaches last. It lives in the least glamorous pixels: the license number in the footer, the deposit limits in settings, the responsible-gaming link, the withdrawal timeline in plain English. A platform can fake the first two categories with a good studio. The third is verified by a regulator, not a designer.

Where polish and honesty pull apart

This magazine has written about how digital convenience is reshaping play, and the same forces apply here. A frictionless deposit is good design and also removes a natural pause before spending. A satisfying win sound is craft and also a reward loop. A minimal interface hides clutter and can hide the limits tools too. The point is not that good design is a trick. It is that in this product, unlike an album, a better surface does not improve your expected result. The edge is fixed by the rules of each game, and no interface, however elegant, returns it to you.

A worked comparison

Say Maya picks a platform for its interface and Dev picks by legality. Dev wins, because in the US the surface is irrelevant if the operator is not licensed where he lives. Real-money online casino play is legal in only about seven states; sports betting is far broader. Trust starts with which state you open the app in.

Region Rule that applies
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan Real-money online casino is legal and regulated; apps must show a license
Connecticut, West Virginia, Delaware, Rhode Island Real-money online casino is legal under state regulators
~38 states with legal sports betting Sportsbooks may be live even where online casino is not
Most other states No licensed real-money online casino; a slick app there is a warning, not a feature

The lesson for both personas is the same. Confirm the region first, then let taste in design and sound break the tie between two equally legal apps.

The pitfalls a culture-first visitor still hits

The main trap is mistaking production value for safety. A polished unlicensed site is more dangerous than an ugly licensed one, because craft buys undeserved confidence. The second trap is letting good sound design set your pace; audio built to feel rewarding is not a signal that you are ahead. The third is treating a fast, pretty deposit as proof of a fast withdrawal, a separate promise entirely.

Keep the culture-first eye, but point it at the boring pixels. Read the footer, find the limits tools, set them before you play. Real-money casino play is 21+ and outcomes are driven by odds with a built-in house edge that no design removes. If it stops being fun, the help line is 1-800-GAMBLER. The concept of return to player explains why the house keeps its share over time.

FAQ

How fast do withdrawals actually clear on a licensed platform?

It depends on method, not on how nice the app looks. Regulated operators show a stated timeline; instant options are usually quicker than a bank transfer, and a first cashout can be slower because of identity checks.

Why is my first payout slower than my deposit was?

Deposits are near-instant by design, but a first withdrawal often triggers verification of your identity and payment source. That check is a trust feature, not a stall.

Does a faster deposit screen mean a faster payout?

No. A smooth deposit flow is a design choice; payout speed is set by the banking method and the operator’s processing rules. Judge them separately.

Can good design or sound change my odds or payout timing?

Neither. Odds are fixed by each game’s rules and the house edge, and payout timing is set by banking and verification. Interface and audio affect feel, not math.

Where can I confirm a platform’s legality before I trust its polish?

Check the state you are playing in and the operator’s license in the footer. A comparison directory that filters by state and lists banking and payout details lets you verify legality before design wins you over.

15 New Songs Out Today to Listen To: Ice Spice and Lil Yachty, underscores, and More

Konstantinos Pappis
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15 New Songs Out Today to Listen To: Ice Spice and Lil Yachty, underscores, and More

There’s so much music coming out all the time that it’s hard to keep track. On those days when the influx of new tracks is particularly overwhelming, we sift through the noise to bring you a curated list of the most interesting new releases (the best of which will be added to our Best New Songs playlist). Below, check out our track roundup for Friday, August 28, 2026.

Ice Spice and Lil Yachty – ‘Out My Face (My Baby)’

Ice Spice and Lil Yachty have teamed up for a new single, ‘Out My Face (My Baby)’. The track, equal parts hard-hitting and disorienting, comes paired with a video directed by AMD and Little Miles, and featuring appearances by Gio, Karrahboo, Concrete Boys, Che Mario, and more.

underscores - ‘Unlimited Love’ and ‘The Peace (Frost Children Remix)’

underscores has dropped a new song, ‘Unlimited Love, with ‘The Peace (Frost Children Remix)’ as its beside. Marking her first new music since March’s U, the track is fizzy and dynamic, with references to the record sprinkled all over. The Frost Children’s frenetic remix of ‘The Peace’ follows the release of the track’s official video earlier this month.

U2 – ‘Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’ (The Pogues Cover)

U2 have released a studio cover of Pogues’ classic ‘Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’, as part of the upcoming compilation 20th Century Paddy – The Songs of Shane MacGowan. “What he did with that voice was remarkable. He pulled together threads that shouldn’t quite fit—folk tradition, political memory, gallows humour, romance—and made them sound inevitable,” the Edge commented. “His songs sound like they have always existed. He dissolved himself into them and, in the process, created the Shane MacGowan myth. The details of his life barely surface, but you learn exactly what he cared about. And that’s the point.”

Ninajirachi – ‘iPod Touch (Madeon Remix)’

underscores collaborator Ninahirachi also has a notable remix out today, enlisting Madeon for a widescreen take on ‘iPod Touch’. “I didn’t really want to release an iPod Touch remix until I could do it with someone whose music I was writing about in the song,” Ninajirachi shared. “I’m really sentimental about it and just wanted it to mean something. I heard Madeon’s earliest music in the background of a tie-dye denim shorts tutorial on YouTube when I was in year 7 and fell down a rabbit hole. We met at Coachella this year, and he asked me to be there for his set, but I didn’t know he was going to play an edit of the song. It was earnestly a surprise. Music is so awesome. Everything made sense when I heard his verse on the remix, like of course, he went through the same revelation a generation before I did. Everyone who loves anything has been through this. It’s so amazing. I feel so lucky to experience it and have this remix exist.”

Angèle – ‘Une seule vie’

Angèle has detailed her new album, INSTINCT, out October 16, sharing the celestial pop jam ‘Une seule vie’. The track arrives with a music video directed by Thomas Mailaender, who commented “We imagined the video as a succession of memories, visions and mental images that physically burst into Angèle’s reality. […] Analogue thus becomes the natural language of the video: a fragile, imperfect material to talk about memory, nostalgia and time slipping away from us.”

Porch Light – ‘Paranoia’ and ‘James’

Minneapolis band Porch Light have shared a couple of pensive tracks from their debut album, Hush. While ‘Paranoia’ spirals with uncertainty, ‘James’ is a love song “written from the other side of convincing yourself you’d already had your one shot at it,” according to a press release. vocalist Jackie Uhas explained: “It’s a fairly simple message: finding love again after telling yourself the one you had before was all you were ever going to get.

Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore – ‘Cold Open’, ‘Sick and Tired’, and ‘Gallivare 10km’

Back in January, Julianna Barwick and Mary Lattimore released their first-ever full-length collaboration, Tragic Magic, prompting the first instalment of our In Conversation series. The duo already have a new project on the way: on November 20, they’ll issue their original motion picture score for Threshold, a film about 4x Olympic Medalist Jessie Diggins. Three tracks from the record are out today: ‘Cold Open’, ‘Sick and Tired’, and ‘Gallivare 10km’.

“Fresh off of recording our album Tragic Magic in 2025, we were asked to co-score this documentary about the brilliant cross-country ski champion Jessie Diggins,” Lattimore explained. “While Tragic Magic had constraints of instruments we were able to use, including historic, delicate and mysterious ones, along with those constraints, we had total sonic freedom. In the case of Threshold, the sky was the limit with instrumentation and we held an expansive palette, but our music existed within the framework of Jessie’s life and the vision of the directors. Holding both projects in our hands, two sides of the same coin, was challenging, mind-expanding and satisfying, in this year of making music as a duo. Jessie’s story has many triumphs, thrilling races and wins, but also quite low points that feel very human and call for musical tenderness. It was a pleasure to work with Julianna, Lars, and Tor to find the right melodies to enhance this great doc about someone so admired.”

dodie – ‘Fruit in the Sun’ and ‘HE CAN DO A PUSH-UP’

dodie has released the deluxe edition of her  sophomore album, Not For Lack Of Trying’, featuring two new tracks: ‘Fruit in the Sun’ and ‘HE CAN DO A PUSH-UP’. “How to deluxify your second album?” dodie reflected. “Book a recording session with all your musical mates on your 31st birthday in the countryside based studio you love, and relearn/replay some of your faves all together! Not to mention the 2 new songs you wrote and teach to everyone, and jam out in the middle of the night. Oh also we all dressed up like we were in the 1800s and played a murder mystery game set at my pretend twin’s funeral ha ha ha ha!”

Sarah Julia – ‘Therapist’s Daughter’

The sister duo of Sarah Julia have shared the final single from their debut LP, The Fear That is Real, the warmly affecting ‘Therapist’s Daughter’. They recorded the LP with producer Phil Weinrobe (Big Thief, Adrienne Lenker, Florist) at his studio in Woodstock, NY.

Chloe Slater  – ‘I’ve Never Felt So Hated’

Chloe Slater has released ‘I’ve Never Felt So Hated’, a sharp, propulsive single from her forthcoming debut album Riot Youth. It’s accompanied by a video from director Bonnie MacRae. “This song is centred around my mental health struggles as a result of internet scrutiny,” Slater explained. “It’s about how easy it is in 2026 to watch a twenty-second video, or read a comment and form an opinion on someone with a complete lack of context. In the digital age of short-form media, it is so difficult to form nuanced opinions. Everything has to be polarised and divisive to get clicks, and the result is such black and white thinking: it’s true love or extreme hate.”

Moria Season 2: Cast, Rumours & Release Date

Alexandra Pleșa
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Moria Season 2: Cast, Rumours & Release Date

While Moria Casán isn’t that well-known worldwide, she is a bona fide institution in Argentina. Now, fans can watch a highly fictionalised version of her life in Moria, a Netflix series that keeps climbing the charts.

The title has already spent two weeks in the global top 10. With 2.2 million views this week, it’s currently the #1 show in three countries. Could a sequel be on the way? Here’s what we know so far.

Moria Season 2 Release Date

At the time of writing, there’s no official news available about a potential Moria season 2.

That said, the title isn’t listed as a limited series on Netflix. While the first season does a good job of covering the star’s life, you never know. If the production becomes a global phenomenon, we’re sure the behind-the-scenes team can mine Casán’s background for more material. The fact that she’s directly involved is a definite plus.

For now, all we can do is wait and see. As long as the show does get renewed, new episodes could arrive in late 2027 or 2028.

Moria Cast

  • Moria Casán as herself (present day)
  • Sofía Gala Castiglione as Moria Casán (young)
  • Griselda Siciliani as Moria Casán (adult)
  • Cecilia Roth as Moria Casán (older)
  • Marco Antonio Caponi as Mario Castiglione
  • Rafael Ferro as Carlos Sexton
  • Gabo Correa as Juan Casanova
  • Eugenia Alonso as Rosa Faga
  • Juan Pablo Mirabelli as César Carozza
  • Olivia Nuss as Sofia Gala Castiglione

What Is Moria About?

Moria is a stylised Argentine biographical drama about Moria Casán. For those unfamiliar, she is one of the country’s most famous and controversial entertainment figures.

The series follows her transformation from ambitious young Ana María Casanova into a huge star. It spans decades of fame and scandal, with reinvention a big part of the narrative. Rather than presenting a straightforward biopic, the show blurs reality, memory, and performance. As a fun bonus, Moria acts as the “puppeteer” of her own story. She appears as herself in present-day sections.

On top of that, her daughter Sofía Gala Castiglione and two other actresses, Cecilia Roth and Griselda Siciliani, portray her at different stages of her life.

While Moria season 2 isn’t a given, the episodes currently streaming are a fantastic introduction to the star for an international audience. At the same time, longtime fans will appreciate the closer look at the pop culture icon.

Are There Other Shows Like Moria?

If you enjoyed Moria, shows with similar vibes include Welcome to Chippendales, Mike, Pam & Tommy, and Halston.

Or, catch up with the other international series trending on Netflix. Recent additions include Umthetho, Blood Sacrifice, Our Sticky Love, Wrath, and My Daughter’s Father.

Love Is Blind UK Season 4: Cast, Rumours & Release Date

Alexandra Pleșa
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0
Love Is Blind UK Season 4: Cast, Rumours & Release Date

A new group of singles entered the dating pods in search of love in Love Is Blind UK season 3, and their attempts to connect paid off. Not only did the show deliver an impressive number of engagements, but four couples tied the knot.

Even better, fans tuned in to cheer on their favourites. The Love Is Blind spin-off has made the Netflix top 10 in 26 countries this week. Could another installment be on the way? Here’s what we know so far.

Love Is Blind UK Season 4 Release Date

If you enjoy the series, you can breathe easy: Love Is Blind UK season 4 is happening. Netflix announced the good news ahead of the season 3 premiere, and casting for the upcoming season is open.

As for when new episodes might drop, summer 2027 seems like a safe bet.

Love Is Blind UK Season 4 Cast

Since casting is underway, there is no official information on who might enter the pods next time around. You can brush up on the season 3 contestants here. The show is hosted by Emma and Matt Willis.

What Is Love Is Blind UK About?

Described as a social experiment, Love Is Blind UK follows the same basic format as the original series.

Contestants from the United Kingdom date from behind the walls of the famous Pods. In other words, they get to know potential partners solely through conversation before deciding whether they’re ready to get engaged sight unseen.

Once they meet their fiancés, the couples leave the Pods and move in together. They confront the realities of everyday life, as well as mingle with each other’s families and friends. All the while, they attempt to figure out if they’re truly ready to say “I do” at the altar.

Season 3 was unusually successful. Netflix decided to follow six engaged couples on screen. While there was no shortage of drama, four of them got married. You can check out their stories on Tudum.

Before Love Is Blind UK season 4 rolls around, there’s still the season 3 reunion to look forward to. The episode is scheduled to drop on Netflix on August 30.

Are There Other Shows Like Love Is Blind UK?

If you enjoy Love Is Blind UK, sample some of the other dating series streaming on Netflix. We recommend Badly in Love, The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On, Perfect Match, Better Late Than Single, and Age of Attraction. 

Josh Brolin Net Worth, Salary & Highest Grossing Movies

Alexandra Pleșa
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Josh Brolin Net Worth, Salary & Highest Grossing Movies

Josh Brolin’s career isn’t what you would call typical. After gaining notoriety for iconic ‘80s movie The Goonies, the actor appeared in TV series and lesser-known films before experiencing a resurgence in the mid-aughts.

Fast-forward to now, and his workload has become not only steady, but mainstream. His net worth should be substantial by now, right? Here’s what we know about the actor’s earnings.

Josh Brolin Net Worth

In 2026, Josh Brolin’s net worth is estimated to be $25 million.

Most of it comes from his Hollywood career. The son of actor Josh Brolin, he made his film debut in 1985 in Steven Spielberg’s The Goonies, now dubbed a classic. He subsequently worked in television, appearing in shows including 21 Jump Street, Winnetka Road, Mister Sterling, and The Young Riders.

At the same time, he built a film career with titles like Thrashin’, The Road Killers, Mimic, Nightwatch, and Hollow Man, to name only a few.

However, a career decline led to Brolin devising a backup plan. He was earning well from trading stocks and considered quitting acting for good when he was cast in No Country for Old Men in 2007. The movie was a critical and commercial success, thrusting the actor back into the spotlight. That same year, he appeared in Grindhouse and American Gangster.

Next up, Brolin played President George W. Bush in Oliver Stone’s W., a role that established him as a serious dramatic performer. He followed it with another acclaimed role in Gus Van Sant’s Milk. Before long, he became one of Hollywood’s most dependable character actors. His filmography includes titles like Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, True Grit, Men in Black 3, Oldboy, Sicario, Inherent Vice, and Everest.

Brolin also joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He first voiced big bad Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy and subsequently reprised the character in Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. In 2018, he also played Cable in Deadpool 2.

His post-Marvel career has remained varied, with roles in Only the Brave, the Dune movies, Brothers, Weapons, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, and The Running Man. Besides acting, Brolin has his own production company.

Josh Brolin Salary

While Brolin noted that he occasionally made more from stock trading during slower periods in his career than from acting, we’re guessing that’s no longer the case. Actor salaries are typically kept under wraps, but it’s safe to assume that playing Thanos earned him a significant paycheck.

The actor did open up about being broke before his career resurgence, when $600,000 backend pay from American Gangster felt like a godsend. Nowadays, his earnings should be in the range of millions per role.

Josh Brolin Highest Grossing Movies

Brolin’s highest-grossing movie is Avengers: Endgame, which made a whopping $2.799 billion worldwide. The other Marvel movies were big earners, too, as were Deadpool 2 and the Dune franchise.

This year, fans can catch Brolin in The Dog Stars, alongside Jacob Elordi and Margaret Qualley. The movie is now in cinemas. Over the next few months, he’ll appear in survival thriller Whalefall and Dune: Part Three.

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