Plot

MI6 operative James Bond (Daniel Craig) gains promotion to 00 agent status by assassinating two targets: traitorous section chief Dryden at the British Embassy in Prague and his contact, Fisher. In Uganda, the mysterious Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) (A liaison for an unnamed criminal organization) introduces Steven Obanno (Isaach De Bankole), a high-ranking member of the Lord's Resistance Army, to Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) (A banker who services many of the world's terrorists, he is a mathematical genius and expert chess player, and uses these skills when playing poker), an Albanian private banker to terrorists. Obanno entrusts Le Chiffre with a large sum of money to invest and he wants no risk in the portfolio and a reasonable rate of return; Le Chiffre subsequently buys put options (which are very risky) on aerospace manufacturer Skyfleet, betting on the company's failure given his insider knowledge of a terrorist attack.

In Madagascar, Bond pursues bomb-maker Mollaka (Sebastien Foucan) (throughout the town on foot) to an embassy (where he tries to hide from Bond. Bond recovers Mollaka's phone which had the code "Ellipsis" in his SMS folder), killing him and blowing up the building. Le Chiffre gets the news and is worried that the put options expire in 36 hrs. In London, MI6 chief M (Judi Dench) (Only cast carried over from the Brosnan films) admonishes Bond for causing an international incident and ignoring her orders to capture Mollaka alive. Bond tracks the SMS to Bahamas to the Ocean Club. He looks at the security camera tapes and reckons that at the exact time Mollaka received an SMS, a corrupt Greek official Alex Dimitrios (Simon Abkarian) (Another contractor in the international terrorist underworld and associate of Le Chiffre, he is based in the Bahamas), sent one from his phone. Bond decides to have a closer look at Alex. Using M's account, Bond figures that Alex is connected to Le Chiffre. After winning his 1964 Aston Martin DB5 in a poker game, Bond seduces his wife Solange (Caterina Murino). That night Alex meets Le Chiffre and promises him another bomber to carry out the mission. Bond pursues Dimitrios to Miami (Finding this from Solange) and kills him after Alex had planted the Bomb and the access codes for the new bomber. Bond then pursues the bomber and thwarts the destruction of Skyfleet's prototype airliner at the Miami airport (after following the bomber through the airport and stopping the fuel tanker that he aimed at the airplane and ties the bomb to the assassin and effectively he blows himself up).

To recoup his clients' lost money (Losses of $101 MM), Le Chiffre organizes a high-stakes Texas hold 'em tournament at the Casino Royale in Montenegro. MI6 enters Bond in the tournament, believing a defeat will force Le Chiffre to seek asylum with the British government in exchange for information on his clients. Bond is paired with Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), a British Treasury agent protecting the $10 million buy-in. During their train ride, they assess and make insightful guesses about each other (She is highly insightful and is quickly able to reason that Bond had a good education but did not come from money originally and that he was orphaned at a young age). In Montenegro, they meet their contact René Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini).

Bond seems to gain the upper hand, deducing Le Chiffre's "tell". Obanno ambushes Le Chiffre (during a 1 hr break after playing for 4 hrs, Le Chiffre retires to his suite, where Obanno confronts him) but allows him to continue playing to win back the money. Obanno's bodyguard spots Bond (via the earpiece inside his ear) and Vesper at Le Chiffre's floor (Bond had followed him), but Bond kills him and Obanno both. After comforting a traumatized Vesper, Bond loses his stake because Le Chiffre has been tipped off about his own tell (Seemed like he had invented his own tell to defeat his opponents at the right hand). Vesper refuses to cover the $5 million Rebuy, but fellow player Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), a CIA agent, agrees to stake Bond (after he stops Bond from assassinating Le Chiffre in public) enough money to continue in exchange for taking Le Chiffre into American custody.

Le Chiffre's lover Valenka (Ivana Milicevic) poisons Bond's martini with digitalis. Retrieving an antidote and defibrillator from his Aston Martin DBS V12, Bond passes out but Vesper rescues him. Bond returns to the game, which culminates in a $115 million hand that Bond wins with a straight flush. Apparently tipped off by Mathis, Le Chiffre kidnaps Vesper and uses her to trap Bond. Le Chiffre brings the captives to an abandoned ship and tortures Bond (Hits his balls with a heavy knotted rope) to reveal the account number and password to the winnings, but Bond refuses (even when Le Chiffre lets Bond believe that Verper is being raped in the next room). Mr. White bursts in and kills Le Chiffre as punishment for betraying the trust of his organization by gambling with their money, leaving Bond and Vesper alive.

Bond awakens in an MI6 hospital and has Mathis arrested as a traitor. After transferring the winnings back to the British Govt (overseen by Vesper, who had entered the account number), Bond spends time recovering with Vesper at his side and the two fall in love. He resigns from MI6 and they run away to Venice. When M reveals the money was never deposited, Bond realizes Vesper has betrayed him and follows her as she withdraws the money from her own account to which she had transferred the funds. He follows her to a hand-off of the money, where gunmen take her captive as soon as they spot him. Bond shoots the building's flotation devices, causing the foundation to sink into the Grand Canal. He kills the gunmen, but Vesper is imprisoned in an elevator plunging into the rising water. Seeing Bond wishes to rescue her, she locks the door, indicating he should save himself. Bond is unable to free Vesper before she drowns. Mr. White escapes with the money.

M informs Bond the organization behind Le Chiffre threatened to kill Vesper's lover boyfriend unless she became a double agent. When Bond coldly renounces Vesper as a traitor, saying "the bitch is dead", M deduces that she likely made a deal later with White, trading the money for Bond's life. Bond returns to service. Realizing Vesper left her phone to help him, he checks the contacts and locates Mr. White at an estate in Lake Como. Shooting him in the leg, 007 introduces himself: "The name's Bond. James Bond."