Jack Reese, a professional thief and former gambler, attempts to steal the (fictional) Asger Jorn painting The Disturbing Duckling from an art museum with the help of his crew of Isabella Voltaic, Trey Peterson and Iggy. When Reese enters the museum, he finds out that the painting is no longer there and that he and his team have been compromised. They are forced to flee empty-handed.
Without any other options, Jack goes to confront notorious gang leader Darius “The Rumble” Grouch at his house, who hired Reese and his crew for the heist in the first place. Already in debt to Darius before the botched heist (and under the threat of harm to his family), Reese takes one more job from him to clear his debt: to sneak aboard the “Money Plane,” an airborne casino that caters to elite criminals, in order to steal its reserves of cryptocurrency and hard cash.
The night before embarking on the heist, Reese asks his best friend Harry Greer to keep an eye on his family while he is gone; Greer also offers to look into how the museum heist got compromised.
Jack and Trey board the plane under the guises of human traffickers Monroe and McGillicuddy while Isabella poses as one of the flight attendants. As the plane takes off, the Concierge and Bookkeeper welcome their guests, explaining the activities and amenities on board while informing them of the plane’s zero-tolerance stance on cheating. After several hands of Texas hold ’em poker, Jack leaves Trey in the main gambling room to subdue the pilots and take control of the plane.
While Trey improbably wins a series of games on the plane (including Russian roulette and betting on the outcome of a fight between a man and a cobra), Jack establishes contact with Iggy, who is on the ground to facilitate the transfer of the plane’s cryptocurrency, as well as taking calls from Darius who demands to be kept in the loop with the mission and reminds Reese of the consequences should the team fail.