Casino Is Not Just About the Money

A movie like Casino, with its thorny relationships and deceitful characters, is full of little moments that feel just right. There’s the way that the mob skimmed cash from slot machines, turning tons of coins into bills to be stuffed into weekly suitcases for delivery back to Kansas City. The way that the mafia’s muscle, Lefty Rosenthal, muscled himself into running a few casinos, including the Stardust, with a little help from his childhood friend and Chicago gangster Don Rickles (the movie’s main character). There’s also the way that casino cooks put “exactly the same amount of blueberries in every muffin.” And there are the airborne feds, circling hoods on golf courses to spy, who make crucial evidence available because a low-level hood kept a budget of his expenses.

Casino is one of Scorsese’s best films, and it does a terrific job of capturing the spirit of Vegas. But it’s not just about the mafia: It’s also about how the city itself feeds and spits out people.

Casino is one of the most fascinating movies ever made about the relationship between casinos and their patrons. It makes you realize how easy it is to get sucked into the euphoric environment they create, even when you’re not winning money. That’s why many casinos don’t have clocks or windows in their gaming areas: They want players to lose track of time, which will increase the likelihood that they will keep gambling and ultimately spend more money than intended.