Casino is more than just a crime story — it’s a powerful lesson about power, greed, love, and betrayal. These quotes show how sharp Scorsese’s writing is, and how deeply these characters are drawn. Greed blinds everyone — and by the time they realize it, it’s already over. Everyone working at the Star Sydney Paysafecard casino is expected to steal for the mob — that’s just how it works.
Scorsese and Pileggi collaborated on the script for five months, towards the end of 1994. Real-life characters were reshaped, such as Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, Geri McGee, Anthony Spilotro, Spilotro's brother Michael, SkyCrown community forums Spilotro's right-hand man Frank Cullotta, and high stakes live dealer mob boss Joseph Aiuppa. Some characters were combined, and parts of the story were set in Kansas City instead of Chicago.
And after that, I hope to make Gershwin, a musical. After spending so much time with those people in Vegas I’ve got to try something radically different. This was a very consuming film, and the negativity of the people was very difficult. But I’m sure the next one will be difficult for other reasons. It wasn’t that we didn’t have any room, but certain songs and pieces of music, when you play them against picture, change everything. In Goodfellas the sound is more Phil Spector, while in this picture it’s more the Stones, especially "Can’t You Hear Me Knocking? You’ve worked with Dante Ferretti on a number of films.
Sam himself is almost killed in a car bomb, and suspects Nicky was behind it. Sam meets and falls in love with a hustler and former prostitute, Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone). Meanwhile, Sam makes an enemy in county commissioner Pat Webb (L.Q. Jones) for firing his brother-in-law Don Ward (John Bloom) for incompetence. When Sam refuses to reinstate him, Webb pulls Sam's license from the backlog, forcing him to face a hearing for his gaming license while secretly arranging for the board to deny Sam.
De Niro and Pesci are as one might expect on top form with Sam looking to be in control and Pesci a fine foil. Stone deservedly earned plaudits, lighting up the screen whenever she appears. Casino focuses on Sam Rothstein (De Niro), a Jewish American gambling expert handicapper tasked by the Chicago Outfit to oversee TI casino personnel and hotel operations at the Tangiers Casino in Las Vegas. It also marked Scorsese’s third collaboration with Joe Pesci as Nicky Santoro, Sam’s right hand man. The real highlight of the film however wasn’t its two leading men but Sharon Stone as Ginger McKenna earning rave reviews and an Academy Award nomination – indeed the film’s sole Oscar nomination. Marty's movies have pretty good detailing, and it's so in this movie, as he depicts the nitty gritties of the casino operations.
During its five-day Thanksgiving holiday weekend, Casino opened in fifth place at the box office, grossing $14.5 million. The film grossed $43 million domestically and $73 million internationally, for a total of $116 million worldwide, against a $40–50 million production budget. In 1986, the bosses, finally fed up with Nicky's recklessness and attempt on Sam's life, order Frankie and his crew to kill Nicky and Dominick. Invited to attend a meetup in a remote Illinois cornfield, they are brutally beaten with baseball bats upon arriving, stripped of their clothes, and buried alive in a shallow grave. With the Mafia now out of the casino industry, nearly all the old casinos are demolished, and new casinos are built with money from junk bonds. Sam laments the new impersonal, corporate-run resorts of Las Vegas. Casino follows Sam "Ace" Rothstein (De Niro), a Jewish American gambling expert handicapper who is asked by the Chicago Outfit to oversee the day-to-day casino and hotel operations at the Tangiers Casino in Las vegas casino chat feature.
But for him it isn’t winning 10,000, it’s losing 90,000, because normally he bets 100,000." Ace opines, "In the end, we get it all." Amusingly, when Rosenfeld launched this real-life TV entertainment it was hit by technical glitches, the station instead transmitting, fittingly, on the opening night, Anthony Mann’s The Fall of the Roman Empire. But all good things must come to an end, and for Nicky, BetCity affiliate program those desert holes he kept digging in advance will come back to haunt him.
