Imagine you stride into a twinkly, noisy casino with a wallet full of cash and a mind ready for a few rounds of fun gambling and some cocktails. Hours later, you’ve lost all that money and have no idea what time it is, or how many drinks you’ve consumed, or where your money went.
Gambling is often portrayed as a way to strike it rich, but the truth is that it’s not nearly as lucrative as it looks in the movies. There are plenty of tricks casinos use to make it hard for players to step away, including lights, sounds, and physical design. These tactics are designed to trick gamblers into thinking that they’re having fun, even when they’re not.
In games that require skill, like blackjack or roulette, the house edge can be minimized by playing optimal strategy. But even when you do that, your chances of winning are slim. This is because casinos take a percentage of the money you gamble, called the “house edge” or “variance”.
Few movies portray the mob life as well as Martin Scorsese’s Casino. It’s a perfect blend of Goodfellas brashness and lurid Vegas overindulgence, with De Niro’s Sam Rothstein and his buddy from back home, Joe Pesci’s Nicky Santoro, as the stars. The rest of the cast is solid, with Sharon Stone especially impressive as a blonde hustler.