A casino is a building or room where people play games of chance for money. Games include traditional casino card games, table games such as blackjack and roulette, and machines like slot machines and video poker. Casinos often have themed decor and music to create an atmosphere of excitement and fun. A good casino will have a variety of payment methods including cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, which are popular among players around the world.

Martin Scorsese’s Casino is a classic example of the mastery that is his signature. It lays bare the web of corruption that pervaded Vegas in its mob days and had tendrils reaching out to politicians, the Teamsters unions, and the Midwest mafia. It is also a masterful history lesson about how Vegas reinvented itself from a small gambling town to a giant casino-centered entertainment center.

The film’s stars are top-notch, with Robert De Niro delivering the performance of his career as Sam “Ace” Rothstein, who runs the Stardust hotel (renamed the Tangiers for the movie). His dynamic with mob strongman Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) is what makes Casino a compelling watch throughout.

Sharon Stone also delivers a memorable turn as the blonde hustler Ginger McKenna, who both builds on and inverts her performance from Basic Instinct. She is a perpetual motion machine, holding and sometimes leading the camera’s gaze, while spiking the energy with her ability to seduce and control men (“Smart hustlers like her could keep a guy awake for two or three days”). The costumes by Rita Ryack and John Dunn – mustard yellows and electric blues for the hoods, then slightly tacky 1970s period attire for Ginger – are spot-on.