Casino is a three-hour movie and one of Martin Scorsese’s longer films, yet it never lags or runs out of steam. The director’s masterful editing and taut narration keep the story a lean, mean thriller throughout. The cast, especially Robert De Niro’s Ginger McKenna and Joe Pesci’s Santoro, adds a level of tension that makes watching this movie an experience.

The film is an epic history lesson about Vegas and the rise of huge gambling corporations. It explains how the Mafia’s grip on the city began to loosen, and it shows how casinos helped turn Vegas into an exotic destination that attracts people from all over the world.

While Casino has some negative stereotypes about seedy backroom gambling parlors, the reality is that most casinos are regulated and well-run. Sure, some crime still occurs near some of them but it’s rare and usually kept under control. Casinos also generate a lot of tax revenue for their home cities.

The purpose of a casino is to encourage gamblers to spend more money than they have. To do this, casinos are designed to be visually stimulating with flashing lights and bright colors. They also feature sounds of coins dropping and triumphant music to entice players to play for more. They also use psychological tactics like close wins to make gamblers believe that they are winning all the time, which leads them to play for much longer than they originally planned.