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Casino is a 1995 crime drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Nicholas Pileggi, who also co-wrote the screenplay for the film with Scorsese. The two previously collaborated on the 1990 hit film Goodfellas.

Robert De Niro stars as Sam “Ace” Rothstein, a Jewish-American top gambling handicapper who is called by the Mob to oversee the day-to-day operations at the fictional Tangiers casino in Las Vegas. The story is based on Frank Rosenthal, who ran the Stardust, Fremont and the Hacienda casinos in Las Vegas for the Chicago Outfit from the 1970s until the early 1980s.

Joe Pesci plays Nicky Santoro, based on real-life mob enforcer Anthony Spilotro. Nicky is sent to Vegas to make sure that money from the Tangiers is skimmed off the top and that the mobsters in Vegas are kept in line. Sharon Stone plays Ginger, Ace’s wife, a role that earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Plot

Sam “Ace” Rothstein (De Niro), a sports handicapper and mob associate, is sent to Las Vegas to run the Teamsters-funded Tangiers Casino on behalf of several midwest mob families. Taking advantage of lax gaming laws allowing him to work at the casino while his gaming license is in the backlog for processing, Sam becomes the Tangiers’ defacto boss and doubles the casino’s profits, which are skimmed by the Mafia before the records are reported to income tax agencies. Impressed with Sam’s work, the bosses send Sam’s friend, enforcer Nicholas “Nicky” Santoro (Pesci), to protect Sam and the whole business. Nicky, however, begins to become more of a liability than an asset, as his brash attitude quickly gets him banned by the gaming board from every casino, and his name is placed in the black book. Nicky then gathers his own crew and begins running unsanctioned shakedowns and burglaries.

Sam, meanwhile, meets and falls in love with a hustler, Ginger McKenna (Stone). Despite Ginger’s reluctance, they soon conceive a daughter, Amy, and marry. But their relationship slowly begins to fall apart when Ginger is caught by Sam and Nicky aiding her former boyfriend, a con man named Lester Diamond (James Woods). Sam also makes an enemy in Clark County Commissioner Pat Webb (L. Q. Jones) by firing Webb’s brother-in-law Donald Ward (Joe Bob Briggs) from the casino for his incompetence. Sam refuses to reinstate Ward, despite pressure from Webb to do so. Webb retaliates by pulling Sam’s casino license application from the backlog, forcing Sam to have a license hearing, but secretly arranges for the gaming board and State Senator Harrison Roberts of the State of Nevada (Dick Smothers) to reject the license. Sam responds by appearing on television and openly accuses the city government of corruption. The bosses, unappreciative of Sam’s publicity, ask him to return home, but he stubbornly blames Nicky’s reckless lawbreaking for his mess. In a heated argument in the desert, Nicky chastises Sam to never “go over his head”.

The bosses appoint Kansas City mobster Artie Piscano to oversee the skim and reduce the amount local mobsters are keeping for themselves, but he keeps incriminating ledgers and is caught on an FBI bug discussing the skim. Sam finally reaches the end of his patience with Ginger after she and Lester are in Los Angeles with plans to run away to Europe with his daughter Amy. Sam talks Ginger into bringing Amy back, but her addictions anger Sam so much that he kicks her out of the house. She returns, on Sam’s condition that she carry a beeper on her for Sam to contact her whenever he must. Ginger turns to Nicky for help in getting her share of her and Sam’s money from the bank, and they begin a sexual affair, which according to mob rules, could get the two of them killed (as well as Nicky’s crew for covering it up). Sam reaches his limit with Ginger when she ties Amy to her bedposts to have a night with Nicky. Sam confronts Ginger in the restaurant and disowns her. She turns to Nicky, but he has lost patience with her as well. The next morning, Ginger goes to Sam’s house, creates a domestic disturbance, and uses the distraction to take the key to their bank deposit box. She takes some of the savings, but is then arrested by FBI agents.

With Ginger’s arrest and the FBI’s discovery of Piscano’s records, which are then matched with the skimming operation, the casino empire crumbles and the bosses are arrested. During a meeting, they decide to eliminate anyone involved in order to keep them from testifying. At the same time, Ginger suspiciously dies in Los Angeles after taking “A hot dose” and Sam is almost killed in a botched car bombing, which he blames on Nicky. Nicky and his brother Dominick are themselves subsequently killed by Nicky’s own crew burying them alive, the midwest bosses finally out of patience with him.

With the mob now out of power, the old casinos are purchased by big corporations and demolished to make way for much gaudier gambling attractions financed by junk bonds. Sam laments that this new “family friendly” Las Vegas lacks the same kind of catering to the players as the older and, to his perception, classier Vegas he saw when he ran the Tangiers. In the final scene, an older Sam is shown living in San Diego, once again as a sports handicapper for the mob, or in his words, “…right back where I started”.