A casino is a facility that offers gambling to a wide audience. Its goal is to provide a memorable experience that encourages game players to spend money repeatedly in hopes of winning big. This business relies on four things: the popularity of games, their odds, a player’s skill level and pure luck. The success of a casino also depends on how well it treats its patrons. The more a casino can attract and keep customers, the greater its profits.
In addition to providing an atmosphere that is inviting to gamblers, casinos use a variety of tricks to lure visitors and encourage them to gamble more. These include offering complimentary services to “good” players, such as free hotel rooms, meals, tickets to shows and limo service. In return for this hospitality, casinos must ensure that their security staff can monitor all activities.
Following the success of Goodfellas, Scorsese’s Casino brought organized crime and casino corruption into the mainstream, with De Niro and Joe Pesci reunited as Ace and Nicky. While the film is an entertaining and revealing glimpse of a specific time and place, it’s less an uncritical celebration of the past than a rueful cautionary tale about the ills of institutionalized grift.