Casinos are designed to be thrilling places that create an incredible buzz of excitement. Champagne glasses clink, locals and tourists mingle, and people play games that can be as simple as a spin of the roulette wheel or as complicated as poker. People gamble on everything from booze to hotel rooms, all while trying their hand at luck or skill at table games and slot machines.
Every game has a mathematical expectancy, meaning that it is very rare for a patron to win money at a casino. To counter this, casinos use their lights and sounds to make the casino appear brighter and more cheerful than it is, and they also give out free food and drinks (or comps) to big spenders in order to encourage them to keep playing. These rewards can sometimes offset a large loss and thus reduce the chance of an addict returning to the gambling table.
Something about gambling seems to encourage cheating and stealing, which is why casinos spend a lot of time, effort, and money on security. Casino also features a surprisingly bravura torture-by-vice sequence and some disturbingly edited baseball bat beatings, but Scorsese’s ambivalence is evident throughout the movie. He isn’t trying to sell Ace as a dashing underworld hero; instead, he reveals the darker side of his character and the way that gambling can be used to control others and take advantage of them.