Hacker Cinema
Casino
1995 · Film · 179 min
Directed by Martin Scorsese
In Las Vegas, two best friends-a casino executive and a Mafia enforcer--compete for a gambling empire and a fast-living, fast-loving socialite.
10 positive1 negative30 neutralfrom 41 commenters
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47 comments on Hacker News
Hard disagree about declarative "X is Y". It's a failure of weakening attention span. There are plenty of excellent long movies:
- Once Upon a Time in America (1984) 3:49
- Lawrence of Arabia (1962) 3:47
- The Irishman (2019) 3:29
- Malcolm X (1992) 3:22
- The Godfather Part II (1974) 3:22
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) 3:21
- Schindler's List (1992) 3:15
- Gandhi (1982) 3:11
- The Green Mile (1999) 3:09
- The Deer Hunter (1978) 3:03
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) 2:59
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) 2:58
- Casino (1995) 2:58
- Braveheart (1995) 2:58
- The Godfather (1972) 2:55
- Django Unchained (2012) 2:45
What I most object to is lazy storytelling for lazy, second-screen audiences lacking in style and subtlety having a robotic, spoon-fed, infantile, unnatural, expository narration quality in every character like it's a commercial for an antacid.
The movie Casino was loosely based on him. Worth a watch, but also actually looking the real guy up.
Was the ", again" left off, or is this going to be the first time you've seen the movie when you do watch it? I know new people are born every day, but Casino is one of those movies that I'd have expected any one old enough to be reading this board to have seen already. This is no judgment on anyone for not seeing it. Just a comment on my skewed view of the world I guess
The movie _Casino_ highlights how insider information was and is used to improve the house odds [0].
Information about a players wellbeing and their life goes a long way. Example, they would pay paper boys to talk to coaches to find out non public information. Such as if a player of the team is going through relationship problems.
[0] https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/524-casino
I use the locks my insurance company recommends. That's who it's there for anyways.
The other side is "career" thieves will know how to pop-can shim a lock but most of them are not going to use or break out a set of picks. One main reason it's an additional felony charge if you get caught using them. So a _slightly_ better lock is sometimes warranted for outdoor applications.
The final piece is they'll just steal a car and then drive that car through your shop front to get what they want. Up here in Northern California a gang pulled off the same heist as the movie "Casino." They drove a van up to a wall and then knocked out a small segment of the wall to gain entry.
I finally got around to watching that a year or two ago. That scene is among several that are just remarkable bits of work, but somehow the whole film itself felt like a slog.
I feel like that's the problem generally with late career Scorsese. The last of his films that felt consistently interesting and free of flab was, to me, Casino, though he got close for me with The Aviator and The Departed.
This is just some guy's top 50 favorite movies. And if you'd gone just one year further, to 1995, you'd have gotten Heat, Braveheart, Casino, 12 Monkeys, The Usual Suspects, and Toy Story. The Basketball Diaries doesn't hold up, at all, but Apollo 13 was great.
(I will stick up for Heat, but my god, the shoulder pads).
Loved the Riv, I was there at a very similar time as you I think. I liked the steps when you walked in, and all the places they shot Casino at. I saw a cool show in the theater which is also shown in Casino. I guess I’m more a movie guy than a casino guy, but I love Vegas. The food court was absolutely run down and awful and we lost at roulette, but I don’t bet large. Hats off to you for having a good counting game. I play blackjack like a sucker but I usually do OK.
I'm glad op rethought it. But how the hell do you go into the casino business and not realise you're doing something that is a social net negative. Have you not heard of the film Casino. Or how do you not realise you're going into the casino business, I guess?
First, I love this story. I'm on your side. For me personally, the most charming detail is that he paid in cash. I guess it was a while ago! Your story makes me think of the scene from the film "Casino" when the mafia guys spit into the "free" sandwiches that they give to the police. (Ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPufB6oaJFE)
It is weird to me that a guy like that even bothers to pick up his own daily black iced tea. Once you are making a few million dollars per year (and you have a net worth > 1B USD), I would assume that everything would be brought to you. Literally, have an assistant who does all of this stuff and brings it to your office. The most highly paid people that I have ever observed up close were in non-stop meetings all day long -- talkin' money! They had no time to buy their own daily coffee or lunch. There was an assistant who would bring everything to their office. That said, maybe he did it to "feel normal". For any human being, having a net worth > 1B USD must really screw with your world view.
The dealerships are just an arms length b*ch of the automaker
Just remember these simple things when buying a car at a dealership
1. Don’t play 4 square, cut to the chase. If they ask if youre paying cash or financing say you are open to either option, but focus on the bottom dollar
2. Whoever you’re talking to is not the person you’re negotiating with, they are just a front. This is the case with most retail sales including windows, flooring, siding, and curtains. The first time the guy pauses and has to ask or talk to a manager is the first time you’ve actually negotiated anything. The first time they “ask their manager” they might just go for coffee. Don’t just accept that they leave their office to talk to the manager, watch where they go. Find a reason for them to leave the room at least 3 times.
3. Even if you don’t think you are you’re going to end up in “the box” it’s harder to say no to a female statically so you may end up with a woman. Don’t be hung up on gender, ask questions, don’t get bullied. If your question doesn’t get answered, don’t move to the next topic.
4. Just watch the movie “Used Cars” it’s fun. Do not think it’s all a joke
5. In the words of “Casino” (1995) . It’s all been arranged to get your money.
Oh come on, kids are watching movies like Goodfellas and Casino. Me mentioning someone losing an air is hardly going to give anyone sleepless nights.
>> “We’ve lived it. We’ll never give up our collection. Ever. And maybe, one day, you’ll be the one to come and barter a loaf of bread for our DVD of Casino.”
If we eventually live the dystopian bread-trading future, it won't be a guy with a stack of DVDs that is king. It will be the guy with a NAS full of every Oscar-winning movie for the last forty years.
The author of this piece (Nicholas Pileggi) later wrote the books that became the Martin Scorsese films Goodfellas and Casino (and wrote the screenplays for these as well). More than anything, he seems keen on capturing exactly how these guys talk (or at least presenting a memorable version of it).
I live in an area of Chicagoland that was a hub of the Chicago Outfit, a short walk from the house where Sam Giancana was murdered, but it's really no more interesting than all the rest of the backstory of the city. Into the 1970s, organized crime might have had some salience for civilians like us, but I think it's been decades since it mattered.
Which is interesting, because so many people (especially abroad) seem to think the area is defined by mafia-type organized crime. I was in a thread a few months back with someone who brought Frank Nitti into an argument about crime in Chicago!
The most interesting thing about the MKE story here is the connection to the movie Casino.
In the words of Ace Rothstein in the movie Casino.
” You can spot these assholes by watching the way they bet. Like this guy. He's bettin' lavender chips at five hundred each with only one little problem. He's always guessed right. If he wasn't so fuckin' greedy, he'd have been tougher to spot. But in the end, they're all greedy.”
I guess they thought I produced the bluffing player's card to prevent the other player from folding. But you're right that a dealer who was trying to do that could've done so in any number of subtle ways. I couldn't really figure out why they were accusing me at the time, or what I would've gained from it, but it all happened very fast.
There are dealers who are true shuffle mechanics and either know for sure or have a very good idea of who has what. I'm not that skilled.
I re-watched the movie "Casino" recently, and there's a scene where the Joe Pesci character cans a floor man for not stopping a slot machine run after the first or second time someone hits a jackpot in a night. Paraphrasing the movie: "Either he was in on or he's a fucking moron, either way we can't have him here". To bring it back to the original topic, I think in the gambling world, the default assumption is that there's a scam and the employee is guilty until proven innocent. I wonder why that wouldn't apply to a shady firm like Alameda, too, unless management was "in on it". Come to think of it, I guess that's the point of my story, which I didn't realize when I wrote it.
Casino, by Nicholas Pileggi is the inside story of the Mafia and the casinos. It is what inspired the Hollywood movies.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/387627.Casino is
What about Casino? That always comes back as my favorite movie of his. And at a respectful 178 minutes.
> Nicky (from the movie Casino): Where the f** do you get off talking to people about me behind my back going over my head?
I'm guessing if he does a chargeback he gets banned from AirBnB.
Even most of his mobster movies aren't really about being depressed or Italian.
Casino's main character is Jewish. Gangs of New York is about Irish Catholics and American Protestants. The Departed is about Irishes. The Wolf of Wall Street may be about depression (haven't seen it), but is not about violence nor about Italians. The Irishman certainly has a lot of depression, and certainly violence and Italians, but even then.....it's called the "Irishman".
Goodfellas is probably the one prime example that is certainly about violence and Italians, and I'm not sure that's that depressed.
Yes, this is my point, and the commenter is displaying exactly the moral tendency I'm wary of in cinema.
Ironically, if you just watch the darn film, you see it for what it is. It's also not a morality tale, it's mostly just entertainment. They're all faulty people, and 'it's complicated'. You can hate them and sympathise with them at the same time.
I suggest almost nobody has a problem with 'Casino' the way it is - I do however believe that it wouldn't get made today, for exactly the 'moral concerns' that the commenter indicated.
Not only are studios risk averse, there's a culture of people who would just feel such a depiction immoral and 'problematic' as though everything we see is a morality tale, or, that these films directly influence behaviour a bit like Joe Rogan yapping on about vaccines when he probably should not be ... except that this is different.
And possibly generation of writers who don't come across enough 'ugly people' in real life to provide fodder as writing material. We're just all becoming a bit too genteel without accents, colour, hints of ethnic orientation.
Oh - and teeth. Look at the teeth. Everyone has perfect teeth on film. It's hilarious. It happened over a few years, but now it's unthinkable that someone doesn't have a perfect smile, even the bad guys. Compare it to British TV where they don't select for that and it becomes obvious.
The baddies had braces and definitely use 'Crest Strips' and god forbid they don't smoke or drink coffee!
Wolf of Wall Street is Scorsese, aka 'Casino'.
One of the few remaining greats.
I agree Andor has better writing.
I could be crazy, but I feel that there is a 'sanitzation' happening, and it could be a multi-faceted thing.
Of course there is 'violence' but it's generally very clean and surreal, even when they are trying really hard to make it dirty, it just feels fake.
It might even just be bland writing by people with limited life experience?
But I feel that we are all 'careful about what we say' in a way we were not before.
On Smartless and Conan all the actors just tell each other how much they 'love one aother', it's purid, a bit revolting. ('aka' I hope you consider me for you next project and don't think I'm one of the 'bad people').
Where are the deviants? Wierdos? Trolls? Odd looking people?
Just Google 'Character Actor' - and you get a long list of old guys!
Scorsese packs his films with tons of very regular looking people, and the production design embellishes but it feels very real, just part of why I think his villains are more 'scary'.
The Joe Pesci "You Think I'm Funny?" from Goodfellas is one of the most unsettling bits in cinema - and consider how simple the scene is and even the relative power dynaic of the characters. He's not the head of the mob, or even a mass murderer like 'Dahmer'.
And probaably 'globalism' aka 'global audiences' is a primary factor among others.
Anyhow - Kermit himself is a classic case.
Have a look at this classic Kermit and Cookie Monster, the later throws a wrench into Kermits thing and he gets pissed. For some reason that level of emotional reality just does not exist on Barney or Paw Patrol.
Watching Paw Patrol feels dystopian, I watch my newphews watching that and it feels more like a 'visual opioid' than anything else.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=kermit+being+violent&client=firefox-b-d&biw=1077&bih=580&tbm=vid&sxsrf=AJOqlzWNcW5UfqiwqhUeMIitHv2lzA8ZtQ%3A1675404150796&ei=dqPcY-eXMLjl5NoPvZqqiAo&ved=0ahUKEwjnqo3q1vj8AhW4MlkFHT2NCqEQ4dUDCAw&uact=5&oq=kermit+being+violent&gs_lcp=Cg1nd3Mtd2l6LXZpZGVvEAMyBQghEKABOgcIIxCwAhAnOgUIABCRAjoFCAAQgAQ6CggAEIAEEBQQhwI6BwghEKABEAo6CAghEBYQHhAdUOACWNhNYPxQaAlwAHgAgAF4iAGHEJIBBDE5LjSYAQCgAQHAAQE&sclient=gws-wiz-video#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:9e0eab1a,vid:y-Z1BFLteSw
> Yeah but that show isn’t for kids.
Neither was Casino, the upthread film that “couldn’t be made now”. The question was a “popular film”, not a “kids film”.
The OG Kermit was a beatnick frog poet! [1]
Henson's Kermit had a kind of realism, he was kind but not cotton candy airhead.
He showed contempt, anger, hints of cynicism and sarcasm sometimes even hints of what we would call 'violence' in todays parlance - but profoundly humanist.
Every GenXer hates 'Barnie' the syruppy naive Dinosaur because he's an inauthentic fool, I think that says a lot about generations. The 'villains' in Gen X films used terrible language because they were 'bad guys' and all of them complicated. See 'Casino' for stellar peformances by Pesci/Deniro/Shrone Stone . You can't make that film today because of depictions of violence against women, ugly slurs. But it's clearly very good. But 'verbotten' for common creators who have to make their way through the industry.
Barnie kids villains aren't allowed to be evil.
I really think kids ought to have more rounded role models, and not infantile empty characters.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hDXscFh5co
I know some people in pharma and Covid was the best thing that ever happened to their reputation.
To use a quote from the movie Casino..
“For companies like Pfizer, Covid washes away your sins. It's a morality car wash. It does for us what Lourdes does for humpbacks and cripples.”
This article [0] from 1999 on Texas Hold'em shows how bad some developers have fouled up card shuffling algorithms.
> In a real deck of cards, there are 52! (approximately 2^226) possible unique shuffles. When a computer shuffles a virtual deck of cards, it selects one of these possible combinations. There are many algorithms that can be used to shuffle a deck of cards, some of which are better than others (and some of which are just plain wrong).
> The shuffling algorithm used in the ASF software always starts with an ordered deck of cards, and then generates a sequence of random numbers used to re-order the deck. Recall that in a real deck of cards, there are 52! (approximately 2^226) possible unique shuffles. Also recall that the seed for a 32-bit random number generator must be a 32-bit number, meaning that there are just over 4 billion possible seeds. Since the deck is reinitialized and the generator re-seeded before each shuffle, only 4 billion possible shuffles can result from this algorithm. Four billion possible shuffles is alarmingly less than 52!.
> The RST exploit itself requires five cards from the deck to be known. Based on the five known cards, our program searches through the few hundred thousand possible shuffles and deduces which one is a perfect match. In the case of Texas Hold'em poker, this means our program takes as input the two cards that the cheating player is dealt, plus the first three community cards that are dealt face up (the flop). These five cards are known after the first of four rounds of betting and are enough for us to determine (in real time, during play) the exact shuffle. Figure 5 shows the GUI we slapped on our exploit. The "Site Parameters" box in the upper left is used to synchronize the clocks. The "Game Parameters" box in the upper right is used to enter the five cards and initiate the search. Figure 5 is a screen shot taken after all cards have been determined by our program. We know who holds what cards, what the rest of the flop looks, and who is going to win in advance.
> Once it knows the five cards, our program generates shuffles until it discovers the shuffle that contains the five cards in the proper order. Since the Randomize() function is based on the server's system time, it is not very difficult to guess a starting seed with a reasonable degree of accuracy. (The closer you get, the fewer possible shuffles you have to look through.) Here's the kicker though; after finding a correct seed once, it is possible to synchronize our exploit program with the server to within a few seconds. This post facto synchronization allows our program to determine the seed being used by the random number generator, and to identify the shuffle being used during all future games in less than one second!
From the NY Times article [1]:
> The ASF vulnerability lies in a faulty implementation of what is known as a pseudo-random number generator to produce a shuffled deck of cards before each round of play. The order of each shuffled deck is completely determined by one number, known as the seed. In this case, the program chose a seed based on the time, measured in milliseconds since midnight. By synchronizing their program with the system clock on the server generating the seed, Mr. McGraw and his associates were able to narrow the number of possible decks to about 200,000. Then, given the cards dealt and the community cards in the center, they could quickly compute which deck was being used.
Your friend's strategy of only playing poor players is a lot safer than breaking the casino's wallet. I'm reminded of the scene in the movie Casino [2] where casino staff drag the cheaters into the basement and threaten to cut off their hands with a power saw.
[0] - https://web.archive.org/web/20060205100630/http://www.developer.com/java/other/article.php/616221
[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/13/business/compressed-data-e-gambling-software-gave-players-an-edge.html
[2] - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112641/
People think about space travel exactly in the same terms as the History of European Colonialism. Like exactly. Every first contact movie "take me to your leader" is right out of the letters to the king written by Hernán Cortez and Francisco Pizarro, looting the Aztec and by far the most gigantic, the Kechwa fortune after taking the Inca hostage. That's like 200 years of Chile's current gold production, and this is a mining country with modern technology to the point it exports eg explosives for mining. Just an insane amount of gold whose accounting was not possible to do correctly. Like doing the accounting of a casino from the movie Casino. Gold like it was iron ingots. Fucking stupid stupid amounts of wealth, all for going overseas.
So people think, OK, who plays the Europeans? Some movies say Earthlings do, other movies say aliens do. Either way, plunder and pillage. Like one movie, very enlightened, said the aliens just wanted our gold. That's wantable. But like think of it in terms of apes, like a primatologist. Aliens would be going somewhere with shit technology right? Well the real reason would be to get our nice biosphere, before we wreck it long-term ourselves. That they could want. So, for a rough handle for alien's interest in humans, look at primatology or study of cetaceans. Yeah we spend trillions on space travels, rockets, telescopes. I doubt we've even spent a billion on primatology. Cetaceans I think has cost more than a billion. There's just way more money and brains in whales than apes.
I think space colonization will be similar to European Colonialism but only for the Solar System. After that, it sucks. And it doesn't stop sucking for at least 700 light-years.
> Casinos are not the same thing and exist to part fools (or rich people already set for life) from their money, no matter how badass some movies make them out to be.
Viewing a casino as a place to make money is certainly an error. However with smart play and a bankroll of $20,000 or more you can get a VIP experience at an excellent average price in Las Vegas. A room, food, and beverage comp from your host can easily have a nominal daily value in the low four digits if you have a nice room and eat and drink at the nice places owned by the property you play at. You will be expected to spend a minimum of four hours a day at the tables though, so it’s not really worth it unless you enjoy the games. Personally I find blackjack and craps entertaining, albeit for very different reasons. Incidentally those games are very close to even odds.
You don’t have to beat the house edge, you just have to beat the house edge less their marketing budget. The casino allocates marketing dollars, that is comps, based on your theoretical loss. Last I knew for blackjack the theo assumed a 2% house edge and marketing will refund about 30% of that in comps. That’s regardless of how well or poorly you do. Since even competent basic strategy brings the house edge down to a 0.5% you’re already ahead there.
That will be a fascinating experience: we've had decades of film and TV made either me-too or as a riposte to the films - and The Sopranos was the latter - so it will probably land very differently for you to people who saw it before Casino, Goodfellas, Sopranos, etc.
I distinctly remember feeling like 1995 was absolutely amazing year for cinema.
Toy story, Braveheart, Apollo 13, Usual Suspects, Heat, Casino, Seven, Clueless, 12 Monkeys, Babe, Get Shorty, Leaving Las Vegas, etc.
A great time to be going to the Cinema.
> 70mm film looks great in 4K though (2001, Nolan movies, etc).
Best to leave modern productions (like Nolan) out of the conversation, IMO. It can give an unrealistic picture of what resolution is achievable. Take Lawrence of Arabia for example: it's possibly the paradigmatic example of a 70mm film, and yet in most scenes the resolution is no better than an upscaled 1080p. This is due to a combination of problems: film stock degrades relatively quickly and was generally of lower quality 50+ years ago than today, and focus pulling was not precise enough to take full advantage of the available resolving power of 70mm film.
Unfortunately this is also true for many scenes in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Take a look at these comparisons here: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=12517&d2=12509&s1=124352&s2=124257&i=11&l=1 You're looking at an upscaled 1080p film versus native 4k (tonemapped to have roughly comparable colors on SDR screens). There's little if any more detail in the 4k image.
On the other hand, 35mm film certainly can have details visible only in 4k, especially more recent stuff. Check out this comparison for Casino (1995), the difference is unbelievable: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=13389&d2=13388&s1=134076&s2=134058&x=0&y=0&i=9&a=0&go=1&l=1
I agree with you about HDR though. It's certainly the most important improvement that's come up in the last decade, much more than the resolution increase.
> It's a shame there is no 1080p HDR content. 35mm movies would benefit a lot more of higher color bit depth that higher resolution. Anyone knows if this is a codec limitation?
Yes and no. The standard for Blu-ray (which uses H.264) is not able to accommodate HDR or 4k, so it was not possible until the release of the UHD Blu-ray standard. Players with the UHD standard support 4k, HDR, and the HEVC codec instead of H.264. HEVC (aka H.265) can support HDR at any resolution, but since you're releasing a "UHD" disc anyway that only people with supporting players can use, you may as well put it on there in 4k anyway. Better for marketing, probably. So it's a bit complicated. If you check bittorrent trackers, you'll probably be able to find 1080p films with HDR (encoded with HEVC), but no one in the industry releases films that way.
(Also, the higher bit depth is not quite as important as the extended dynamic range.)
"If some nativist in this country had warned in 1900 that mass Italian immigration would bring us vendetta-obsessed crime clans, capable of getting their tentacles on the public life (and budgets) of major American cities while also corrupting the American labor movement for most of the coming century, he would have been dismissed, correctly, as a bigot."
It's an incredible page of history, the amount of power and influence organized crime welded for much of the middle years (1950s-1980s) across the US.
With the amount of power they had, the lasting mythology seems, what is that phrase, apropos? I can't speak to the same level as MisterTea (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25429901) but coming from a city with a history of heavy mob activity, Philadelphia to be specific, you hear the same kinds of stories from family and very infrequently, you still encounter groups of 2-3 guys at a bar or restaurant where you think, let's give them a wide berth.
I might as well tell my two stories.
A relative who works in finance took some clients out to a restaurant in South Philly in the 80s. The 80s were a violent time in the Philly mob and also the FBI was starting to make major inroads in their fight. So 4 guys not from the neighborhood, in suits, at a restaurant in South Philly. And this relative, he noticed a guy at the end of the bar, eyeing them hard and so he asked the bar tender, "hey, is that who I think it is?" And the bar tender: "I dunno, who do you think it is?" Relative: "Well, I think I know who it is. Just tell him we're not the feds, we're just a bunch of bankers out to dinner." The guy at the end of the bar was the leader of the mob at the time (his name escapes me) but he nodded to them and bought them a bottle of wine. You hear a story like this and you understand the mythology, it's almost like it was a pleasant time. But that was just a veneer.
My one personal story on this topic speaks more to the mythology. A few years back, I was went to a 76ers game with some out-of-town (from the mid-west but not Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland, like far mid-west) co-workers. The 76ers play in South Philly and so I took them out down there after the game. I don't know how we got on the subject but one of my co-workers asked, "This is South Philly, you know the show the Sopranos? how real is that?" I said something like "First off, that's the North Jersey mob, so you don't really have to worry about them down here because this is the Philly Mob's turf. That being said, I think they're allies because they both work in Atlantic City and..." and then tried to explain how the different crime families interact, and how they have apparently fallen on hard times. Anyway, there's nothing really special about my story however I did take from it that, the American mafia experience can be a very regional thing. I had never realized that there are parts of the country that didn't have this shared history of organized crime. I just kind of assumed the entire country was under their control for 30-40 years. That's some mythology.
Best mob movie: Casino.
I absolutely agree on the rental risk factor. It discourages discovery of new things. In addition to that, the rental terms on these services suck.
Here's an example: A month ago, my wife and I rented Casino from Amazon Prime for like $3 or whatever. It is a long movie, so we paused half way through with a plan to finish it the next day. The next evening rolls around and we discover we only had 24 hours to finish it once we had started it. We just paid again cause its only $3, but also resolved to never rent from Amazon Prime again.
These systems are a worse experience than pirating. It doesn't have to be that way.
> Godfather - Goodfellas - Casino, those are the three must see imo
Provided you are into graphic violence and fat Italian dudes :)
Godfather - Goodfellas - Casino, those are the three must see imo. That and every episode of the Sopranos, but it’ll take you at least a week to binge watch those.
This reminds of the famous 'Whackings' scene from the movie The Casino.
Reference: https://youtu.be/m4NUFTwAlQc
Certainly, that was depicted in the movie Casino for example. Not that I would take a Hollywood movie as any sort of history lesson, but it is demonstrative of that point of view. Taking it as the true explanation for the sake of argument, why does the same thing not happen in Mexico?
> There is a scene in the movie Casino where there are two guys collaborating and cheating at a table game. One of the internal security people dressed discretely in a suit walks up with a cattle prod.
It's a movie, that would never happen in any big casino (for one, way too many witnesses).
Even if it does not break any laws, if they suspect you are cheating they can just ban you from the casino and blacklist you from all casinos.
Alternatively...
There is a scene in the movie Casino where there are two guys collaborating and cheating at a table game. One of the internal security people dressed discretely in a suit walks up with a cattle prod.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYa1IsxGVuc
I was just thinking that they recently got some good content added.
These were all added this month: Batman Begins, Clerks, Gran Torino, Million Dollar Baby, No Reservations, Stripes, The Aviator, and The Fellowship of the Ring. The entire Comedians in Cars series is a lot of fun. Heat, The Godfather, Gangs of New York, Casino, and Seven.
Maybe you're bored of all that, but it's not like the films on Netflix are universally terrible.
> large sums of money cashed out an casinos
cashed out?
that's not how you do it. it's about a corrupt casino funnelling the money in and pretending it is gambling earnings..
see also: the movie 'casino' (unsurprisingly)
Sure besides lots of physical and op-sec, your best bet is to insure yourself w/ payoff money that is liquid and untraceable. Failing all else, you could offer this to your kidnappers and hope that they are satisfied not to go to the trouble of having to involve other parties thus increasing their risk of incrimination. See my comment about "Casino" the movie...
For my money I would much, much rather own shares of stock in my retirement plan than have a state- or corporate-backed pension.
Have you seen the movie Casino? That actually happened, the Teamsters pension fund came under control of the mob.
What about Illinois, which is facing a $120 billion pension shortfall due to decades of accounting gimmicks?
What about the UAW guys, who were counting on pensions from the big 3?
All I'm saying is, look at how it _actually_ works, in practice, vs. how it _could_ work, in theory. The reality is, DB plans are getting phased out because they're too expensive to service, and too risky for employees.
You can make the argument that people aren't getting compensated enough, and maybe that's true, but that's not an argument about DB vs. DC.
The point is, there are no certainties in this world, and if someone tells you there are, they're lying.
IANAL but there are a few things in this matter that seem to be common knowledge. How these things will apply to a specific instance is for lawyers to discuss. The law, at least in Nevada, does defer to the casino's right to do business with whomsoever it chooses. The law does not permit the casino to beat a card counter up (like in the movie "Casino") but they can insist that such a customer leave and never come back, and in those cases at least in Nevada, when such a customer tries to return, they may become a trespasser [1].
[1]http://www.pandullolaw.com/Criminal-Defense/Trespassing.aspx
As the guy in "Casino" movie said, they're all greedy.
so many of remember the movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino_(film)
How can you maximize before you get kicked out....you always get kicked out.