Casino

When you love someone, you've gotta trust them.

There's no other way.

You've got to give them the key to everything that's yours.

Otherwise, what's the point?

And, for a while, I believed that's the kind of love I had.

Before I ever ran a casino, or got myself blown up...

Ace Rothstein was a hell of a handicapper, I can tell you that.

I was so good that whenever I bet, I could change the odds...

for every bookmaker in the country.

I'm serious, I had it down so cold...

that I was given paradise on earth.

I was given one of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas to run, the Tangiers...

by the only kind of guys that can actually get you that kind of money...

$62,700,000.

I don't know all the details.

Nobody knew all the details, but it should've been perfect.

I mean, he had me, Nicky Santoro, his best friend, watching his ass...

and he had, Ginger, the woman he loved, on his arm.

But in the end, we fucked it all up.

It should've been so sweet too.

But it turned out to be the last time that street guys like us...

were ever given anything that fuckin' valuable again.

At that time, Vegas was a place where millions of suckers...

flew in every year on their own nickel...

and left behind about a billion dollars.

But at night, you couldn't see the desert that surrounds Las Vegas.

But it's in the desert where lots of the town's problems are solved.

Got a lot of holes in the desert...

and a lot of problems are buried in those holes.

Except you gotta do it right.

I mean, you gotta have the hole already dug...

before you show up with a package in the trunk.

Otherwise, you're talking about a half hour or 45 minutes of diggin'.

And who knows who's gonna be comin' along in that time?

Before you know it, you gotta dig a few more holes.

You could be there all fuckin' night.

Who could resist?

Anywhere else in the country I was a bookie, a gambler...

always lookin' over my shoulder, hassled by cops, day and night.

But here, I'm Mr. Rothstein.

I'm not only legitimate, but running a casino.

And that's like selling people dreams for cash.

I hired an old casino pal, Billy Sherbert, as my manager, and I went to work.

...the casino manager. And this is Ronnie, who takes care of the card room.

For guys like me, Las Vegas washes away your sins.

It's like a morality car wash.

It does for us what Lourdes does for humpbacks and cripples.

And along with making us legit...

comes cash, tons of it.

I mean, what do you think we're doing out here in the middle of the desert?

It's all this money.

This is the end result of all the bright lights...

and the comp trips, of all the champagne...

and free hotel suites, and all the broads and all the booze.

It's all been arranged just for us to get your money.

That's the truth about Las Vegas.

We're the only winners.

The players don't stand a chance.

And their cash flows from the tables...

to our boxes through the cage...

and into the most sacred room in the casino.

The place where they add up all the money...

the holy of holies, the count room.

- Now, this place was off-limits. - Verify 3,000.

Even I couldn't get inside.

But it was my job to keep it filled with cash. That's for sure.

They had so much fuckin' money in there...

you could build a house out of stacks of hundred-dollar bills.

And the best part was that upstairs...

- the board of directors didn't know what the fuck was going on. - Five thousand.

I mean, to them everything looked on the up-and-up.

Right? Wrong.

Verify 5,000.

- The guys inside the counting room... - Five thousand.

Were all slipped in there to skim the joint dry.

They'd do short counts, they'd lose fill slips.

They'd even take cash right out of the drop boxes.

And it was up to this guy right here...

standin' in front of about two million dollars...

to skim the cash off the top without anybody gettin' wise...

- the IRS or anybody. - Verify 200.

Now, notice how in the count room nobody ever seems to see anything.

Somehow, somebody's always lookin' the other way.

Now, look at these guys. They look busy, right?

They're countin' money. Who wants to bother them?

I mean, God forbid they should make a mistake and forget to steal.

Meanwhile, you're in and you're out.

Past the jag-off guard who gets an extra C-note a week...

just to watch the door.

It's routine. Business as usual: In, out, hello, good-bye.

And that's all there is to it.

Just another fat fuck walkin' out of the casino with a suitcase.

Now that suitcase was goin' straight to one place:

Right to Kansas City, which was as close...

to Las Vegas as the Midwest bosses could go...

without gettin' themselves arrested.

That suitcase was all...

the bosses ever wanted.

- And they wanted it every month. - Hey, John, how was your ride?

Now this old Mormon fuck here...

he had to fly in with suitcases once a month, nice and easy.

- Somethin' smells good. - Yeah, they made us somethin' to eat.

The bosses would come from all over the place:

Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee...

all over the Midwest.

And they would meet in the back of this produce market in Kansas City.

I mean, nobody even knew it.

One of the guys made his mother do all the cookin'.

- Do you ever see that guy Jerry Steriano? - Jerry Steriano?

Now, these old greaseballs might not look it...

but believe me...

these are the guys who secretly control Las Vegas.

Mama, that man's here again.

Because they control the Teamsters Union.

And that's where you had to go if you wanted to borrow money to buy a casino.

- Would you put in shrimp? - I would.

Here you are, gentlemen.

Nobody got a Teamsters' loan unless the guys in this room...

knew they were gonna get their little suitcases.

Guys like this antique over here, out of Detroit.

Or especially guys like Remo Gaggi, the outfit's top boss.

You got a round figure on it?

- Definitely the most important guy in this room. - About 20 pounds.

- That's around 700,000. - Uh-huh, good.

I know it's a little early for Las Vegas...

But I do want to welcome the ladies and gentlemen of the gaming industry.

As far as the world was concerned...

Andy Stone, the head of the Teamsters' Pension Fund...

- was a legitimate guy. - This is a very auspicious occasion.

- A powerful man. - Philip, if you would rise.

He even played golf with the president.

On behalf of the Teamsters' Pension Fund...

- it is my pleasure to present to you... - But Andy also took orders.

And when he was told to give a pension fund loan to Philip Green...

this check for $62,700,000...

for the new Tangiers.

He did what he was told.

Now, here was the perfect front man.

What the fuck else could he be? He didn't know too much.

He didn't want to know too much...

especially that the bosses made the Teamsters lend him the money.

He wanted to believe the Teamsters...

gave him all that fuckin' money 'cause he was smart.

I know full well how much competition we have in this great city.

And where they got Green from?

Who the fuck knows?

All I know is that Green was an Arizona real estate hustler...

who barely had enough gas money...

to come and pick up his own fuckin' check.

And of course it was the bosses' man...

Andy Stone, who gave all the orders.

Not the chairman of the fuckin' board, Philip Green.

I understand. I understand.

Now all they needed was...

somebody they could trust to run the casino.

And who better than Ace? I mean, he was already in Vegas a couple years...

and he had the fuckin' place clocked.

But typical Ace, give him a shot at runnin' a casino...

and he tries to talk you out of it.

I don't know if I could do this even if I wanted to.

The Gaming Commission would never give me a license.

I have at least two dozen gambling and bookmaking pinches on me.

You don't have to have a license to work in a casino.

All you gotta do is apply for one.

The state law says that you can work in a casino...

while they're processing your application.

They got a ten-year backlog.

What happens when they do find out?

Why would they want to find out?

We're puttin' a hundred million into this desert. Why would they want to lock us out?

They'll never find out. All you gotta do is keep changing your job title.

Like, uh, from Casino Executive to Food and Beverage Chairman.

They take your application, they put it at the bottom of the pile.

I know guys been workin' there for 30 years, don't have a license.

It's a tough proposition, Andy.

You know if I did it, I'd have to run it my way.

You got it.

I'm serious, no interference.

Nobody's gonna interfere with your running the casino.

I guarantee it.

And that's how they got Ace to take over.

They wanted him because Ace ate, slept and breathed gambling.

They worked out a real cute job title too...

Tangiers Public Relations Director.

But the only thing he ever directed was the casino.

He made his first bet when he was 15 years old, and he always made money.

But he didn't bet like you or me.

You know, havin' some fun with it, shit like that.

Where the hell did you learn how to deal?

He bet like a fuckin' brain surgeon.

Place the checks properly.

- That's the way you do it. - Yes, sir.

He had to know everything, this guy.

He'd find out the kind of inside stuff nobody else knew...

and that's what he'd put his money on.

Even back home, years ago...

when we were first hangin' out...

he'd know if the quarterback was on coke...

I'll take Columbia for 20.

- If his girlfriend was knocked up. - Twenty dimes on Columbia.