A casino is a place where people can gamble and try their luck. It’s where champagne glasses clink, and gamblers and tourists mingle to create a festive atmosphere. It’s also where people can enjoy other entertainment options like bingo, poker, and karaoke. Besides gambling, casinos offer other services like spas, restaurants, and bars.

Casino, a sprawling and complex drama, lays bare an intricate web of corruption in Sin City, with tendrils extending to the Teamsters unions, Chicago mob, and a Kansas City mafia faction headed by Sam “Ace” Rothstein. The film, based on Nicholas Pileggi’s book Casino, is a spiritual sequel to Scorsese’s Goodfellas. It also stars Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, completing their collaborative trilogy begun with Raging Bull.

Unlike other crime films, Casino is largely unapologetic about its violent and profane depictions of mafia-style criminality. Its early sequence with Ginger —a character who spiked the movie’s energy after her star turn in Basic Instinct —is a tour-de-force, as she flaunts her ability to hold and lead the camera’s gaze, even while exulting in her own prowess at seducing men.

While other movies of its ilk depict Las Vegas as an idyllic fantasy world, Casino digs deeper, showing a darker side of the city’s history that has never been fully revealed until now. It reveals the roots of how organized crime corrupted this desert oasis, while still displaying its opulence and neon signs, and showing gamblers having fun at cards and slots.