There’s a reason casinos are designed to be exciting places, full of opulent decor and music that makes your heart race. They also feature lots of opportunities to eat and drink, which helps keep you there. And of course, there are games like poker, blackjack and roulette that you can play to try your hand at gambling. But despite these amenities, it’s important to realize that casinos are businesses and that they are always designed to win.

As a result, the more you gamble, the more money you will lose. In order to calculate how much they can expect to make on each game, casinos use mathematicians who specialize in gaming analysis to determine the house edge and variance for each game. Those figures are then factored into each machine’s payout percentage to give the casino an overall edge over the player.

With that knowledge, we can appreciate why some people feel compelled to cheat and steal in order to give themselves a better chance of winning at the tables and slot machines. It’s a form of gambling addiction that is all too common, and it’s one that is exacerbated by the fact that many casino owners are willing to offer complimentary meals, free rooms at their hotels, and even extra cash in exchange for spending money with them.

While many movies only scratch the surface of Las Vegas, with its opulence and neon signs, Scorsese digs deep in Casino. The movie may be about organized crime and gambling, but it’s also about human greed and corruption. And while this movie is certainly not for the faint of heart, it’s riveting until the very end.