The flick Casino is the story of a faction that ran Vegas casinos and whose members clashed with each other and the mob at large. It stars Robert De Niro as Ace Rothstein, a bookie who’s chosen to run the Tangiers casino. He marries a drug-addicted trophy wife (Sharon Stone) and struggles with scumbag mobster Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci).

It’s a complicated fable about a man trying to do the right thing in a very dark place. It’s also about the danger of playing with real money. That’s because gambling is not a game of pure chance; it’s a game where the house always has an advantage, no matter how long a player sticks around.

To help keep gamblers from leaving, casinos are designed to be labyrinthine. They’re missing clocks to make players lose track of time, and they offer free booze that will lower inhibitions and cloud judgment. But those drinks will cost the players in the long run, because heavy drinking usually leads to bad decisions at a blackjack table or slot machine.

The dazzling lights and joyful sounds of slot machines create an artificial sense of euphoria that makes people want to stay. But if they’re not careful, they’ll quickly go broke because the house always wins. It’s the sunk-cost fallacy in action. If a person loses $700 in one game, they might think it’s okay to keep betting because they already lost that much money.