Few movies are as rich or as complicated as Casino, Martin Scorsese’s ode to organized crime and the city of Las Vegas. While other mob pictures (like Goodfellas and Mean Streets) focus on blue-collar gangsters, this one looks at the guys who controlled those gangsters. It’s fascinating stuff and, even though the film is about betrayal, lust, and destruction, it’s also about how we’re all a little bit like these characters.

Based on a novel by Nicholas Pileggi, who had full access to the man who ran four casinos for the Mafia in Las Vegas in the 1970s, Casino makes us feel like eavesdroppers. The first hour or so plays almost like a documentary with narration from mobster Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Robert De Niro) and others as they explain how the mob skimmed millions out of the casinos.

The movie is a bit slow in the beginning but once it gets going it’s hard to take your eyes off the screen. The directing is top-notch from Scorsese who knows how to use music and the camera to build suspense and drama. He also has a flair for the brutal. This is evident in a torture-by-vice sequence that includes the infamous popped eyeball scene.

What’s most interesting about Casino is how it illustrates the power of money. While the odds of winning are always in favor of the house — they lose 52% of the time on any given play — stretched over thousands and millions of plays, casinos still win billions.