A casino is a place where champagne glasses clink and patrons try their hand at everything from blackjack to roulette. Whether you’re trying to beat the house or just win a little cash, casinos are exciting places that draw people in and keep them coming back for more.

But there’s much more to a casino than just the games. These days, many of these facilities have hotels, restaurants, events spaces, cutting-edge technology, and even spas or health clubs. Keeping these features in mind is critical to a casino’s success because it allows it to appeal to more than just those who want to gamble.

Every game at a casino offers a mathematical expectancy that the house will win, and even if a player is playing perfectly, he or she may not be able to overcome the odds. That’s why casinos offer huge bonuses to big bettors—free spectacular entertainment, transportation, and hotel rooms, for example.

The managers of casinos know that booze lowers inhibitions and clouds judgment, so they keep alcohol flowing nonstop. They also design their buildings to be labyrinthine, with no straight aisles and no clear pathways from one area of the casino to another. They don’t show you a clock, either, because they want you to lose track of time and just keep betting on your luck.

Scorsese saturates his movie with the sounds of money and uses a palette of colors that make us want to reach for our wallets, but Casino is less a love letter to the old Vegas than a skepticism about what will replace it. In its final scene, Ace sadly laments the demolition of the Tangiers and complains that “the town will never be the same.”