Watch the Casino movie trailer for the film starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone. Directed by Martin Scorcese, Casino tells the story of sports handicapper Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal in mob-run Las Vegas during the 1970's. Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro go way back. De Niro 'discovered' Pesci after being impressed by his work in The Death Collector, the New York Times reports. De Niro brought Pesci to the attention of.

• “Now you're insulting my intelligence; what you think I am, a fuckin' idiot? You know goddamn well that someone had to get into those machines and set those fuckin' reels. The probability of one four-reel machine is a million and a half to one; the probability of three machines in a row; it's in the billions! It cannot happen, would not happen,...” (continue)(continue reading)Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein

• “It should have been perfect. I mean he had me, Nicky Santoro, his best friend watching his ass. And he had Ginger, the woman he loved on his arm. But in the end, we fucked it all up. It should have been so sweet, too. But it turned out to be the last time that street guys like us were ever given anything that fuckin' valuable again.”Joe Pesci - Nicky Santoro

• “No matter how big a guy might be, Nicky would take him on. You beat Nicky with fists, he comes back with a bat. You beat him with a knife, he comes back with a gun. And if you beat him with a gun, you better kill him, because he'll keep comin' back and back until one of you is dead.”
  Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein

• “It just didn't sink into his head what the Black Book is and what it meant, being banned from every casino is just one thing but being in this book gets you into the brains of every cop and FBI agent in the state, I mean you're listed in there with Al Capone, but Nicky didn't care.”
  Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein

• “In Vegas, everybody's gotta watch everybody else. Since the players are looking to beat the casino, the dealers are watching the players. The box men are watching the dealers. The floor men are watching the box men. The pit bosses are watching the floor men. The shift bosses are watching the pit bosses. The casino manager is watching the shift...” (continue)(continue reading)
  Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein

• “The little guy. He wouldn't be fucking the Jew's wife, would he?” - Remo Gaggi

• “After the Teamsters got knocked out of the box, the corporations tore down practically every one of the old casinos. And where did the money come from to rebuild the pyramids? Junk bonds. But in the end, I wound up right back where I started. I could still pick winners, and I could still make money for all kinds of people back home. And why mess...” (continue)(continue reading)Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein

• “Listen to me very carefully. There are three ways of doing things around here: the right way, the wrong way, and the way that I do it. You understand?”Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein

• - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein: Three fuckin' jackpots in 20 minutes? Why didn't you pull the machines? Why didn't you call me?
  - Don Ward: Well, it happened so quick, 3 guys won; I didn't have a chance...
  - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein: You didn't see the scam? You didn't see what was going on?
  - Don Ward: Well, there's no way to determine that...
  - Sam 'Ace'... (continue)(continue reading)
  Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein
  - Don Ward

• - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein: From now on, I want you to put an equal amount of blueberries in each muffin... an equal amount of blueberries in each muffin.
  - Baker: Do you know how long that's going to take?
  - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein: I don't care how long it takes. Put an equal amount in each muffin.Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein
  - Baker

• “This is the end result of all the bright lights, and the comp trips, and all the champagne, and free hotel suites, and all the broads and all the booze. It's all been arranged just for us to get your money.”
  Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein

• “Before I ever ran a casino or got myself blown up, Ace Rothstein was a hell of a handicapper, I can tell you that. I was so good that when I bet, I can change the odds for every bookmaker in the country. I'm serious. I had it down so cold that I was given paradise on earth. I was given one of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas to run: The Tangiers...” (continue)(continue reading)
  Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein

• “Nicky's methods of betting weren't scientific, but they worked. When he won, he collected. When he lost, he told the bookies to go fuck themselves. I mean, what were they going to do, muscle Nicky? Nicky was the muscle.”
  Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein

• “If a guy fucking tripped over a banana peel, they'd bring me in for it.”Joe Pesci - Nicky Santoro

• - Senator: You were wandering around. You were in the... you were in the building.
  - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein: I was in the building? You know damn well I was at that dinner, and you swore to me I would have a fair hearing. Did you not? Did you not? Well, tell me I was at least at the dinner. Allow me that much. Give me that much at least!
  - Senator:... (continue)(continue reading) - Senator
  Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein

• - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein: You know, I don't know if I could do this even if I wanted to. The Gaming Commission would never give me a license. I have at least two dozen gambling and bookmaking pinches on me.
  - Andy Stone: You don't have to have a license to work in a casino. All you gotta do is apply for one. The state law says you can work in a... (continue)(continue reading)
  Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein
  Alan King - Andy Stone

• “There's three ways to do things, the right way, the wrong way and the way that I do it.”
  Robert De Niro

• “In the casino, the cardinal rule is to keep them playing and to keep them coming back. The longer they play, the more they lose, and in the end, we get it all.”
  Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein

• “- Vinny Forlano: He won't talk. Stone is a good kid. Stand-up guy, just like his old man. That's the way I see it.
  - Vincent Borelli: I agree. He's solid. A fuckin' Marine.
  - Americo Capelli: He's okay. He always was. Remo, what do you think?
  - Remo Gaggi: Look... why take a chance? At least, that's the way I feel about it.” - Vinny Forlano
  - Vincent Borelli
  - Americo Capelli
  - Remo Gaggi

• “I think in all fairness, I should explain to you exactly what it is that I do. For instance tomorrow morning I'll get up nice and early, take a walk down over to the bank and... walk in and see and, uh... if you don't have my money for me, I'll... crack your fuckin' head wide-open in front of everybody in the bank. And just about the time that...” (continue)(continue reading)Joe Pesci - Nicky Santoro

• “The town will never be the same. After the Tangiers, the big corporations took it all over. Today it looks like Disneyland. And while the kids play cardboard pirates, Mommy and Daddy drop the house payments and Junior's collegemoney on the poker slots. In the old days, dealers knew your name, what you drank, what you played. Today, it's like...” (continue)(continue reading)Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein

• - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein: I'm firing you. No, I'm not firing, I'm firing you, ya...
  - Don Ward: You might regret this, Mr. Rothstein.
  - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein: I'll regret it even more if I keep you on.
  - Don Ward: This is not the way to treat people.
  - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein: Listen, if you didn't know you were being scammed you're too fuckin' dumb to... (continue)(continue reading)Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein
  - Don Ward

• “This guy could fuck up a cup of coffee.”Joe Pesci - Nicky Santoro

• “When you love someone, you've gotta trust them. There's no other way. You've got to give them the key to everything that's yours. Otherwise, what's the point? And for a while, I believed, that's the kind of love I had.”
  Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein

• - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein: So you're a righty?
  - Signaller: Yeah.
  - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein: Now you're gonna have to learn with your left hand.Robert De Niro - Sam 'Ace' Rothstein
  - Signaller

Tony Spilotro inspired Joe Pesci's villain in the movie Casino, but the real man was far worse than the movie let on.

Getty ImagesBy age 22, the unwieldy Tony Spilotro had been arrested at least 13 times.

Among the many Mafia movies, one standout is Martin Scorsese’s Casino — and particularly for the violence. Robert De Niro stars as a Jewish gangster who runs Las Vegas casinos for the Chicago Outfit, with Joe Pesci playing Nicky Santoro, the barbaric mob enforcer who protects him. In real life, Pesci’s role was inspired by the brutal life of Tony Spilotro: and his truth is even more disturbing than the film version.

Indeed, Anthony Spilotro’s unique taste for violence would not only establish him as one of the most fearsome mobsters of the ’60s and ’70s, but also spell his own bloody doom.

Becoming Tough Tony Spilotro

Tony Spilotro might be best known for his success in protecting the Las Vegas casino rackets, but he started out like so many other Mafiosi: as a low-level gangster in Chicago.

He was born in the Windy City on May 19, 1938. FBI agent William Roemer remarked in his biography on Spilotro, titled Enforcer, that Spilotro grew up the fourth of six sons in an Italian household. His dad, Patsy, ran a popular Italian restaurant that was frequented by mobsters like Sam Giancana.

Four of the five Spilotro boys fell in with some criminal elements, which likely wasn’t helped by the fact that their dad died young. Only one of Spilotro’s brothers went to college and became a respected doctor.

Tony Spilotro became a high school bully before dropping out. He grew a reputation for small crimes like shoplifting and purse snatching. Dubbed a “pissant” by friends and enemies alike, Spilotro received a nickname “Ant.” Alternatively, he was called “the Ant” in reference to his small stature: Spilotro stood five feet, two inches.

Spilotro’s mugshot in ’74.

At sixteen or seventeen, depending on the source, Spilotro was arrested for the first time on charges of larceny. By age 22, he’d been arrested more than a dozen times.

He became a ripe prospect for the Chicago Outfit and drew the notice of one Sam “Mad Dog” DeStefano. The former Chicago cop-turned-Mafia errand boy Mike Corbitt recalled of DeStefano, “He was a real sicko. He would do things to disrespect you, like coming into a bar and pissing on the floor in front of your wife.”

DeStefano took Spilotro under his wing and set up the young man for his next big venture in his criminal career: murder.

Getty ImagesAnthony Spilotro and his wife, Nancy, leave the federal building in Las Vegas after a mistrial was declared in his trail on racketeering charges.

Tony Spilotro And The M&M Murders

Under the thumb of the uber-violent DeStefano, Spilotro got the chance to become a “made man,” or a full member of the Mafia. This opportunity came when he was asked to handle the so-called M&M Boys. The “M&M” in question were two minor thugs: Billy McCarthy and Jimmy Miraglia, who killed several local businessmen due to a drunken argument. Killing legit businesspeople in a neighborhood of mobsters was a no-no, especially as it brought attention to the Mob.

In 1962, Spilotro was dispatched to take care of the M&M Boys, which inspired the infamous torture scene in Casino. Spilotro and buddies — including DeStefano — beat up McCarthy, then stabbed him through the testicles with ice picks. Then, Spilotro “put his captive’s head in a vise and squeezed, then squeezed some more,” according to Dennis Griffin’s Policing Las Vegas, until one of McCarthy’s eyes popped out. In Casino, McCarthy is portrayed by a one “Tony Dogs,” but the scene is as brutal as possible on screen.

Finally, McCarthy gave up Miraglia. Eventually, people uncovered the mangled bodies of both Miraglia and McCarthy, their throats slit, in a car on the South Side of Chicago.

In 1963, Spilotro followed up on his murderous success by killing real estate broker Leo Foreman, who’d gotten on the wrong side of DeStefano. Dragging Foreman down to a cellar, Spilotro hammered Foreman’s private parts, then attacked him with an ice pick, and only then shot him in the head. He dropped the body off in a car trunk as well.

When he was discovered, the corpse of Foreman had chunks of his body removed before he was killed.

Viva Las Vegas

Phil Greer/Chicago Tribune/MCT via Getty ImagesMichael Spilotro, left, and his brother Tony.

Spilotro was well known even in the mob by this point for his brutality. But it didn’t keep him from rising the ranks of their lucrative operations in Vegas.

The Chicago Outfit controlled the Las Vegas casinos and skimmed a bunch of cash off it for itself. To make the operation seem legit, Dennis Griffin noted in The Battle for Las Vegas: The Law Vs. The Mob, the Mafia put a man known as Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal in charge of the gambling operation. The Jewish Rosenthal served as the inspiration for De Niro’s character in Casino, Sam Rothstein, who makes the Mob’s skimming operations seem legit.

Spilotro’s role was to keep the mobsters working for the Chicago Outfit in line while in Vegas. If any of them tried to take cash where they weren’t supposed to, Spilotro would wield his infamous ice pick and/or fists. He was also supposed to grab as much cash from the casino before it was officially logged in, i.e. “skim.”

In Casino, Joe Pesci’s Nicky Santoro serves this role. In the film, Santoro’s bad temper gets him banned from most Las Vegas casinos and according to Nicholas Pileggi’s book Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas, Spilotro also had a notorious anger problem. Pileggi quoted mob enforcer Frank Cullotta as saying that Spilotro grew jealous of Lefty’s fame and fortune as the legit face of the casino.

Casino Joe Pesci Death Scene

He said, “Tony sees Lefty walk in the joint, and everybody jumps up to shake his hand. And Lefty’s loving it. Tony’s just watching. He’s getting pissed, especially when Lefty doesn’t even nod over in Tony’s direction for respect.”

So Spilotro decided to branch out on his own and tap into his old skill—theft. He kick-started a group of burglars, arsonists, and thieves called “the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang.” They earned their moniker by busting through walls to get at precious jewelry and other expensive goodies to hawk on the Strip. He even opened his own shop, The Gold Rush, with brother Michael to sell his stolen stuff.

By 1974, the los Angeles Times reported that there was more gangland crime in Las Vegas than ever before, and perhaps with Spilotro to thank for that. By this time, the unwieldy gangster had already been indicted for murder several times.

Tony Spilotro’s Downfall

But there was more than just bad professional blood between Rosenthal and Spilotro. Rosenthal had married showgirl-turned-girl about town Geri McGee. A former waitress at the famed Tropicana club in Vegas, McGee snared Rosenthal and gambled away tons of his money after she won his heart. In Casino, Sharon Stone plays the McGee-inspired dancer Ginger McKenna and she’s rather true to life.

The Rosenthals’ relationship soon soured, though. Just as Rothstein’s wife fell into bed with her hubby’s arch-rival Santoro, so too did McGee have a torrid affair with Spilotro.

At one point in 1982, Spilotro allegedly tried to car-bomb Rosenthal following McGee’s drug-induced suicide. The attack failed, but the repercussions of his affair with Rosenthal’s wife continued to upset the Vegas mob.

Eventually, this incident together with Spilotro’s other misdeeds caught up to him. Since he was a made man at 25, Spilotro had caught the eye of law enforcement. Naturally, too much attention on the mob spelled danger, which meant Spilotro was a major liability.

Casino Nicky's Demise

Spilotro was arrested again in 1981 after cops caught the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang trying to rob a home goods store in Vegas — thanks to an informant on the inside.

Having Spilotro’s name emblazoned across the news once again didn’t sit well with the Chicago Outfit anymore. William Roemer told The LA Times that “Spilotro wasn’t doing his job in Las Vegas. He maintained too high a profile there. Mobsters flourish in darkness. Spilotro, facing three major trials, was obviously not following that dictum. He was under the glare of the harshest spotlight.”

Spilotro was slapped with numerous charges and suspected of a number of other crimes, including the attempted murder of Rosenthal in a 1982 car bombing.

Casino Joe Pesci Death Full Scene

Bettmann/Contributor/Getty ImagesAnthony Spilotro sits in a Las Vegas courtroom in connection with two old homicide cases. 1983.

The Mob thus decided to off Spilotro and his brother, Michael. They were beaten to death in 1986, their bodies left in an Indiana cornfield.

In 2007, three Mafiosi were finally convicted of the Spilotro brothers’ killings.

Joe Pesci Goodfellas Clips

In this case, the film Casino truly imitated life – except for the fact, that unlike Santoro, Spilotro was not buried alive, though he was subjected to a torturous end that befitted a mobster as cruel as he was.

Joe Pesci Death Casino Videos

After this look at the bloodlusty mobster, Tony Spilotro, dive into an equally horrifying tale: the story behind the film The Conjuring. Then, check out the amazing true tale of Desmond Doss, a World War II hero.