From the iconic scene showing the meeting of Ginger and Sam, to the explosive introductory scene, Casino has a flair for the dramatic. Which is incredibly appropriate in a movie about High Rollers, corruption in Las Vegas and the Mob’s influence. But what might surprise you is that, just like it says at the start of the film, the events of the movie are all based on real events and the three main characters are all inspired by real people. Sam Rothstein is based on Frank Rosenthal who’s said in interviews that he rated the accuracy of Robert De Nero’s performance at about a 7/10. In addition, Ginger is modelled on the real-life Geri McGee who married Rosenthal and Nicky Santoro is based on Anthony Spilotro, who was just as brutal as his on-screen counterpart, and a close friend of Rosenthal before they fell out. It’d be easy to imagine Scorsese took some creative liberties with the story to keep things interesting but what’s impressive is how few and far between these changes are. Like the scene where Sam insists that the cook puts an equal number of blueberries in every muffin. It might look like it’s just to establish Sam’s no-nonsense attitude and attention to detail but it’s something that Rosenthal allegedly insisted on as well, no matter how time-consuming it might have been. Together with Betfair Online Casino, we’ve put together this little slideshow that goes through a selection of the scenes in the movie that happened in real life!
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