Sam 'Ace' Rothstein Quotes

And this... this is how she backed him off.

Back home, they would have put me in jail for what I'm doing. Here, they're giving me awards.

They never know what hit them. And if, and when, they do find out that they just got zapped by a cattle prod, they wish they really did have a heart attack.

If you ever come back again, ever, to take her money, next time bring a pistol. That way you've got a chance.

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.

For Nicky, Las Vegas was the fucking wild west.

Who could resist? Anywhere else in the country, I was a bookie, a gambler, always lookin' over my shoulder, hassled by cops, day and night. But here, I'm 'Mr Sam Rothstein'. I'm not only legitimate, but running a casino. And that's like selling dreams for cash.

And, along with making us legit, comes cash. Tons of it. I mean, what do you think we're doing out here in the middle of the desert?

Greedy bitch!

I don't give a shit who he's connected to. Tell him to take his fuckin' feet off the table. What's he think this is, a goddamn sawdust joint?

I want you to exit this guy off the premises, I want you to exit him off his feet and I want you to use his head to open the fucking door.

We're the only winners. The players don't stand a chance.

Ginger had the hustler's code... She knew how to take care of people. And that's what Vegas was all about... It's Kickback City... She took care of the dealers... pit bosses, floor managers... But mostly... she took care of the valet parkers, the guys who could get you anything and take care of anything... Ginger took care of the parkers because they took care of the security guards, who took care of the metro cops, who let her operate.

Nicky being Nicky, he made his presence known. Especially at the casino, where he definitely did not work, people got the message.

You can spot these assholes by watching the way they bet. Like this guy. He's bettin' lavender chips at five hundred each with only one little problem. He's always guessed right. If he wasn't so fuckin' greedy, he'd have been tougher to spot. But in the end, they're all greedy.

Meeting in the middle of the desert always made me nervous. It's a scary place. I knew about the holes in the desert, of course, and everywhere I looked, there could have been a hole.

And that's that.

In the casino, the cardinal rule is to keep them playing and keep them coming back. The longer they play, the more they lose. In the end, we get it all.

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?

And what happens next? I can't believe it. Who the hell would believe that the FBI had a wire in the place looking for some information about some old homicide about some guy who was whacked out God knows when over God knows what. Would you believe such a thing could happen? Every FBI man across the country had their ears open, this guy basically sunk the whole world.

Back home, they would have put me in jail for what I'm doing. But out here, they're givin' me awards.

They had enough of Nicky. They had enough. I mean, how much more were they gonna take? So, they made an example of him and his brother: they buried them while they were still breathing.

You fucking mo-mo, what's the matter with you?

I can't do that.

Normally, my prospects of coming back alive from a meeting with Nicky were 99 out of 100. But this time, when I heard him say "a couple of hundred yards down the road", I gave myself 50-50.

Whoever it was, they put the dynamite under the passenger's side. But what they didn't know, what nobody outside the factory knew, was that that model car was made with a metal plate under the driver's seat. It's the only thing that saved my life.

The bombing was never authorized, but I suspect I know who lit the fuse. And so did the powers that be.

he had a fool-proof scheme, all right. It wasn't very scientific but it worked. When he won, he collected. When he lost, he told the bookies to go fuck themselves. What were they gonna do? Muscle Nicky? Nicky was the muscle.

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.

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 college money on the poker slots. In the old days, dealers knew your name, what you drank, what you played. Today, it's like checkin' into an airport. And if you order room service, you're lucky if you get it by Thursday. Today, it's all gone. You get a whale show up with four million in a suitcase, and some twenty-five-year-old hotel school kid is gonna want his Social Security Number. 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 up a good thing? And that's that.

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.

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.

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 bosses. I'm watching the casino manager. And the eye-in-the-sky is watching us all.