Plot: In 1975, bookie and expert handicapper Sam Rothstein - Ace to his friends - goes somewhat legitimate when the Chicago based Italian Mafia hires him to run the Tangiers Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. Ace can do the job, applying for his gaming license despite his past, while having his ever changing job title be anything but running the casino and the actual license getting lost in the never ending process. Ace's best friend from childhood Nicky Santoro, eventually comes along for the ride, he who the Mafia hires to be Ace and the organization's unofficial protector. Ace is able to make a success of the casino, which includes the process of the Mafia bosses being able to skim profits off the top, while making the entire business look legitimate to the authorities. Ace's success is placed into jeopardy by Nicky, not only by his reckless, violent, volatile and ruthless behavior, but also by his want to eke out his own gangster fiefdom in Las Vegas. It is also placed into jeopardy by who becomes Ace's wife, Ginger McKenna, who he knew was a hustler when he married her and who he wants to trust in every aspect of the word in his love for her. She ends up being a self-destructive woman, her primary weakness being in wanting to help a friend, a hanger-on and loser named Lester Diamond.
Alternative Plot: In early-1970s Las Vegas, low-level mobster Sam "Ace" Rothstein (Robert De Niro) gets tapped by his bosses to head the Tangiers Casino. At first, he's a great success in the job, but over the years, problems with his loose-cannon enforcer Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), his ex-hustler wife Ginger (Sharon Stone), her con-artist ex Lester Diamond (James Woods) and a handful of corrupt politicians put Sam in ever-increasing danger. Martin Scorsese directs this adaptation of Nicholas Pileggi's book.
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