After the success of Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese was the perfect man to make a movie about organized crime in Las Vegas. But, rather than simply capturing Sin City’s flash and glamour with a series of gangster-and-their-moll stories, Casino delved deeper into the city’s past, exploring how Vegas grew from a sleepy desert town to a huge gambling corporation.

The result is a movie that, at times, can feel like a textbook for the psychology of casinos. While many movies only superficially capture the opulence, neon signs, and card-and-slot games of Vegas, Casino digs down, revealing how the city was built on a foundation of corruption, violence, and betrayal.

But Casino also shows that not everything in a casino is left to chance. There are subtle cues, engineered by designers using the same behavioral principles that help apps get addictive and supermarkets place candy at eye-level, to quietly steer your behavior. From carpet swirls to the placement of clocks, everything in a casino has been carefully thought out—and designed.

But, even though the film is a textbook for how casinos manipulate you, it’s still a riveting and engaging thriller. Even at a running time of three hours, the film never lags or loses steam, with masterful editing and taut narration keeping you on edge throughout. While Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci are terrific, it’s Sharon Stone who steals the show as the blonde hustler most men would aspire to tame (and then probably end up dead). This is a true crime story of betrayal and destruction that manages to tell a larger tale about the city of Las Vegas itself.