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Question of the Day — 5 Aug 2019

In the movie Casino, Joe Pesci’s character is playing late-night blackjack while waiting for a marker. Over and over he is dealt face cards. This infuriates him. Throws the card back at the dealer and calls the card a stiff. Why isn’t he happy with the 10? Am I missing something?

Good question. And the answer is just as interesting, at least to us.

It took watching the video (youtube.com/watch?v=-3f_GvkMBqk) a few times and discussing it with a particular blackjack expert to realize what was going on.

Nicky Santoro, Joe Pesci's character based on Tony "the Ant" Spilotro, is playing single-deck and has already been dealt his first two cards. You don't see his two original cards as the dealer is laying down the first two face cards, which Santoro throws back at him and, after a string of profanities, says, "Hit me again." You do see the two cards in his other hand the third time Santoro demands, "Hit me again." 

So what's going on is Santoro's hand is already a stiff, 12-16. The face cards the dealer keeps hitting him with will, of course, bust any stiff total. Santoro keeps refusing to accept the bust cards.

That explains the main problem of Santoro's use of the word "stiff" to describe the king that we see and, initially at least, think is the only card in the hand. So now we know that director Martin Scorsese was as interested in casino verite as he was in good film making, at least when it came to blackjack procedures and terminology.  
 
Of course, the whole scene -- throwing every hit card back at the dealer, while cursing out and threatening him -- is also intended to build up tension in a character we already know is inclined to some serious violence, which quickly comes to fruition with a bald head and a wall phone (poor Don Rickles playing casino manager Billy Sherbert). 
 
Which is why we don't really mind, even from an accuracy point of view, that Santoro vehemently flouting the rules by rejecting his hit cards and demanding new ones doesn't get him 86'd like it would any other casino blackjack player in the universe. It's simply great movie-making in every way. 
 

[Editor's Note: We'd like to thank the inimitable Arnold Snyder for his nonpareil take on this scene. He adds, "I like how Santoro rips the phone off the wall, then goes back to the table and says, 'I got a marker coming.' I highly doubt Tony Spilotro ever tried anything that nutty in a mob casino, even if he knew the boss. But then, this is the Hollywood version of who he was."] 

 

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