Quotes about casino (39 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Gambling is a kind of tax: a tax on stupidity. A tax on greed. Some money changes hands at random, but the net cash flow always goes one way - to the Government, to the casino operators, to the bookies, to the crime syndicates. If you ever do win, you won't have won against them. They'll still be getting their share. You'll have won against all the penniless losers, that's all.”

Greg Egan book Eugene

Eugene
Fiction, Axiomatic (1995)

Money , Stupidity , Way , Change

“[We are now] in a position to judge of the validity of the objection which has been made, that the principle of Natural Selection depends on a succession of favourable chances. The objection is more in the nature of an innuendo than of a criticism, for it depends for its force upon the ambiguity of the word chance, in its popular uses. The income derived from a Casino by its proprietor may, in one sense, be said to depend upon a succession of favourable chances, although the phrase contains a suggestion of improbability more appropriate to the hopes of the patrons of his establishment. It is easy without any very profound logical analysis to perceive the difference between a succession of favourable deviations from the laws of chance, and on the other hand, the continuous and cumulative action of these laws. It is on the latter that the principle of Natural Selection relies.”

Ronald Fisher book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection

On the objection (still often made by creationists) that the theory of evolution predicts evolution occurs "only by chance", Ch. 2, p. 37.
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (1930)

Law , Hope , Nature , Sense

“Bailing out people who made ill-advised mortgages makes no more sense that bailing out people who lost their life savings in Las Vegas casinos.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Life , People , Sense

“When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

Country

“My hope is that Casino Royale has not only re-invented James Bond, but made him relevant for the 21st century. The target audience has shifted. Although there's nothing in Casino Royale that will exclude teenagers, this 007 is aimed squarely at adults. The November release date is also perfect — the film is almost too dark and serious for the kind of lighthearted, mindless fun we associate with summer blockbusters. In recent years, I have come to each new James Bond movie with a series of ingrained expectations. For the most part, the Brosnan films met them across the board. Casino Royale defies many of them, and I couldn't be happier.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=769 of Casino Royale (2006).
Three-and-a-half star reviews

Hope , Summer , Parting , Perfection

“The word “loser” is spoken with such contempt these days, a man might like to forget the losses in his own life that taught him something about good judgment. The money he invested in that casino in Atlantic City that went bust, the university course he enrolled in that promised to teach him the secrets of success but instead he wound up unemployed and 40 grand in debt, the candidate whose hat he wore who turned out to be tone-deaf and deluded — dumb, dumb, dumb, and yet his loved ones did not chortle and point and do the nyaa-nyaa. They put an arm around him and said, “This is how we learn.””

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

And it is.
"Garrison Keillor: God help us. We’re in trouble down here." in The Washington Post (26 July 2016) https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/god-help-us-were-in-trouble-down-here/2016/07/26/989cde08-535d-11e6-b7de-dfe509430c39_story.html

Love , Life , Money , Secret

“It was neither healthy nor good when public stock exchanges introduced order types and speed advantages that high-frequency traders could use to exploit everyone else. This sort of inefficiency didn't vanish the moment it was spotted and acted upon. It was like a broken slot machine in the casino that pays off every time. It would keep paying off until someone said something about it; but no one who played the slot machine had any interest in pointing out that it was broken.”

Michael Lewis book Flash Boys

Source: Flash Boys (2014), p. 233

Time , Speed

“People go to Vegas, and they don't know what to do; here's what you do. You go to the casino in your hotel. On your arrival, you get $100 in quarters. Take that $100 back to your hotel room and stare at it for a long, long time. Why? Because you're never going to see them again. Then you take those quarters to the bathroom and you flush them, one by one by one. And the nice thing about that is that every so often the toilet will back up, and you'll feel like a WINNER!”

Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor

The White Album (2000)

People , Feeling , Time

“The casino is the only human venture I know where the probabilities are known, Gaussian (i. e., bell-curve), and almost computable.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960) Lebanese-American essayist, scholar, statistician, former trader and risk analyst

Source: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2007), p. 127

“I am sure I do not know why the beauty of Monte Carlo should not satisfy more than it does. The bluest of all seas is nowhere bluer than when you see it between the marble balustrades of the long white terrace before the casino, palms are nowhere greener than in that high garden which the mountain screen from every unkind breath, no colours could be more rich and various than those of the red and purple Alps that tower up behind the town, on whose summit such violent thunderstorms gather and break. But for me, at least, there was not at all the pleasure I had anticipated in this dazzling white and blue, these feathery palms and ragged Alps. …I had a continual restless feeling that there was nothing at all real about Monte Carlo; that the sea was too blue to be wet, the casino too white to be anything but pasteboard, and that from their very greenness the palms must be cotton. … in atmosphere and spirit the entire kingdom of Monaco is an extension of the casino.”

Willa Cather (1873–1947) American writer and novelist

Source: Willa Cather in Europe (1956), Ch. 14 (16 September 1902)

Pleasure , Beauty , Feeling , Mountain

“Globalization cannot be allowed to become the grand global casino where investors rig the system to guarantee that they always win”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order on the adverse impacts of free trade and investment agreements on a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IntOrder/Pages/Reports.aspx.
2015, Report submitted to the UN General Assembly

“Sure, we loaned money to build hotels and casinos in Las Vegas. So what? Las Vegas borrowers were good customers.”

Jimmy Hoffa (1913–1982) American labor leader

Source: Hoffa The Real Story (1975), Chapter 7, Gangsters and the "Irish Mafia", p. 119

Money

“The courts are no longer cathedrals. They are…casinos where the throw of the dice matters.”

K. R. Narayanan (1920–2005) 9th Vice President and the 10th President of India

Lina Gonsalves in: Women and Human Rights http://books.google.co.in/books?id=FBn_mCImoagC&pg=PA4, APH Publishing, 2001
At the Golden Jubilee Celebrations of the Supreme Court on the aspect of money and power getting precedence over justice.

“My hope is that people who grew up on J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, the poetry of Allen Ginsberg, the folk music of Pete Seeger, the protest ballads of Country Joe, the anarchic insolence of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the biting satire of Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce, the acid rock of Bob Dylan, the sociology of Paul Goodman and Herbert Marcuse, the Summer of Love and the Days of Rage, will not be content to spend their retirement years on cruise ships or feeding their Social Security checks into slot machines at the nearest casino.”

Theodore Roszak (1933–2011) American social historian, social critic, writer

The Making of an Elder Culture (2009)

Love , People , Hope , Music

“The concept of disease is fast replacing the concept of responsibility. With increasing zeal Americans use and interpret the assertion "I am sick" as equivalent to the assertion "I am not responsible": Smokers say they are not responsible for smoking, drinkers that they are not responsible for drinking, gamblers that they are not responsible for gambling, and mothers who murder their infants that they are not responsible for killing. To prove their point — and to capitalize on their self-destructive and destructive behavior — smokers, drinkers, gamblers, and insanity acquitees are suing tobacco companies, liquor companies, gambling casinos, and physicians.
Can American society survive this legal-psychiatric assault on its moral and political foundations?”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

The Untamed Tongue: A Dissenting Dictionary (1990)

Disease , Behavior , Drink

“Oh look, an ATM! Ok, here we go! I lost all my money, now what do I do? Get a gun! Rob a casino! Good idea! Look at all the lights! This is beautiful.”

Bill Burr (1968) American actor, comedian and a celebrity podcaster

Premium Blend, episode [2.03], June 20, 1998

Money , Beauty , Idea , Light

“"Breaking the bank at Monte Carlo" is a euphemism for closing a single gaming table. It was last accomplished at the Casino Ste. des Bains de Mer during the final days of 1957, with a harvest of 180 million francs.”

Richard Arnold Epstein (1927) American physicist

Source: The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic (Revised Edition) 1977, Chapter One, Kubeiagenesis, p. 10

Game

“The economic crisis was a reflection of narcissism and very primitive defense mechanisms (such as a complete denial of economic reality) built into the financial system. The best and brightest MBA students have been going into investment banking; many of them used their brains essentially to play casino games, and not to add much value to society.
Now, we’ve seen the result. Look at the least-admired professions in most countries over the years: telemarketers and used-car salesmen. Today, you have bankers and CEOs achieving the same low rating. Companies like Citibank — which was the brainchild of one of the most visibly narcissistic executives in the world, Sanford Weill — have essentially collapsed. They have grown too complex for the people who work there to understand. I strongly question what the different parts of Citibank have in common. No matter what kinds of regulatory reforms are initiated, more companies will collapse this way, because narcissism breeds this kind of unmanageable grandiosity.”

Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries (1942) Dutch academic

Manfred Kets de Vries in: " The Thought Leader Interview: Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries http://www.strategy-business.com/article/10209?gko=cbe31," in: Strategy + business. May 10, 2010. Originally published by Booz & Company.

People , World , Cars , Way

“In our most Puritan of society, gambling-like other pleasures-is either taxed, restricted to certain hours, or forbidden altogether. Yet the impulse to gamble remains an eternal aspect of the irrationality of man. It finds outlets in business, war, politics, in the formal overtures of the gambling casinos, and in the less ceremonious exchanges among individuals of differing opinions.”

Richard Arnold Epstein (1927) American physicist

Preface To The First Edition, p. xiii
The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic (Revised Edition) 1977

War , Pleasure , Business

“You should stay away from your potential. I mean, that is something you should leave absolutely alone! You’ll mess it up! It’s potential, leave it! And anyway, it’s like your bank balance, you know: you always have much less than you think. […] Leave it as the locked door within yourself and then at least, in your mind, the interior will always be palatial. Wonderful gleaming marble floors, brocaded drapes. Mullioned windows, covered in mullions, whatever they are. Flamingos serving drinks. Pianos shooting out canapés into the mouths of elegant men and women who are exchanging witticisms… "Oh yes, this reminds me of the time I was in BudaPESHT with Binky… We were trying to steal a goose from the casino, muahahaha…" But it wont be like that[…] You don't want to find out that the most you could possibly achieve, if you gave it your all, if you harvested every screed of energy within you, and devoted yourself to improving yourself, that all you would get to, would be maybe eating less cheesy snacks.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

Monster (2004)

Women , Men , Drink , Thinking

“They traded in the market the way card counters in a casino played blackjack: They played only when they had an edge. That’s why they were able to trade for five years without losing money on a single day.”

Michael Lewis book Flash Boys

Source: Flash Boys (2014), p. 263-4

Money , Way

“He's terrific. I think [Casino Royale] is a huge step forward - a leap forward.”

Timothy Dalton (1944) British actor of stage, film and television

On Casino Royale. [Timothy Dalton Reflects On 007, 2007-02-19, http://www.mi6.co.uk/sections/articles/dalton_hot_fuzz.php3?t=&s=, MI6 - The Home of James Bond, 2007-02-21]
Attributed

Thinking

“During Christ’s millennial reign nothing contrary to righteousness will exist. You will find no liquor shops, night clubs, gambling casinos …ad infinitum on the streets of the kingdom. Logic, and more importantly, Scripture indicates that all immorality will be removed at the inauguration of Christ’s earthly kingdom.”

Paul P. Enns (1937) American theologian

Source: Heaven Revealed (Moody, 2011), pp. 106-107

Christ , Night

“Although the major gambling casinos do not maintain statistical records on the results of games of Craps, one event has been recorded-that wherein a young man achieved 28 consecutive "passes" at the Desert Inn Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada (June 10, 1950). Odds against such an event are 400 million to 1.”

Richard Arnold Epstein (1927) American physicist

Source: The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic (Revised Edition) 1977, Chapter Five, Coups And Games With Dice, p. 149

Game

“Paris was attacked not because of what the French do, as some Blame-The-West intellectuals claim, but because of what the French are: infidels who refuse to see the light of Islam. The hope is that just as the Prophet forced the Arab tribes to accept Islam in exchange for protection, the “infidel” nations will also decide that it is in their best interest to submit. Today, however, I see no sign the French tend toward submission. As always, the terrorists may end up like the man who, having won a great many tokens at the roulette table, is surprised when the casino tells him his winnings cannot be cashed.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"The jihadis’ master plan to break us" http://nypost.com/2015/11/15/the-jihadis-master-plan-to-break-us/ New York Post (November 15, 2015).
New York Post

Hope , Light

“Memory tricks, amongst other things which I’ll show you, have got me banned from a lot of Casinos in this country.”

Derren Brown (1971) British illusionist

TV Series and Specials (Includes DVDs), Mind Control (1999–2000) or Inside Your Mind on DVD

Memory , Country

“He walked around the Las Vegas casino incredulous at the spectacle before him: seven thousand people, all of whom seem delighted with the world as they found it. A society with deep, troubling economic problems had rigged itself to disguise those problems, and the chief beneficiaries of the deceit were its financial middlemen. How could this be?”

Michael Lewis book The Big Short

Source: The Big Short (2010), Chapter Six, Spider-Man At The Venetian, p. 154

People , World , Problem

“For 40 years, everyone running for president has released their tax returns. You can go and see nearly, I think, 39, 40 years of our tax returns, but everyone has done it. We know the IRS has made clear there is no prohibition on releasing it when you're under audit. So you've got to ask yourself, why won't he release his tax returns? And I think there may be a couple of reasons. First, maybe he's not as rich as he says he is. Second, maybe he's not as charitable as he claims to be. Third, we don't know all of his business dealings, but we have been told through investigative reporting that he owes about $650 million to Wall Street and foreign banks. Or maybe he doesn't want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes, because the only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax. So if he's paid zero, that means zero for troops, zero for vets, zero for schools or health. And I think probably he's not all that enthusiastic about having the rest of our country see what the real reasons are, because it must be something really important, even terrible, that he's trying to hide. And the financial disclosure statements, they don't give you the tax rate. They don't give you all the details that tax returns would. And it just seems to me that this is something that the American people deserve to see. And I have no reason to believe that he's ever going to release his tax returns, because there's something he's hiding.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)

People , Health , School , Business

“Everything I did on that show was me screwing around in the hallways, running around looking for attention. Joe Pesci, I never said 'Oh, I wanna do the Joe Pesci Show.' It was me, sitting around, bored out of my mind, and just walking the hallways going [Joe Pesci voice] 'Where do you get your culios big enough to call me…wait, I'm not gonna answer ya! S'ya worryin' about your weight, ya fat bastard, otherwise you wouldn't have problems upstairs doin' ya wife!' And this stoner guy, who was an intern, said 'Hey man, you should do that on [Weekend] Update!' He said, 'Well, "Casino's" coming out, and you should go on as Pesci and have Norm [MacDonald] say he's never heard of it.' Originally, it was me and the stoner intern, and I'd go on and Norm MacDonald's [Norm MacDonald voice] 'Hey, here to see, tell you how to do a movie, is Joe Pesci over here!' And I'd come on, [Joe Pesci voice] 'Hey, blah blah blah blah!' And he goes 'Well, I've never heard of it,' and I knock the crap out of him. And then some writer was like 'Wait wait wait, what are you doing? Hey, I've got an idea for it.'”

Jim Breuer (1967) American actor and comedian

And then we went in...
Explaining the origin of the Joe Pesci skits in an interview on Mancow's Morning Madhouse
Unsourced

Guy , Idea , Problem , Waiting

“The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning.”

Ian Fleming book Casino Royale

Opening line, Ch. 1 : The Secret Agent
Casino Royale (1953)
Context: The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul erosion produced by high gambling — a compost of greed and fear and nervous tension — becomes unbearable and the senses awake and revolt from it.

“Aside from earning their livings, what did your people do, mostly? Games. Sports. Casinos. Loud machines that went fast. Shopping. Lawsuits blaming other for whatever went wrong. What did they believe in? Conspiracy theories. Racial superiority. Heroes with superpowers. Faith healers. God-loves-you religions. State-supported lotteries. All that enormous energy expended to conquer nothing at all, stadia full of people watching no conquering going on. For every scientist or person in government who really tried to conquer, there were a thousand people buying lottery tickets, drinking beer, watching football, and growing old.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

The Visitor in Ch. 44 : the visitor, pp. 460-461
The Visitor (2002)

Sport , God , Faith , Drink

“The Venetians invented the income tax, statistical science, the floating of government stock, state censorship of books, anonymous denunciations (the Bocca del Leone), the gambling casino, and the Ghetto.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

Source: Venice Observed (1956), Ch. 7

Science , Books

“It (referendum by Kinmen County residents which voted against the establishment of casinos in Kinmen) showed that Kinmen folks were thinking about development (of the county) in the long term, instead of being shortsighted and allowing themselves to be lured by profits (from casinos) close at hand.”

Yang Cheng-wu (1972) Taiwanese politician

Yang Cheng-wu (2017) cited in " Kinmen nixes casino development http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2017/10/29/2003681240" on Taipei Times, 29 October 2017

Thinking

“I am deeply saddened by the news of the passing of DJ AM. He was our resident DJ at Rain Nightclub at the Palms Casino Resort. We considered him a friend and a great artist. He will truly be missed.”

Adam Goldstein (1973–2009) American DJ

George Maloof, entrepreneur and casino owner DJ AM DEATH LEAVES CLUB BOSS DEVASTATED http://www.younghollywood.com/news/2009/08/30/dj-am-death-leaves-club-boss-devastated.html

“It was a hard decision (to close casinos in Macau for two weeks after a hotel worker was infected by COVID-19), but we (Government of Macau) must make it for the health of Macau residents. Macau can still withstand economic losses.”

Ho Iat Seng (1957) Chief Executive of Macau

Ho Iat Seng (2020) cited in " Coronavirus: casinos to close in Macau for at least two weeks after hotel worker infected https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3048904/coronavirus-casinos-close-macau-least-two-weeks" on South China Morning Post, 4 February 2020.

Loss , Making love , Health , Decision

“First to go will be the world’s stock markets. They are, as Maitreya has said, about to crash. They will come down because they stand in the way of right relationship. They really bear no relation to the needs even of trade between countries. They are an anachronism, what Maitreya calls, very accurately, “gambling casinos” which have no part to play in the future time, at least in their present form.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

The Awakening of Humanity (2008)

Time , Country , Future , Way

“Honestly, from the experience of SARS (in 2002-2003), if the (2019-nCoV outbreak) situation is so serious, no one will go to a casino in Macau.”

Ho Iat Seng (1957) Chief Executive of Macau

Ho Iat Seng (2020) cited in " Macau casinos could be closed if risk of Wuhan virus rises: Ho Iat Seng https://www.asgam.com/index.php/2020/01/23/macau-casinos-could-be-closed-if-risk-of-wuhan-virus-rises-ho-iat-seng/" on Inside Asian Gaming, 23 January 2020.

“You're dealing with a lot of silly people in the marketplace; it's like a great big casino and everyone else is boozing. If you can stick with Pepsi, you should be O.K.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

On being dispassionate and patient in investments, in an interview in Forbes magazine (1 November 1974); he is contrasting soft-drinks to intoxicating beverages in this example; Buffett eventually became a major investor in Coca-Cola.

People

“If you have a country with no rule of law, your business (invested in that country) is always like in the casino.”

Matas Maldeikis (1980) Lithuanian statesman

Source: Matas Maldeikis (2021) cited in: " Despite Beijing's ire, Baltic lawmakers bet on Taiwan https://focustaiwan.tw/politics/202112050009" in Focus Taiwan, 5 December 2021.

Law , Country , Business