Casino goofs

The footage of "The Stardust" and the entrance to "The Flamingo" reveal the effects of redesigns carried out in the early 1990s.

A close-up of silver dollars at the start of the film features a bicentennial silver dollar minted in 1975–76, even though the film's opening is set in 1973.

As Nicky steps into Anna Scott's kitchen to shoot her, an oven is briefly visible on the left; it is fitted with digital controls — a feature not typical of ovens from the era in which the story is set.

The bottle of Budweiser being drunk by the cowboy (with his feet propped on the table) is a contemporary 1995 model, not the genuine 1970's design.

In scenes featuring television journalists, one or two reporters can frequently be seen holding a microphone bearing a "13" logo on one side and "Inside Las Vegas" on the other. This was a genuine logo used by Las Vegas television station KTNV-TV, but it was not introduced until the 1990s.

The microphones used in the 'Aces High' production, which is set circa 1982, are fitted with Neutrik X-Series XLR connectors — a model that was not introduced until 1984.

"Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac can be heard while Sam and Nicky converse in the car. The single was issued in December 1976. The film is set prior to the song's release.

When Sam is admitted to the Vegas Valley Country Club, his membership certificate is dated 6th August 1972. The film's earliest Las Vegas sequences take place in 1973, whereas in the screenplay that sequence is set in 1974.

Nicky sends his car's tyres screeching through the desert dust.

When Ginger returns to Ace after he threw her out of the house, the sound of shoes on floorboards is audible in the bedroom. However, the bedroom is carpeted, so Ginger's shoes ought not to have made that noise.

As Ace and Sherbert climb into the car to pursue Ginger, the engine fires up before Ace has even settled into the driver's seat.

In the scene in which Nicky and Frank collect from the bookmaker, Frank gestures and appears to say "smarten up," yet his lips do not move.

As Sam escorts Ichicawa onto the aeroplane that is "on the blink", the soundtrack implies the jet engines are engaged, even though the engine fans are clearly stationary in the shot.

While Nicky and Frank are being photographed by the federal agents outside the Gold Rush, one of the agents appears to be using a camera fitted with a motor-drive sound effect; yet he is actually shown manually operating the camera's film-advance lever.

When Nicky steps into Anna Scott's kitchen intending to shoot her, you can distinctly hear three shots. However, on closer inspection the weapon actually fires only twice — the third time Nicky pulls the trigger nothing happens.

When Sam & Ginger are seated in the restaurant after Amy returned, you first see Sam head-on as he speaks; then the camera pans to a position between the back of his head and a side-on view, and although his mouth isn't moving you can still hear him speaking.

As Ginger enters the bank, a boom microphone can be seen on the door’s glass just above her head, but only for a few brief seconds.

When Lester rings Ginger after her wedding, he says he always remembers her as a "long-legged little colt". However, a colt is a male horse under four years old — he ought to have described her as a "long-legged little filly", since a filly is a young female horse of the same age.

When Nicky murders Anna Scott, he isn't wearing any gloves, so, besides putting his hands on her head, the door handle and various other surfaces, he's leaving fingerprints everywhere.

Sam could bring legal action against the Business Week reporter and the publication for deliberately presenting his response out of context.

In the voice-over, Ace says that Nicky had to swap vehicles six times in underground car parks. Yet the accompanying montage shows only above-ground car parks, as evidenced by the bright sunshine on their sides.

The Business Week reporter should have realised that deliberately taking someone's remarks out of context is both highly unethical and unprofessional.

When Nicky, Frank Marino and Jennifer are in the kitchen after they have returned from their flight, Nicky turns Jennifer's head upside down so the diamonds he stole & smuggled through airport security tumble out of her hair updo onto the table. After they have all fallen out, her hair "bun" comes undone and hangs down as a long, loose ponytail. But in the very next cut, when the camera changes angle, Nicky slaps her on the cheek and her hair is suddenly back up in a bun just as it was originally.

After Nicky stabs the man with a pen in the pub, he rests the hand that had been holding the pen on the bar. Although the pen was blood-stained, his hand remains clean.

Once his mum has reprimanded him, Piscano backs into a display of olive oil, knocking a few bottles out of place. In the following shot, however, the bottles are perfectly arranged.

When Sam introduces Nicky to the casino manager, he gets to his feet on two occasions.

While Nicky is playing blackjack at the Tangiers and becomes increasingly aggressive with the male dealer, he flicks a card back at him and it sticks to the dealer's shirt. The dealer looks towards the pit boss with the card still attached, but in the subsequent shot the card has disappeared.

After Ginger and the man sitting beside her stop playing (at the 22nd minute of the film), the man says "This $100 is for you, love. Thanks for your time". Ginger replies "Come on" with a serious look on her face. Immediately afterwards the camera angle shifts and, as the man asks "What's the matter?", Ginger is laughing. A moment later the camera returns to the original angle and Ginger appears serious again.

The camera used by one of the private detectives alternates between manual film winding and automatic film advance.

While Nicky and Sam are talking in the club, a shot from behind shows Sam stubbing out his cigarette; in later front-on shots the cigarette is lit, and when the camera returns to a rear shot it is extinguished again.

Before the pen attack in the bar, Nicky is shown sipping his drink. From a different angle, the glass on the bar appears untouched.

When Ace confronts Ginger and Lester in the café, the pile of cash he puts on the table differs from one shot to the next.

In the Italian grocer's, while Piscano rants about his trips to Las Vegas, the cash his mother is counting materialises and then vanishes between cuts. He also knocks over bottles of olive oil, which are reassembled in the subsequent shot.

When he first speaks to Ginger about Sam, the position of Nicky's left hand shifts between shots.

In the restaurant scene (Nikki's), when Ace confronts an inebriated Ginger, the wine or martini glass in the centre of the table is knocked over, then is upright again, then topples once more, and finally stands upright again.

When Ginger crashes her car into the rear of Sam's, she drives up the path towards the house and leaves it parked at an angle across the path. The next time we see the car, it is perfectly parked straight on the path.

Ace's cigarette as he discusses the sacking of Don Ward with Phillip Green.

During Nicky and Ace's encounter in the middle of the desert, the length of Ace's cigarette varies between shots — it appears long in one and noticeably shorter in the next.

After Ginger and the smarmy gambler finish at the craps table, there are three very quick cuts showing him handing her chips. In the first two cuts he is holding two chips, but in the third he is shown with four in his hand.

In the opening sequence, Piscano's mother is shown at the back of the grocer's, preparing a meal and sporting a conspicuous plaster on her left hand. Much later in the film, when Piscano is railing at his brother-in-law about his bosses, she can be seen again still wearing the same plaster, even though the two scenes are set almost ten years apart.

Shortly after Sam and Billy spot Ginger on the casino's CCTV taking gaming chips from the craps table, a wide shot from behind the dealer shows a security guard walking behind her. In the following shot that guard is replaced by an older man and his wife standing in almost the same spot.

In Ace's car-bombing sequence, it is not only the position of the driver's-side window that is inconsistent. The first time Ace enters the vehicle he shuts the driver's-side door; yet in later portrayals of the blast the door is left slightly ajar.

The packet of cigarettes in Remo's car appears while he suggests that "Ace" should take up a new post at the casino, adding that "it ought to be something quiet."

When Sam moves to shake Lester's hand in a café, he offers his left because he has a cigarette in his right. However, when he later uses his right hand to straighten his jacket, the cigarette is suddenly in his left hand, even though he didn't move it.

The tilt of Ginger's head when she dines with Ace.

As Andy Stone (Alan King) stands in an alley talking with Remo (Pasquale Cajano) about how matters in Vegas were getting out of hand, a packet of cigarettes materialises and vanishes on the seat beside Remo.

When the card cheater has his hand smashed with a hammer, a screwdriver on the table moves position between takes.

As Ginger and Nicky are talking in the garage, immediately after Sam's henchmen beat up Lester, a set of four small television monitors in the background randomly switch between on and off throughout the scene. In some shots all four are on, while in others only one or none are illuminated.

As Ace hauls Ginger across the sitting room floor, a fleeting reflection of the "Steadicam" crew trailing the performers can be glimpsed in a large mirror to the viewer's right.

As Sam walks towards the car that goes up in flames, the camera operator is reflected in the driver's side window.

When Nicky and Ginger are in the motel, a cherry picker extended up to the storey they are on is visible outside the window. The shadows outside indicate the sun could not be shining into the window as shown, which suggests the cherry picker is supporting either a reflector or lighting equipment.

Whilst Sam meets Commissioner Webb in Sam's office, a faint reflection of a crew member is visible in the left-hand window.

Whilst Ace and Nicky are ostensibly driving through Downtown Las Vegas, the scenes visible from their two side windows do not match: the Fremont Hotel can be seen through one window and the Sahara through the other. The Fremont is located on Fremont Street, whereas the Sahara sits on the Las Vegas Strip.

After the failed car-bombing, Sam is placed into the ambulance feet-first. Patients are usually loaded head-first because most of the monitoring equipment is sited at the front of the vehicle.

Don Ward, the supervisor of the slot machines who was sacked, is at first said to be the county commissioner's cousin, but later is described as a brother-in-law. These terms are not mutually exclusive - his "hillbilly" drawl makes it even easier to believe he could be both.

When Nicky shoots the woman in the kitchen, his arm lies directly in the gun's line of fire yet is not struck by any exiting slug. Because the rounds were .22 calibre — most probably .22 Short rounds — they almost certainly failed to exit the skull.

Although this has been disputed, the scene in which Nicky kills witness Anna Scott ought to be regarded as an error. His arm is positioned on the far side of her skull, directly in the line of fire. It is absurd to suppose a professional assassin would be certain that the bullets wouldn't exit through his arm; no seasoned killer would take such a chance. The writer suggests the rounds may have been short, but there is no evidence to support that assertion.

In the scene where the cowboy is ejected headfirst from the casino by the security guards, one of the guards bangs his head on the door frame.

While Nicky Santoro (Pesci) was driving out to the desert to rendezvous with Sam, having changed cars several times, an off-screen FBI agent states "OK, he's out. It's the ant. Brown unit." In the book, Nicky Santoro is modelled on Anthony "the ant" Spilotro, but the nickname should not have been used in the film because his name was changed.

The cowboy who speaks with Sam about his cousin's dismissal is wearing an oversized turquoise bolo tie, which Ginger later dons as a necklace when she leaves the courtroom with Sam.

A caption identifies the location as Washington, D.C., with only the W rendered as a full-height upper-case letter and the rest in small capitals. The D and C should be the same height as the W; otherwise it's equivalent to writing "Washington, d.c."

At 47:14, while alighting from the jet in Los Angeles, Sharon Stone momentarily stumbles as the heel of her boot catches on the first step. The audience might infer the character was under the influence of drugs at the time, but there are no other signs to suggest this.

Ginger's wrist pads can be seen when Nicky ejects her from the restaurant.

Moments before Ace's vehicle is blown up, his voice-over states that the dynamite had been concealed beneath the passenger's seat. However, when the device detonates, the blast seems to originate from the engine bay.

When Nicky enters Anna Scott's kitchen intending to kill her, he places the left-hand side of her head in a headlock and fires several shots into the right-hand side. Unless every bullet became lodged in her head — which would be highly improbable at such close quarters — the rounds ought to have passed through and exited the left side of her head, striking his left arm or the curtains to his left; yet there is no evidence of any exit wounds.

When Anna Scott is shot, Nicky Santoro tips her head and blood begins to trickle from her mouth. Moments later actor Joe Pesci places his hand near actress Ffolliott Le Coque's throat, and Le Coque can be seen to swallow twice, despite her character being meant to have been killed only moments earlier.

At 2:32:43 in the film, Sharon Stone is wearing palm protectors to safeguard her hands when Joe Pesci throws her onto the concrete; her right hand is briefly visible, revealing the protector.

When the card cheat has his hand struck with a hammer, at first he does not flinch or move it at all and his fingers are splayed wide. The camera then cuts to a different angle where his fingers are held closely together and he is wiggling them. From that viewpoint the security guard delivers another hammer blow, but it actually falls just to the side. In the first shot they must have been hitting a prosthetic hand with splayed fingers since it never moves. For the second shot they bring in the actor's real hand but keep his fingers tightly together to avoid accidentally striking them.

If you turn the screen upside down while Sam opens his medicine cabinet and takes his prescribed pain relief, you can spot that "Rothstein" is misspelt across the centre of the bottle.

As Nicky fires at Anna Scott he cradles her head with one arm while using the other hand to pull the trigger. The bullets would pass through her and penetrate his forearm.

When Ginger rams Sam's car to hit the passenger side, after she had only previously struck the rear, a strip of side trim on the car can be seen hanging away from the bodywork before she makes contact.

When Nicky and his wife first visit Ace in his corner flat overlooking the Strip, the camera pans down and out towards the windows, revealing that the wall-to-wall carpet is noticeably creased.