In Las Vegas, two best friends-a casino executive and a Mafia enforcer--compete for a gambling empire and a fast-living, fast-loving socialite.

When illegal card dealer and recovering heroin addict Frankie Machine gets out of prison, he decides to straighten up. Armed with nothing but an old drum set, Frankie tries to get honest work as a drummer. But when his former employer and his old drug dealer re-enter his life, Frankie finds it hard to stay clean and eventually finds hi...

On his first day on the job as a narcotics officer, a rookie cop works with a rogue detective who isn't what he appears.

After a card shark is caught cheating, he is taken out and lynched by the drunkards he was playing against. Soon afterwards, the men who were in the lynch mob start being murdered, one after another; all by hanging.

Poker addict Mike McDermott knows the game inside out, but loses his money one night in a game to Russian-American gangster Teddy KGB. Promising his partner Jo he'll give up, he meets up with best friend Lester 'Worm' Murphy, just out of prison and owing lots of money to the wrong kind of people. McDermott becomes his co-guarantor and ...