Do they simply gamble all day? Since the odds favor the house, wouldn't they run out of money eventually? Obviously their room isn't free since John explains how he manages to get free movies. What do they do for income?
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actually their room probably was free...the movies are something you pay for extra so one didnt have anything to do with the other...we are supposed to assume that Sydney knew various tricks and gambling techniques that enabled them to stay ahead.
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Well, Sydney's situation with the casino appears to be an extension of the strategy he shows John at the beginning of the movie: play it a certain way for long enough and often enough and it pays off. By the end of the night, John had a free room and he asked Sydney 'is this what you do?' Sydney answered 'not anymore'. I think the idea is that if you bring your business to a casino like that day after day after day, month after month, year after year, at some point, a free room for a night or two becomes your room indefinitely You become part of it, a 'resident', as it were. I think that's basically what's happened with Sydney, and I've had similar experiences where you frequent a place for long enough and often enough and they consider you part of the family, or whatever.
shareThe thing is, though, since we do know that Sydney has killed at least one person in his life (John's dad), and he seems pretty good at killing another later in the movie, I think Sydney is doing more serious crime than "circling the bill". The impression I got was that he is connected; if not a made man, he certainly does some sort of work for the mob. At this point in his life, he might not be as active a mobster as he used to be, but he's still got some stuff going on. Loansharking, maybe, his own action, who knows. Hell, maybe he did hits for the Mob. It's not really important to the story, so the movie doesn't really waste time going into it. It's a sign of a good storyteller to know what doesn't need to be gone into.
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Sydney was staying in a penthouse suite #1617 at the peppermill casino in reno. not an apartment. the room john was in was an adjoining room. As a proffesional gambler myself here in reno i am glad the movie did not reveal any real gambling techniques other than getting comped. (which is obsolete now as our action is tracked on each machine)
shareskippysierra, why are you glad that the movie did not reveal any real gambling techniques?
is it just because you do not wish the world to know about those techniques?
did anyone catch the reference to Magnolia?
Samuel L Jackson's character tells Sydney that he knows people from atlantic city.
One of the people he names is Jimmy Gator, the name of philip baker hall's character in Magnolia. Cool rite? lol