I was only eleven years old when Rush Hour 2 was released, but I can vividly recall Ricky Tan’s boastful opening gambit to Inspector Lee as he sat in the control room of the Red Dragon Casino. Tan had appropriated his accomplice’s Vegas casino for money laundering, and while overlooking its bustling roulette and blackjack tables on the floor below him, he enviously remarked, “Imagine a business where people hand you money, and you hand them back . . . absolutely nothing. Now that’s a real American dream.”

By running a multinational criminal enterprise, Tan was breaking the laws that allow capitalism to function. But his description of a casino gestures toward what his business and a legitimized commercial operation have in common. It’s not simply because, as in Tan’s case, casinos are often a magnet for criminals wanting to launder ill-gotten gains into a predominantly cash-based operation. It’s also because casinos, like criminal enterprises, defy free-market logic and violate the unwritten rules of commerce.