A casino is a gambling establishment, usually combined with hotels, restaurants and/or retail shops. Various types of gambling activities take place in casinos, including card games such as poker and blackjack, dice games like craps, and wheel games such as roulette. Some casinos also offer tournaments and other live entertainment.
In addition to the obvious security guards and doormen, casinos have a variety of sophisticated surveillance systems. Casinos that use “eye-in-the-sky” cameras on every table, window and doorway can monitor patron movements for suspicious patterns. Security personnel in a separate room control the cameras from banks of monitors and can adjust them to focus on particular suspect patrons. The cameras can also record images and sound, allowing security to catch any crimes or cheating that occur on the casino floor.
Unlike machines that randomly distribute coins, a casino’s tables have a mathematical expectancy of winning or losing that the house can calculate. To keep the odds in their favor, casinos hire mathematicians and computer programmers to analyze game rules, devise optimal plays, and monitor the results of individual players’ bets to discover any statistical deviations from expected results.
The casino has become synonymous with luxurious and exotic locales, from Venice’s Grand Canal to Monaco’s glamorous gambling houses. A trip to a glamorous destination is a dream for many people and this reputation has helped the casino thrive. Casinos attract large numbers of tourists and are a major source of revenue for local governments, especially in the United States, where they are often located near or combined with hotels and other high-end attractions.