A casino, or gaming house, is an establishment for certain types of gambling. In the United States, casinos are regulated by state and local laws. They may be combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail stores, and other entertainment facilities. A casino also includes games of chance such as blackjack, roulette and slot machines. Historically, casinos have been associated with organized crime and vice.
Modern casino security is usually divided between a physical security force and a specialized surveillance department. The casino’s surveillance officers look for suspicious activity by observing the patterns of game play and betting. The way dealers shuffle and deal cards, the location of betting spots on a table, and the expected reactions of players all follow specific patterns. This allows security personnel to quickly spot out-of-the-ordinary behavior.
The most popular games at a casino are slot machines and poker. Other popular options include baccarat, keno and craps. Some casinos feature Far Eastern games such as sic bo (which spread to several European and American casinos in the 1990s), fan-tan, and pai-gow. Some have table games of local interest, such as two-up in Australia, banca francesa in Portugal, boule in France and kalooki in Britain.
While lighted fountains, luxury accommodations and breath-taking art installations attract many people to casinos, the real money is in gambling. Slot machines, poker and other card games earn the casinos billions of dollars in profits each year. Each of these games has a built-in statistical advantage for the casino, sometimes as little as two percent. This edge helps make casinos profitable and gives them the capital to build glitzy hotels, pyramids, towers and replicas of famous landmarks.
